Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 231
Vast as have been the operations thus undertaken in Art Removal it is as interesting as it is reassuring to realize that they have involved no loss of money. Indeed, a calculation just made by Professor Yidd of Columbia shows that there has been a considerable profit. Before the era of Art Removal about 333,000 Americans visited Europe every year and spent, on the average, about three thousand dollars each. This made a total of a billion dollars and represented the interest on $25,000,000,000. As there is now no reason to go to Europe, all the money, perhaps twice the amount spent on removing pictures, trees and churches, has been saved.
Nor is that the whole of the case. At present it is found that an increasing number of Europeans come over to America to see the former treasures of Europe. It was noted that on a single steamer last week there was a party of young Englishmen coming over to have a look at Westminster Abbey and a group of enthusiastic Scots anxious to see Edinburgh Castle.
The good work may be carried still further. They say there are some things worth taking in South America.
If They Go on Swimming A FORECAST OF THE END OF A NEW INTERNATIONAL CRAZE
HAVE YOU EVER paused to think, my dear reader — or do you ever think? — of what will happen if the present swimming mania keeps up?
Only a little while ago it was looked upon as an impossible feat to swim through the Niagara Gorge. Then somebody swam it. Then somebody else swam it. And then everybody swam it — and the Niagara Gorge has become, more or less, a sort of bathing resort.
The next feat was the passage of the English Channel. It was called impossible. Then somebody swam it. Somebody else swam it. Everybody swam it. And look at it now — black with people.
After that came Catalina. It was declared an absolutely impossible swim. Somebody (already a forgotten hero) swam it. Then somebody else. Then more. And now parties swim across in dozens.
So let us look ahead, by imagining the press notices of the next few months and years and see where this swimming business is leading to. Here we have, for example, the beginning of the famous Bering Sea Contest of the summer of 1929. Thus:
WILL ATTEMPT BERING STRAIT
Nome, Alaska, June 1, 1929. — A daring, and perhaps a suicidal proposal is put forward by John Eiderduck, an Eskimo of upper Alaska, who will attempt to swim from America to Asia. The proposition is generally regarded here as little short of madness.
The distance along the line which Eiderduck has selected is a hundred miles, the entire course being broken by currents and tides of extraordinary ferocity. The course is also thickly strewn with floating ice and is exposed to the full fury of the sub-arctic gales.
Eiderduck, however, is a man of extraordinary physical strength and endurance, habituated to the water since his infancy. He proposes to smear himself a foot deep with seal blubber and to close up his eyes with ham fat.
Sea captains and others who know the straits well declare that Eiderduck cannot possibly swim it.
Nome, June 5, 1929. — John Eiderduck, covered with seal blubber and his eyes closed with ham fat, successfully accomplished today the feat of swimming from America to Asia. The swim occupied four days, one hour, and one minute. During the last fifty miles, Eiderduck was in a state of coma, and during the final ten miles he was practically dead, swimming in a purely mechanical way about ten feet under water.
Eiderduck landed at Chuk-Chuk in Northeastern Siberia, and had to be harpooned to lift him out of the water.
BERING SWIM REPEATED
Nome, June 10, 1929. — Peter Williams, a college student of the Aurora Borealis Agricultural College, Point Barrow, has duplicated, if not surpassed, the record swim of John Eiderduck. Leaving the American Coast on Monday evening, he landed in Siberia late on Wednesday afternoon, having swum the entire distance in a little less than three days. Peter reports a cold trip.
GIRL SWIMMER BREAKS BERING SEA RECORD
Nome, June 20, 1929. — Miss Ettie Underweight, a girl teacher in the Nome High School, swam from America to Asia, in two days and a half. Miss Underweight, who weighs only 95 pounds (troy weight), was accompanied by a boat from which she was given chocolates, cigarettes, candies, cigars, and chewing gum during her swim.
OCTOGENARIAN LADY MAKES INTERCONTINENTAL RECORD
Nome, Aug. 1, 1929. — Among the many persons who have swum from continent to continent during the past few weeks, the palm of victory is now universally awarded to Mrs. Martha McFooze, a Scottish lady who has been living as a missionary in Kamskatka, Asia, for over fifty years. Mrs. McFooze is eighty-four years of age and learned to swim only last summer. She made a remarkably good passage, leaving the Asia coast early on Wednesday and arriving in America late on Tuesday, thus making the trip in about one hour less than nothing, according to the standard time of both places.
Now that the Bering currents and the conditions of the swim are thoroughly understood, the transit is being made by hundreds of people every week.
But with the advent of the year 1930, a new excitement will break out:
WILL SWIM TO HAWAII
San Francisco, June 1, 1930. — Intense excitement is raging in San Francisco over the announcement that a local multimillionaire and enthusiast has offered a prize of twenty dollars for the first person who will swim from San Francisco to Hawaii. The feat is here regarded by all those who know the course as practically impossible, the distance of 2,095 miles being filled with currents running in all directions and infested with sharks, etc., etc., etc., etc. . . .
San Francisco, July 10, 1930. — Miss Lottie Lotsofit, a high-school girl of this city, has successfully completed the swim to Hawaii. The swim occupied exactly twenty days, Lottie keeping up an average speed of four miles an hour.
On her return here, a civic reception will be tendered to her and the prize of twenty dollars will be presented to her by the mayor.
And then after that, in the years from 1930 onward, the papers will be crowded with little swimming items from all over the world, thus:
SWIMMING IN ALL DIRECTIONS
Nagasaki, June 1, 1931. — The Reverend Josephus and Mrs. Hussel swam in to-day from the Philippines. They report a quiet passage.
Valparaiso, Chile, June 1, 1932. — Two high school girls from the Tacoma (Wash.) Academy swam in here by mistake. They were heading for London via Panama, but missed the entry to the canal in a mist. They report things quiet on the west coast of South America, but passed a school of school teachers swimming from Callao to Vancouver.
Hamburg, June 15, 1933 — Hans Hamfat of Hamburg completed to-day the first ocean swim attempted as a freight carrier. Hamfat, who weighs three hundred and fifty pounds, carried nearly half a ton of mixed cargo across from Norway at a rate that cut far below the ordinary freight charges. It is proposed to incorporate him and let him swim back and forward to America.
In other words, by that time this hurried and hustling world will have overdone and done to death the swimming business, as it does everything else. It will go the way of the 1897 bicycle and the 1912 tango and all the other hobbies of a restless generation.
Why can’t we take things a little quietly?
If Mussolini Comes WHAT WE WOULD BE ENTITLED TO CONCLUDE WOULD OCCUR
THE GLAD NEWS has gone abroad — or is it just a rumor? — that Signor Mussolini will shortly visit America.
“In a few months,” the great Italian patriot is reported as having said to the press, “I shall go out to America. As soon as I have completed the fascistification of Europe, I shall make the voyage. There are just a few more things here which I want to abolish and then I shall be ready to go over to America and see what needs abolishing over there.” After which Signor Mussolini threw the interviewer out of the window and turned eagerly to his desk.
There is no doubt that everybody has been immensely struck with the rise and growth of the Fascisti movement in Italy. They didn’t know at first what it was, but it pointed clearly to the fascistification of all Europe.
When Signor Mussolini stepped out from the ranks of the nation, everybody saw that he was a real man; and when he abolished the Italian Parliament and threatened to abolish the church and the labor unions and the king and the Socialists, and to sweep away the national debt, the taxes, together with the upper, lower, and middle classes, everybody realized that he had started something.
Add to this that the Fascist never shaves, that he doesn’t believe in democracy, that he won’t stand for any back-talk anybody and it is clear that the new doctrines will make a tremendous hit on this side of the water. Anybody who has to deal with taxi-cab drivers, hotel clerks, customs officials, and traffic cops, knows that we have our own Fascisti all around us already.
I can therefore imagine that if Signor Mussolini really does come and make a tour of this continent, there will break out a chorus of enthusiasm on the following model:
MUSSOLINI LANDS IN NEW YORK
New York, Monday. — Signor Mussolini, the dictator of Italy, landed here this morning after having heaved the immigration officials into the outer harbor. Mussolini’s refusal to allow any of his baggage to be opened has delighted all the customs officials, while the fact that he openly carried a gallon of Chianti under his arm has at once won him the esteem of the Federal prohibition inspectors.
Mussolini expressed himself as delighted with New York. It needs nothing, he said, except to be knocked down and built over again. “Move it ten miles up the Hudson,” he exclaimed, “further from Philadelphia and nearer to Sing Sing, and it could be made a great city.”
Mussolini spoke briefly and modestly of American institutions, expressing the greatest admiration for everything about them, except such things as the constitution, liberty, equality, and democracy. “These, however,” he says, “are already passing and with an earnest patriotic effort can soon be got rid of altogether.” The local press is filled with eulogistic comments on Signor Mussolini. His refusal to pay his hotel bill was met with wide endorsement.
The illustrious Italian will leave at once for Washington, where he will inspect the government.
MUSSOLINI VISITS WASHINGTON
Washington, Tuesday. — Signor Mussolini, the distinguished dictator of Italy and founder of the Fascisti movement, arrived in Washington at 10 o’clock this morning. He at once recommended the purification of the government by the abolition of both houses of Congress. The distinguished statesman was closeted with the President all afternoon in an earnest consideration of the abolition of the presidency. Meantime Signor Mussolini advocates that the Chief Justice and the other members of the Supreme Court be brought to trial at once, either for læsa majestas or under the Volstead Act (he doesn’t care which), and either executed or banished to Murray Bay.
Signor Mussolini considers that government in this country is lacking in emotional appeal. He recommends that as an inauguration of the new method of heroic government, every Monday be declared a day of National Rejoicing, followed by Tuesday as a day of National Weeping, with Wednesday as Patriotic Feast Day, and Thursday as a Grand General Clambake and Strawberry Festival.
He says that what our government needs is pep. Signor Mussolini, it is reported, will shortly visit the Middle West, traveling incognito as the Duke of Oklahoma with a view to introducing the aristocratic principle.
MUSSOLINI VISITS OTTAWA
Ottawa, Wednesday. — Signor Mussolini yesterday paid a flying visit to Ottawa with a view to seeing how much of the government would need to be abolished at once and how much of it might be left over till next year. He expressed his regret that the Prime Minister is not wearing a black shirt and offered to lend him his other one. It is said that Mussolini will very likely advocate the entire abolition of the Prairie Provinces.
MUSSOLINI REFORMS BASEBALL
Chicago, Thursday. — Signor Mussolini, during his visit to Chicago, witnessed a baseball game for the first time. The great Italian patriot expressed himself as delighted with the contest which he declares to be the nearest thing to the true Fascisti idea that he has seen in America.
He admired especially the rigidity and stringency of the rules, but questions whether there are enough of them. At present, he says, it would be possible to know all the rules, whereas in Italy the rules of any public game are kept secret. He was surprised to find that the umpire has no power of life and death over the players.
Signor Mussolini leaves at once in order to fill a lecture engagement at Harvard.
MUSSOLINI LECTURES AT HARVARD
Cambridge, Mass., Friday. — Intense interest and enthusiasm are being shown for the lectures by Signor Mussolini given here at the invitation of Harvard University on the doctrine of force as a social factor. His statement that the public are just a pack of hogs has been received by the public with delight.
The business men whom Mussolini denounces as a set of crooks are flocking to hear him, while the society people are entranced with his theorem that society people have no brains. The clergy also are very much interested in his dictum that every clergyman is more or less a nut.
Meantime invitations to lecture are pouring in from all over the country. The public statement of the illustrious Italian that the Middle West is sunk in ignorance as deep as mud has led to enthusiastic calls to the Middle West. His grand slam on California has been made the occasion of an invitation to Leland Stanford University. His theory that the moving pictures are doing the work of the devil has prompted the offer of a contract from Hollywood, while his plain challenge, “To hell with radio,” is to be broadcast all over New York.
DEPARTURE OF MUSSOLINI
The Reverse Side of the Picture
The general wave of awakening in this country which has accompanied the progress of enthusiasm for the Fascisti movement is somewhat averted by the severe business depression which has overwhelmed the soap industry. Soap is said to be unsalable, and all colored shirts are being exported to Ethiopia, while the barber shops are closing for lack of business.
These, however, are felt to be only the back eddies in the current of a great national movement.
Meantime, Mussolini having finished his gallon of Chianti, to his regret, is departing for Italy tomorrow.
This World Championship Stuff AND WHY I AM OUT OF IT
NOW THAT THE World’s Baseball Series is again approaching and the World’s Prize Fight is over, the World’s Tennis Championship decided and the World Medal for Needlework awarded, it is the right moment for some one to call attention to the alarming growth of this World Stuff.
We are reaching a situation where nobody is satisfied with any form of achievement or competition or contest unless it takes in the whole world. In olden days, a man could make a reputation and feel a tremendous pride in himself even in a very restricted area.
I knew a man who lived and died respected because he had taken a prize as the second best checker-player in York County, Ontario.
I knew another man who was famous as the champion long distance jumper of Bellows Falls, Vt. But what would that man have thought if he could have read of a Million-Dollar World’s Jump jumped at Constantinople, by jumpers from the entire jumping world.
This world competition stuff takes all the joy out of the lesser and humbler things. I will give a very simple and personal example. A year or so ago I was getting quite stout, comfortably stout, and I was proud of it. But all my pleasure in the fact was ruined by a newspaper paragraph that read:
“WORLD’S CHAMPION STOUT BOY IN IOWA
“The State of Iowa has produced in Edward Aspiration Smith of Cedar Falls, Iowa, the World’s Champion stout boy. Ed, who was born and raised in this state, is only fifteen years old and weighs 420 pounds. He attended high school here for three years and weighed one hundred pounds more with each class he attended. This fall he was persuaded to enter the Fatness Contest organized at the fall fair at Indian’s Gulch, Iowa, open to all the world. Ed speaks very modestly of his success, which he attributes as much to his parents as to himself.”
After I read that I realized that there was no use in any efforts of mine. This infernal boy would beat me out any time. He can add ten pounds to my one easily. I don’t seem even to care about trying to be the stoutest man on my street with Ed Smith on the horizon.
All that I can do now is to content myself with reading of the increasing world triumph of Edward Aspiration Smith, of the medal he will win at the Pan-American Stoutness Contest at Washington, D.C.; of how the President will say to him, “Well, Ed, you certainly are stout”; and then he will go over to London and defeat all comers in the World’s Weigh-In and King George will say to him, “Well, Ed, you certainly are fat!”; and after that he will appear in Paris at the Concurrence Mondiale de la Grosseur and Monsieur Poincaré will say to him, “Eh bien, monsieur Ed, vous êtes certainement gros.”
And in the whole of Edward Aspiration Smith’s career the only part I can take will be to bet on him in each successive contest that he carries on. That is exactly where we are getting to, those of us who are not world people ourselves — the excluded two billion who don’t weigh 420 pounds, and can’t jump eight feet in the air, who can’t sing to 10,000 people, or pound anybody to a pulp in the presence of 120,000 others. We just bet. That’s us and that’s all that we amount to.
