A FEW HOME TRUTHS.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15283, 9 July 1923, Page 5

A FEW HOME TRUTHS.

AMERICAN VISITOR'S VIEWS. ,

MARKS OF RACE DECAY. HEALTHY PESSIMISM NEEDED.: Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn. • Received July 9, 12 Noon. LONDON, July 8., Mr James Beck, the United States Solicitor-General, in an outspoken address before the English-speaking Union, said: "We are living in an age of moving-picture brain, in which no man remembers in the evening what he read in the morning, when he no longer considers the truth or falsity of the thing ho reads. Mr Beck recalled a conversation with the King of Belgium, in which reference was made to the men who went to their death with a smile during the war. The King replied, "Yes, and the heroes of to-day are Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks I" Mr Bock said the English-speaking races were approaching dangerously near the hippodrome period, which marks the decay of the race. If Shakespeare returned to earth he would be required to write a bedroom farce with plenty of "pep" in it. Shakespeare would reply that he had written two bedroom plays, "Othello" and "Cymberline," but the modern manager would retort, "We do not want highbrow stuff, but the maximum of manly excitement with the minimum of intellectual effort." "When I came to London," continued Mr Beck, "the newspaper placards were recording that Suzanne Lenglen was in tears, and Hobbs was not out. The fact is the time has come when a little healthy pessimism would bo the best foundation for t-h e reconstruction of the world."