5 C
Wooden Dwellings in U. S.
Odd Sight to Chesterton;
New York is Tower of Babel
By Q. K. CHESTERTON.
Copjr1ht la C. ft., ml, by roltcrwl
tefTlre, Inc.)
The sharpest pleasure of a travel
er is in finding the thing which
he did not expect, but which be
might have ejected to expect. I
mean the tilings that are at once
10 itrange and so obvious that they
must have been noticed, jet some
how they have not been noted.
Thus I heard a thousand things
about Jerusalem before I ever saw
it; I had heard rhapsodies and dis
paragements of every description.
Modern rationalistic critics, with
characteristic consistency, had
blamed it for its accumulated rub
bish and its modern restoration, for
its antiquated superstition and its
up-to-date vulgarity. But somehow
the one impression that had never
pierced through their description
was the simple and single impression
of a city on a hilt, with walls com
ing to the very edge of slopes that
were almost as steep as walls; the
turreted city which crowns a cone
shaped hill in so many medieval
landscapes. 1
"Discovered" America.
One would -suppose that this was
at once the plainest and most pic
turesque of all the facts; yet some
how in my reading I had always
lost it amid a mass of minor facts
that were merely details. We know
that a city that is set upon a hill
cannot be hid; and yet it would seem
that it is exactly the hill that is hid,
though perhaps it is only hid from
the wise and the understanding.
I had a similar and simple impres
sion when I discovered America. I
cannot void the phrase; for it would
really seem that each man discovers
it for himself.
Thus, I had heard a great deal, be
fore 1 saw them, about the tall and
dominant buildings of New York. I
agree that they have an instant effect
on the imagination, which I think is
increased by the situation in which
they stand, and out of which they
arose. They are all the more im
pressive because the building, while
it is vertically so vast, is horizontally
almost narrow.
His View of New York.
New York is an island, and has
all the intensive romance of an is
land. It is a thing of almost in
finite height upon very finite foun
dations, it ii almost like a lofty
lighthouse upon a lonely rock. But
this story of the skyscrapers which
I had often heard would by itself
give a curiously false impression of
the freshest and most curious char
acteristic of American architecture.
Told only in terms of these great
towers of 6ton and brick in the big
industrial cities, the story would
tend too much to an impression of
something cold and colossal like the
monuments of Asia. It would sug
gest a modern Babylon altogether
too Babylonian. It would imply
that the man of the New World was
a sort of new Pharaoh, who built not
so much a pyramid as a pagoda of
pyramids. It would suggest houses
built by mammoths out of moun
tains, the cities reared by elephants
in their own elephantine school of
architecture.
Is Tower of Babel.
And New York does recall the
most iatnous of all skyscrapers, the
Tower of Babel. It recalls it none
the less because there is no doubt
about the confusion of tongues.
But in truth the very reverse is
true of most of the building in
America. I had no sooner passed
out into the suburbs of New York
'on the way to Boston than I began
to see something else quite contrary
and faf more curious. I saw forests
upon forests of small houses stretch
ing away to the horizon as literal
forests do; villages and towns and
cities. And they were, in another
sense, literally like forests. They
were all made of wood.
It was almost as fantastic to an
English eye as if they had been
made of cardboard. I had long out
lived the silly old joke that referred
to Americans as if they all lived in
backwoods. But, in a sense, if
they do not live in the woods, they
are not yet out of the wood.
Lucky to Touch Wood.
I do not say this in any sense as a
criticism. As it happens I am par
ticularly fond of wood. Of all the
superstitions which our fathers took
lightly enough to love, the most
natural seems to me the .notion it is
lucky to touch wood.
Some of them affect me the less
as superstition because I feel them
as symbols. If humanity had really
thought Friday unlucky it would
have talked about bad Friday in
stead of Good Friday. And, while I
teel the thrill of '13 at a table,
I am not so sure that it'is the mot
miserable of all human fates to fill
the places of the Twelve Apostles.
But the idea that there was some
thing cleansing or wholesome about
the touching of wood seems to me
one of those ideas which are truly
popular, because they are truly
poetic.
It is probable enough that the
conception came originally from the
healing power of the wood of the
cross; but that only clinches the di
vine coincidence. It is like that
other divine coincidence that the vic
tim was a carpenter, who might al
most have made His own cross.
Whether we take the mystical or
the mythical explanation, there is
obviously a very deep connection be
tween the human working in wood
and such plain and pathetic mysti
cism. It gives something like a
touch of the holy childishness to the
tale, as if that terrible engine could
be a toy. In the same fashion, a
child fancies that mysterious and
sinister horse, which was the down
fall of Troy, as something plain and
staring, and perhaps spotted, lie his
own rocking-horse in the nursery.
Favor Rocking-Chairs.
It might be said symbolically that
Americans have a taste for rocking
horses; as they certainly have a
taste for rocking-chairs. A flippant
critic might suggest that they select
rocking-chairs so that, even when
they are sitting down, they need not
be sitting still. Something of this
restlessness in the race may really
be involved in the matter, but I
think the deeper significance of the
rocking-chair may still be found in
the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse.
I think there is behind all this
fresh and facile use of wood, a cer
taiu spirit that is childish in the
good sense of the word; something
that is innocent and easily pleased.
It is not altogether untrue, still less
it is unfriendly, to say that the land
scape seems to be dotted with doll's
houses. It is the true tragedy of
every fallen son of Adam that he
has grown too big to live in a doll's
house. These things seem somehow
to escape the irony of time by not
even challenging it; they are too
temporary even to be merely tem
poral. Not Building Tombs.
These people are not building
tombs, they are not, as in the fine
image of Mrs. Meynell's poem, mere
ly building ruins. It is not easy to
imagine the ruins of a doll's house;
and that is why a doll's house
is an everlasting habitation. How
far it promises a political permanence
is a matter for further discussion; I
am only describing the mood of
discovery; in which all these cot
tages built of lath, like the places of
a pantomime, really seemed colored
like the clouds of morning, which
are both fugitive and eternal.
There is also in all this atmosphere
that cornes in another sense from
fce nursery. We hear much more
of Americans being educated on
English literature, but I think few
Americans realize how much F.ng
lish children have been educated on
American literature. It is true, and
it is inevitable, that they can only
be educated on rather old-fashioned
American literature.
Read American Literature.
Mr. Bernard Shaw, in one of his
plays, noted truly the limitation of
the young American millionaire, and
especially the staleness of his Eng
lish culture, but there Is necessarily
a similar staleness in our American
culture. If Mr. Shaw's young man
was still talking about Mathew
Arnold and not about Mr. Yeats we
are: rather more likelv to mention
Emerson then Ezra Found.
Whether this staleness is necessar
ilv, a disadvantage is, of course, a
different question. But in any case it
is true that the old American books
were often the books of our child
hood, even in the literal sense of the
books of our nursery.
I know few men in England who
have not left their boyhood to some
vtfnf Inst and entaeled in the for
ests of "Huckleberry Finn." I know
few women in England from the
most revolutionary suffragette to
the most carefully preserved early
Victorian, who will not confess to
having passed' a happy childhood
with tbe Little Woman of Miss Al
cott. "Helen's Babies'"was the fiirst
and by far the best book in the
modern scriptures of baby worship.
And about all the old-fashioned
American literature there was an
undefinable savour that satisfied
and even pleased, our growing
minds.
Smell of Growing Things.
Perhaps it was the smell of grow
ing things; but I am far more cer
tain that it was not simply the
smell of wood. Now that all the
memory comes back to me, it seems
to come back heavy in a hundred
forms with the fragrance and the
touch of timber. There was the per
petual reference to the woodpile, the
perpetual background of the woods.
There was something crude and
clean about everything; something
fresh and strange about those far
off houses to, which I could not
then have put a name. Indeed many
things became clear in this wilder
ness of wood, which could only be
expressed in symbol and even in
fantasy.
I will not go so far as to say that
it shortened the transition from log
cabin to White House; as if the
White House were itself made of
white wood (as Oliver Wendell
Holmes said) "that cuts like cheese,
but lasts like iron for things like
these." But I will say that the ex
perience illuminates some other lines
bv Holmes himself:
"Little I ask, my wants are few,
1 only ask a hut of stone."
For Wooden Houses.
I should not have realized in Eng
land that he was already asking
for a good deal even in a-king for
that. In the presence of this wood
en world, the very combination of
words seem almost a contradiction
like a lut of marble, or a hovel of
gold.
It t?s, therefore, with an almost
infantile pleasure that I looked at
all this promising expansion of
fresh-cut timber; thought of the
housing shortage at home. It was
as i: the logs were still living; and
I nvght see a paling or door grow
larger before my eyes.
I know not by what incongruous
movement of the mind there swept
across me, at the same moment, the
thought of things ancestral and
hoary with the light of ancient
dawns. Theast war brought back
body-armor; the next war may
bring back bows and arrows. And
I suddenly had a memory of old
wooden houses in London, and a
model of Shakespeare's towns.
(Copyright tn Great Britain and Ireland
by The New Witness.)
Lecture on Ignition Given
By Head of Cadillac Shop
At the regular Cadillac school
Friday evening, B. M. Cowles, shop
superintendent of the J. H. Hansen
Cadillac company, lectured on Cad
illac ignition and wiring. Mr Cowles
was assisted by Mr. Earl Ballew,
who demonstrated the parts and
their action.
Clarence Earl Made
Briscoe Motor Head
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EVERY
REBUILT
MOTOR CAR
Has the appearance of a new car "because It is
possible to restore the original luster of its elec
trically baked enamel finish.
Particular care and attention is also given to each
mechanical moving part. All .worn parts replaced,
all bearings cleaned, greased and tightened.
Every "O. D. C." Rebuilt Dodge Brothers Motor
Car is guaranteed the same as a new car.
Ask to Be Shown the "Work Order" on
the Car You Select.
QSmeN-BAVis-CoAiJ Aotd Co.
DM AHA. NEB.
HANMEVATtaTRST.
HARNEY 0123
COUNCIL BLUFFS IA.
s 103 SO. MAIN ST.
COUNCIL BLUFFS 631
S
7H
f. A
; i v v
I)
New flattery aud Acetylene
Statiou Established Here
E. O. Johnson, formerly manager
of the Trest-O-Light branch in Om
aha, has leased the building occu
pied by the Battery & Supply com
pany at 2159 Harney street to put
in a battery station, which will be
known as the Mid-West Battery &
Supply company.
Mr. Johnson wilt handle Trest-O-Light
batteries and tanks and acey
lene equipu eut.
Ou Washing
The car should never be washed
: direct sunlight. If the operation
is not carried out in the garage the
vehicle should be in the shade while
being washed. The direct rays of
the sun striking on water cause
heating, which tends to dull the fin
ish. In the same way the hood
should never be washed when is
hot, as directly after the run.
Bee Want Ads little, but mighty.
Quality Goes OearThrotgi
Clarence A. Earl
Clarence A. Earl has been elected
president and general manager of
the Briscoe Motor corporation. Dur
ing his long connection with the
automobile industry, and perhaps
more particularly during his service
as first vice president of the Willys
Overland company, Earl came to be
recognized as a man who did things.
His association with the Briscoe
gives him ample opportunity. As
the fitft step in an aggressive cam
paign, Kelly R. Jacoby has been ap
pointed general sales manager. The
Briscoe corporation has announced
plans for a great expansion with in
creased production and aggressive
sales and advertising.
Cleaning Corroded Terminals
Corroded terminals are one of the
most frequent causes of ignition
trouble, and it is not generally
known that the best agent for clean
ing them is a strong solution of
washing soda. After the corrosion
has been removed and the terminals
dried grease the parts well with cup
grease of vaseline.
Leather Washers
A leather washer placed under
neath the metal washer not only
helps to eliminate unnecessary
noise, but gives a sort of elastic com
pression that prevents stripped
threads when the bolt is a little
small for its job.
Water and Tire Wear
Wet rubber cuts much more eas
ily than the same substance dry. For
this reason the wise car owner does
not try to speed over wet roads
wherefy any chance thrown sharp
stones get an opportunity to do
maximum damage.
For years the Dort
has been known as a
car of remarkable re
liability and un
usual operative
thrift in point of oil
and gas, and in point
of tire wear.
To that practical
charm there is now
joined the, charm of
a wonderfully artis
tic body design that
is unsurpassed in
any price field.
PRICES
Touring Car. . . . $1215
Roadster 1215
Fourseason Sedan . . 1995
Fourseason Coupe . 1865
F. O. B. Flint
Wire Wheels and ape re riraa extra
DORT SALES COMPANY
HARVEY H. JONES, President
2211 Farnam Street
Dorc Mowr Car Company
Improves with use
WILLYS-KNIGHT
The car that is good
for many years
You .do not have to be of a mechanical
turn of mind to appreciate that a motor
with sliding telescopic sleeves will last
longer than a motor whose chief parts are
in continuous concussion.
The Sliding Sleeves of the Willys -Knight
Sleeve-Valve Motor instead of wearing out
wear in with use, producing a condition of
ascending efficiency up to 50,000 miles
or more. This means more power and less
upkeep, instead of the usual experience
more upkeep and less power.
VAN BRUNT AUTOMOBILE CO.
Omaha, Neb. Council Bluffs, la.
SLEEVE VALVE
MOTOR CAR
The Good
M
AXW
H
e1 . d
J' 1
ANNOU NCEMENT
The Maxwell Motor Sales Corporation wishes to bear witness to the wonderful
work of reconstruction accomplished by the new and powerful organization now
manufacturing the good Maxwell Motor Car.
The six great Maxwell plants in four cities have been brought to a high state of,
proficiency.
Inventories have been reduced to normal, costs lowered, efficiency increased, and
manufacturing practices greatly bettered.
The good Maxwell, through sheer increased merit, has been entrenched more
strongly than ever in public approval.
One of the final steps in this process of rehabilitation was reached in Detroit on
Friday, April 8. ,
For months the banks and interests concerned in the upbuilding of these proper
ties have held ready for this new management, new cash in the amount of
$15,000,000. ;
To establish clear title of the properties (which has the effect of rendering these
funds immediately available upon the discharge of the receivership and the con
summation of the reorganization) and to insure the continuance of the present
policies, a temporary receivership was consented to in the United States District
Court at Detroit on Friday by all of the interests involved.
The friendly and constructive character of the action is indicated by the appoint
ment as receiver of W. Ledyard Mitchell, who, with Arthur E. Barker, has been
in active charge of the management of the properties since the reconstruction proc
ess began.
In adopting the somewhat unusual policy of giving these facts in detail, this com
pany is actuated by the conviction that the high standing of the Maxwell prop
erties can best be served by sharing with the public the good news of every step of
their progress. -
MAXWELL MOTOR SALES CORPORATION
rTht Good Maxwell
