MODERN HEROES

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2694, 12 July 1923, Page 5

MODERN HEROES

WHAT WOXJfcP SHAKUSriOAKE SAY. LONDON, July 8. Mr Bock, the United Stales SolicitorGeneral, in an outspoken address before the English .Speaking Union ( suicl: "Wc arc living u an age of tlie moving picture brain in Which no man remembers in the cvonlug what he road in the morning, whon ho no longer considers the rtuth or falsity o.f a thing- ho reads." Mr Beck recalled a conversation with King Albert, of Belgium, wherein reference was made to the men who went to their death with a smile dining the war. The King replied: "Yes, and the hero's of to-day are Char-lie Chaplin and Fairbanks." Mr. Beck said: "The Englishspeaking races are approaching dangerously near the hippodrome period, which marks t'he decay of the race. lif Shakespeare returned to earth ho would he required to write a bedroom farce with plenty of pep in it. Shakeupeai'e would reply that he had written two bedroom plays, Othello and Cymbeline, but the modern manager would retort ' wc do not want highbrow stuff, but the maximum of manly excitement, with th 0 minimum of intellectual effort.' When I came to London the newspaper placards were recording that Suzanne Lenglen was in tears and Hobhs was not out*. The fact is that the tirhe has -come when a little healthy pessimism would be the best foundation for the reconstruction of t'he world.