Spirit of the Press

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 6, 13 November 1931, Page 10

Spirit of the Press

MAHATMA AND COMEDIAN knew Gandhi. Gandhi did not know Chaplin. One’s first reaction is shall we say it ? that Gandhi was joking. Was this not another quirk of a person who treads such Olympian fields that he could not unbend sufficiently to see below him? There is precedent for such aloofness. When, with cap and bells, Lord Darling sat in the high courts of England, one day counsel chanced to mention the famous English comedian, George Robey. The learned judge turned quizzically to the attorney and asked, “And who is George Robey, pray?” Quick as a flash, the attorney replied, “He is the darling of the gods, rn’lud,” meaning, of course, the “gallery gods.” But Gandhi does not joke like Lord Darling. His negative answer to the question whether he knew the renowned Charlie had the simplicity of an ascetic living a life apart. That Gandhi should not know Chaplin, however, is surprising not for the obvious reason that they share the floodlights of world publicity but because they have so much in common! Both are champions of the underdog battling with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Both bring to the world the appeal of the misfit in society, in Gandhi’s case those who are left high and dry by machine’s harsh economy, and in Chaplin’s those who are equally stranded by temperamental handicaps. Secondly, they use a stage instead of a soap box for their sermons. Both have therefore become symbols rather than voices. Gandhi, with his loin cloth and goat’s milk, is quite as histrionic as Chaplin, with his cane and cavernous shoes. In no other way could their conceptions have won such world-wide attention a world-wide audience for the portrayal of worldwide types. Yet Gandhi did not know Chaplin.