It Is, I Think, An Error To

Funny How The World Always Praises Its Opera-singers So Much And Pays 'em So Well And Then Starves Its Shoemakers, And Yet It Needs Good Shoes So Much More Than It Needs Opera--or War Or Fiction.

Except For Half A Dozen In Each Town The Citizens Are Proud Of That Achievement Of Ignorance Which Is So Easy To Come By. To Be 'intellectual' Or 'artistic' Or, In Their Own Word, To Be 'highbrow,' Is To Be Priggish And Of Dubious Virtue.

It Is, I Think, An Error To Believe That There Is Any Need Of Religion To Make Life Seem Worth Living.

I Think Perhaps We Want A More Conscious Life. We're Tired Of Drudging And Sleeping And Dying. We're Tired Of Seeing Just A Few People Able To Be Individualists. We're Tired Of Always Deferring Hope Till The Next Generation. We're Tired Of Hearing Politicians And Priests And Cautious Reformers... Coax Us, 'be Calm! Be Patient! Wait! We Have The Plans For A Utopia Already Made; Just Wiser Than You.' For Ten Thousand Years They've Said That. We Want Our Utopia Now — And We're Going To Try Our Hands At It.

You've Been Telling Us About How To Secure Peace, But Come On, Now, General-just Among Us Rotarians And Rotary Anns-'fess Up! With Your Great Experience, Don't You Honest, Cross-your-heart, Think That Perhaps-just Maybe-when A Country Has Gone Money-mad, Like All Our Labor Unions And Workmen, With Their Propaganda To Hoist Income Taxes, So That The Thrifty And Industrious Have To Pay For The Shiftless Ne'er-do-weels, Then Maybe, To Save Their Lazy Souls And Get Some Iron Into Them, A War Might Be A Good Thing? Come On, Now, Tell Your Real Middle Name, Mong General!