Vapaus, September 29, 1955

              Sivu 4 Torstaina, syysk. 29 p. — Thursday, Sept- 29,1955
Getting Lost Isn^t Fun,
But It Need Not Be Fatal
Toronto, Your InjagJnation can
toJI you you iniss your way jn the
busii, unJcss you eit clown, xelai and
f ay to yourseJf: "Getting Jost i«n't
funny, but it need not be fataJ!"
So Bays SYLVA, bi-monthly maga
zine of the Ontario Department oi
Lands and Forests, in an article in
Itscurrent issue on one ot the many
recurrent hazards of the out-of-doors
partlcularJy during the hunting sea-fion.
Chlld and adult reactlon to be-ing
lost differ widely, too, SLVA
finds, and observes:
" A lost child is SO pathetlc; nel-ther
ice cream, candy nor policemen
tum^ng somersaults will bring a
'ömile to the tear-streaked face of a
tiny tot walting for "Mummy".
'?What youngsters feel when 'lasf
is alway5 tempered by the knowledge
that "Mom' and 'Dad' have never
fpiled them — either alivays materia-l
i ^ o u t of the dark terror of; nlght-mares
to save them. Thus their feara
do not take over their reason comple-tpJy^
j.there is always a hope.
: "Grown-ups, however, because they
know what has happened to others
>t^<e being 'lost' much harder. Often
tbe'''experience leavea. lasting fcars
anrf*feome*will not venture into the
<lwsh^''again, even In company.
" T o fear that one wlll get lost robs
im»ny men of the feellng of freedom
wj\en 'roughing it' on vacation. Others
ane trips for v h i c h they are not fitted
— and get'lost'with sad results.
''To get lost is. not extraordinary.
Almost everyone who enters tlae bush
gets 'mlxed up' at times. One miist
fbe careful, of course ; i f s not easy
to find your camp or other point of
retum if you donrt keep track of its
location in relation to landmarks.
" B e f o r e leaving camp, note the d i -
rection of ali visible hilla, valleys,
lakes, rivers and roads. Check those
you can't see by referring to your
map are they north, south, east or
west? Keep track of your route, es-peclally
of changes 'n direction, using
the sun and time of day as a rough
guide. In flat country particularly,
use your. compass — of course you
have one with you — and if neces-sary,
especially if you pian to retum
by the same route, blaze a tree occa-sionally
in such a way that the blaze
will iie casily seen on the way back.
"If you do get 'mixxed up' in your
direction, don't at once call yourself
lost; Sit down, llght your pipe, relax
and thinik things over. Be noncha-lant,
like the old Rcdskin chief who
mlssed his way and, when found, im-perturbably
insisted that hc was ali
right. 'Indian not lost ^ <.wigwam
lost' said he — which after ali, was
good psychology; It kept him from
doubting and worrying himself to
death!
; " S o get öut your compass and
study your map. Go over your route
as you remember it and try to re-construct
the course takensince you
left a last known point. Almost at
once, in most cases, you will note
where you took a wrong turn — and
in a few mlnutes wlll be baok on your
. way. •• .
':'If you find you're still. somewhat
mlxed up, calmly determine a pian of
action and.st)<Ä to i t ! — at least untlJ
you prove yourself wrong>
If several peopJe are together, stay
together — even if the majority
decision does not satsity one of the
party because there is alway.s a
certam amount of 'safety in num-bers',
Searchers will likely locate a
party more r^adily than an indlvl-
• dual, . ••
"Compare any visible-Jandmarlcs
with those noted on your topographl-cal
map and, with your compass, try
to chart a route that will bring you
backto camp or to a road, river,. lake
or railway line where the possibility
of communicating with others will be
improved.
"But remember that if youi, have
bcen away from camp for long,- sear-ch
partles will already be lookmg
for ycu. So stayclose to your base
for ia while and build a smoky flre
with damp leaves or grasses on a
beach or safe place in a cleanng;
but äon't let your fire get so big or
hot that it becom«s a forest fire, or
your plight wlll speedlly worsen. If
yau leave your signal fire, be sure
to drown it with water .until it is
permanently out!
"Should you decide to move alx)ut,
go stralight north from your base and
straight back — then northeast and
straight baok — and so on around the
compass until you find a landmark
you remember. But besure to leave
notes at your base and at old cabins
forks in streams and so forth, out-linmg
your plans, your direction and
whether you intend to return to any
point at any time. If you have no
paper, drive stakes in the ground in
prominent places, with crosspieces
pointing the direction taken — or
lay Stones from the base of a stake in
tne direction travelled. Blazes on^
trees will also help the search party.
"If you are by a rlver and can't
remember whether your camp is up
or down stream, go upstream first.
If you don't find your camp, you can
always f loat down on a log or a make-shlft
raft.
"If possible use the matches in your
waterproof case only to ignite warm-:
Ing fires.''' Use . thls for cooking if
you have caught a fish or animal.
Conserve your food. Don't worry ^
but keep • thls thought constantly in
mind, that if you miss your way in
the bush you have only yourself to
fear; no animal in oui' north woods
will assail you.
" T o spend a night in the open, even
without blankets will entall no undue
hardship dunng much of the year so
long as you make some preparations
such as building a lean-to of ^brush
to keep from getting soaked with
dew.' You will most likely be located
in a reasonable time by aircraft: or
ground searchers or will f md your
way out yourself — if you use your
map, your compass and your head!
"These are but a few of the many
practical things to do when lost re-commended
iby experienced woods
travellers. The mam thing is to ne­ver
give m to panic and rush blindly
about. The hasty traveller is the one
who runs into accidents.
"Getting lost nxay not be funny —
but it need not be fatal!"
Rated as another Ted Lindsay both in appearance and hockey
kncw-how, 19-year-old Dick Duff is shown with General Manager
Hap Day after being signed to pro contractby Toronto Maple-
Leafs. Dick also haiLs from the same town, Kirkland Lake, as
hJs idol, Lindsay. A left winger, Duff fired 33 goals and had 20
assists in 47 games w)ille starring last year for Toronto St.
Michaefs College junior "A's".
A Whopper of a Tree
Every once in a while some huge
tree is felled on the 'Pacific coast of
Canada or the United States that
challenges the world for size. Cali-fornia's
huge Redwoods and Sequoias!
are famoais for their enormous pro-portions.
,
A recent tree that reached the saw-mill
at Veronia, Oregon, is the latest
claimant to the large tree title,being
tenfeet in diameter at the base and
230 feet tali. But thls is only a
tooth-pick compared with the giant
•Douglas fir that was cut near V a n -
'couver in 1895.
T h e size of this tree established a
record for ali tune and i t is believed
•to have been the biggest fir in the
World. George Carey pioneer resi-dent
of the North Shore of Burrard
Inlet, felled this forest monarch in
Lynn Valley — In f act, the tree had
to l>e topped because of its inimense
size, before it was dropped.
Measurements of this . giant were
417 feet in height, being 300 feet to
the first limb, 25 feet m diameter
and 75 feet m circumference at the
b u t t . T h e tree was 9 feet in diameter
at 207 feet height, and was believed
to have been about 2,000 years old.
It is definitely established that this
was a Douglas flr m spite of many
statements crediting it to be Rodwood.
Thebank was sixteen mches thick.
This giant cf the North Shore was
117 feet higher than Vancouver'.s M a ­nne
Building .whose tower is 300
feet above sea.level. It was almost
as long as t\vo average city blocks.
At the time of the birth of Christ
i t was probably a moderate size tree
so that it had served as a sentinel
in the new world since the downfall
of the Roman Empire. Toward the
end of its days, it had seen Captam
George Vancouver discover these
shores.
It is probable that no other tree
will ever surpass in size this giant
fir.
Only as botanical specimens will
huge trees exist 1,000 years hence..No
lumbering Corporation could afford
to let a tree grow to such an aga
and new lumber trees will not be per-imitted
to live more than 100 years.
•Forests of the future.grown under su-perintendance,
will be dense and T ^ IU
be harvested before decay sets m and
Browth slows up, is the opinioiXipf
forestry officials.
• EMBARRASSED
Psychiatrist: "Now teli me about
thls dream you had."
Lady patient: "Weil, l dreamt I
was walkins down the street with
nothing on but a hat." .
Peychiatnst: " A n d . were. you em-barrassed?"
Lady Patient: " I cei-tainly was. It
was last year's hat." .
JUST SO
Lady (over the telephone-: "Doctor
come quick! My husband has just
hanged himself."
Doctor : " I ' l l come at once. "^Vhat
are you doing now?"
Lady: "rm; talking to you on the
telephone."
ALICE IN JUSTICELAND: A FABLE FOR TODAY
BY J A K E F A L S T A FF
" W h y are those men locked up m
that awful buUpen?" asked Alice
with tears in her eyes.
"They*ve been guilty of free speech
the Whlte Knlght explalned.
"Don't tease me,^' Alice pleaded.
"You can't be charged with free
speech."
"Who said they'd been charged with
free speech?" demanded the White
Knight. "They aren't charged with
: anything of the »sort. Free speech is
only what they've been gullty of."
"Weil, then;" Alice protested, "what
is the charge agamst them?"
'TThey are charged wlth being
vagrants."
"But they aren't vagrants," Alice
protested.
"Of course not. But.you can*t de-ny
that they are guUty of free
speech."
" I thought a tramp was the only
person who could be charged with>va-grancy,"
Alice insisted.
"How naive you are!" said the
White Knight scornfuUy. "Tramps
are never charged w1th vagrancy."
"What are they charged with,
then?" Alice inquired.
> " W i t h burglary."
"But they aren't necessarily guilty
of burglary."
" P e r h a p s not. But they are guilty
of vagrancy. And i f you glve them
the proper treatment they'll plead
guilty to anything. l've got you
there! said the Whlte Knight trium-phantly.
"Weil then," Alice resumed, after
she had thought a while, "am I to
understand that, if you are guilty
of one thing j-ou are accused of
something else?"
" I beg pardon," replied the White
Knight haughtily, "I am not guilty
of anything."
" I used the word.'you'," Alice ex­plalned,
" o n ly because one gets con-fused
if one uses 'one* in one's sen-tences."
" O b j e c t i o n overruled and sentence
confirmed!" thundered the White
Knight. "Answer yes or no."
V"Answer yes or no to what?" In­quired
Alice.
" T o the charge."
" B u t I'm not charged .wlth any­thing."
Alice pleaded.
"Perhaps not, but you will be if you
aren't careful.'-
" W h y ? " asked Alice.
"Because you have shown an inte-rest
m men accused of a crime."
" B u t thafs no crime," Alice remon-strated.
" N o t a crime exactly, but i t can be
of f Icially inconvenient," the Knight
explalned.
" I hope you won't get vexed with
mc," Alice (ventured apologetically.
"I am really quite interested .'n thls
system and T d like to know more
about it." .
'You'd better choose your words
more carefuUy," the White Knight
said warningly. "You sound. like a
sympathizer. If I thought you were,
I'd be compelled, as a patriotic C i ­tizen,
to have you arrested on a
charge-of resisting arrest."
" B u t I haven't resisted. ai-rest,"
Alice objected.
" I f .a policeman tried to arrest you
cn a charge of rcsistmg arrest. would-n't
you protest?" the White Knight
asked. • •, •
"Of course."
" Y o u see — you're guilty alreadj'."
" L e f s ' change the subject," said
Alice, just a bit exasperated. "Who
is the man sitting in that double-barrel
cell,"
"That," replied the Wliitc Knight
"Is a Dangerous Criminal."
• . " O h , " c.xclaimed Alice, startled.
"Did he kill somebody,'
"Oh, no. He's more dangerous than
that. Ho's a Thinker.": :
"But IS ic a cnme to thmk," asked
Alice. . .
' Y o u don t seem. to get the idea at
ali,' expostulated the White Knight
impatiently. "Its a cnme to obstruct
traffic." - • _
" D i d he obstruct traffic?" Alice i n ­quired.
" N o , but he declared it was ridicu-lous
for a judge to dnve to court m
an intoxicated condition, and flne
men for drunken drmng!"
"I don't sde what that has t o do
with obstructing traffic," Alice ar-gued.
•;•
" T h a f s the beauty of it — it hasn't
anything to do with it. w'hich makes
it ali the easier to get a conviction."
; 'The whoIe system," said Alice,
"looks cockeyed." .
. "Nothing of the sort," replied the
Knight. " I f s verj' sensible. If you
hate your neighbor as you love your­self,
you don't charge him with being
a hatefui person. You call the police
and teli them his automobile is park-ed
without a tail hght. Thafs our
system in a nutshell, lOnly we carry
it a step farther. We don't have to
prove that the tali llght was out only
that it might have gone out. By the
same Ime of reasoning people might
gath^r iti groirps to discuss the sug­gestion
that a drunken judge would
not sentence drunken drivers and
they might obstruct traffic."
" I t ali seems predicated on the
Word 'mighf," observed Alice.
. "Precisely," said the ,White Knight
solemnly. "Might makes rlght. You
see, ifs like this: " I f s much easier to
convict a man of something he didn't
do than to prove that what he was
doing was a crime. For e.xample, if a |
man was handmg out umon litenature,
we charge him with littering the
Streets., If he was picketing, :we
charge him with loitenng. If he's a
radi^al, we charge him with being
a bootlegger. If he wntes a book on
economics that we don't agree with,
we an-est him on a charge of ob-scenity;
If he thmks a worker häs
the same right to drmk as his boss,
we look him up on a charge of vio-lating
the Mann Act.
"If the first charge doesn*t stick,
we trj- another and, if he appeals, we
charge him with something , else.
Thafs the advantage of this system.
If j-ou charge a man with a crime he
really did commit your prosecution
IS limited to one count, but if you
charge.him with something else, you
have the whole book of statutes to
choose from. If he is acquitted on
ali counts, we can always have him
committed bo an asylum. He'll pro­bably
have gone insane by that time,
anyhow." .
"Does anybody ever get free of
evei-ything?" asked Alice. .
" O h , yes," replied the White
Knight. "But: the system of those
cases, too." By that time he has spent
ali his money on htigation, his repu-ation
IS niined and, anyway, he has
already been m jail as long as if he
had been convicted on the original
charge."
"Am. I to understand then," Alice
asked m some bewilderment, "that
n.ost of the people in jail are inno-cent?"-
"My dear child," replied the Knight
weanly, "everybody is innocent of
.something."
— Adapted from "The New York
World," 1929. ••World Events, East
Palatka, F l a .
Canadian Hockey Team
Invited to Soviet Union
Ben Weider MontreaVs chairman
of the International Federation of
Bodybuslders, amved home this week
from a sports study trip which took
him to the Soviet Union, Austna,
Germany, France Belgium and Swit-zerland.
Gonsidered the top bodybuilding
authority m Casada, Ben ^visited the
U3.SJI. on Special mvitaition of the
Sportmg Committee of Physical Edu-cation
of Moscow.
'•I was asked to bring back a mes­sage
to Canada from N. N . Romanov
chairman of the Sporting and Phy­sical
Culture Committee in the U.S.
S. R , " said 'Ben. " I t is a direct m -
vitatlon to Canada to send a hockey
team to tour Russia ali expenses paid
and I will pass it on to the powers
that be."
Although Ben's mission was mainly
to study the muscle building methods
used in Russia, he said the item of
major interest among the Soviet
leaders right now IS hockey. /'Roma­nov.
said he had the highest. regard
for Canadian sportsmen and they are
much admired by his people. They
would very much like to see an ex­change
of Soviet: and Canadian a t h -
letes, startmg with a Canadian hoc­key
tour. of Russia."
: Ben said: that Soviet sport leaders
had explalned to him that hockey has
had a phenomenal growth m their
country since itwasorganized eight
years ago. "They told me that they
had pattemed their .style of play on
that of the Swiss, but found that by
defeat in the World: Toumament
last season, the Canadian style is bet­ter
and they intend to switch over
to that type of game."
Romanov said that a written invita-tion
for a Canadian hoökey team to
tour Bussia had been sent to the
Canadian Amateur Hockey Associa­tion
some months ago, but he never
received a reply.
Ben said that his t np to Russia.
was an amazing expenence."Every-thing
Avery Brundage (U.S. Olympic
chief) sajd about the athletic pro-gram
in Russia is absolutely true.
They have done a tremendous job m
-their athletic program for the masses.
I certainly learned a lot on that
jaunt." '•
The Canadian chairman said he:
travelled over 20,000 miles within the
•aS&R. and tocGc in sports programs
at such centres as Moscow, Leningrad
Stalingrad, Rostov, Tiflis, Gori and
Kiev.
" S p o r t s plays a major role in the
Russian setup. Bverywhere you go
they have or are buildmg giant sta-diums.
T h e i r budget for sport runs
to fantastic figures and comes. under
Control of the healthministry. B e ­fore
I. left Moscow they were weU
along m the oonstruction of two
arenas with artificial ice", added
Ben. ' • ••• • •"
Although Ben was highly interested
in the general sports picture m Rus­sia
his big interest was weightlifting
bodybiuldmg and physical culture.
"They have a special section of re-search
for this phase of sport and it:
is compulsory that every athlete take
up bodybuilding before he is allowed
to go into another branch of ath-letics.
This is their way of makmg
certain every athlete is fit for: what
is considered the more specialzed
events" said Ben.
While on his tour Weider was the
guest of Bruno Nyberg of the World
International Federation of Weight-liftmg
at Warsaw Poland where the
annual meetmg was held with 34
countries competmg.
For its last programme thls sea-fon!
on Saturday, October J. the po-pular
C B C radio program, Focus, is
presentmg a new play by John Ree­ves,
We6haJl Not Be Moved.The play
JS centered ground Joe Hill, inunortal
poet-organisKr : of the Industrial
Workers of the World.
Focus Tisually jncludes .two or more
features and this will be one of its
few single productions. for whlch the
time wjll be extended by a half-hom-from
8.35 to 10.30 p.m.
Commenting on the, forthcoming
Production, C B C T i m e s says:
"We Shall Not Be Moved is a Story
taken from real life; . I t concerns the
trial and conviction many years ago,
in the United States of a man who
was charged with a murder which, in
ali likelihood^ he. did not commit.
Llsteners will have a chance to make.
up their mmds for themselves about
his guilt, for ali; the important evi-dence
will be presented as. part of
the play. But the play does not set
out to be a mere "whodunit."-
The author comments:
" A n y writer who stumbles across a
gripping Story, ready-made and wait-ing
to be told, must thank his stars
for a godsend. If that story also
happens to: concem things of vital
importance, then the writing of it be-comes
more than a pleasurej it be-comes
a duty. I believe that the de-
The Cow That Got
The "Hot Foot"
Forest fire fighters are relishing
this Story of the cow that got a " h o t
foof' — or "hot seat".
" W h i ' l e investigating settler fires
in the Opasatika area, Art Boice
observed a number of cows grazing
peacefully m a farmer's pasture."
reports District Porester F . E . Snider
of the Ontario Department of Lands
and Forests. "Suddenly a cow leaped
into the air and high-tailed it to the
bam with a series of agomzed cries.
"Investigation revealed that a
ground fire m aij adjacent area of
newly-cleared land had burned un-derneath
the groimd for a consider-able
distance and had come up un­der
the unsuspecting cow."
sire for justice
and most valu
ized man.
" T h e stoty::
that of a mai
of a real or a
carriage of ju
.are humanly j
not have to story to find o1
this case is, 1
the accused m;
mous simply
but was well-:
ever accused,
in the labor :
and well-loved
the composer
which helped t
together. Inde
bered by many
day as one of
they owe mucl
"l have triei
simply as possi
•were available
tual words of tl
because one sh
cause, as somel
tual words of 1
nity, or villair
writer could t
m keeping wit
music IS almoi
composition of •
EC<
Two eccentri
..bicycles. Sudde:
ped jumped of
out of his back
"Why do tha
"My saddle's
companion.
"Lend me a
the second cycli
the handlebars
ted. the bars ba
tened up the h
"Whafs gc
other.
"I'm going hl
cond. vi'm not
hke you."
"You say th
a mild sort of
tomer.
"Yes sir," re
er, "he belong;
had his salary :
TWAIN'S IMMORTAL "HUCKLEBERRY
By DAVID P L A TT
This year is the 70th anniversary
of the publication of IMark .Twain's
"Huckleberry Finn." In this great
Look Mark Twain "let the gas" out
of the frauds, bigots and moneygrub-bers
of his day and glorified the:
Eimplefolk represented by thedemoc-latic
and humanistic characters of
Huck Pmn and his compamon and
friend the Negro runaway slave Jim.
Today, the whole country accepts
"Hucklebery Pmn" as a classic of our
democratic literature.
But m 1885 when it first appeared
and for decades thereafter the book
was sneered.at, spaton and rejected
£i.s * morally and intellectually sub-
\ersive" by those in command of our
great newspapers and universities.
This f act is worth: notmg in the
llght of the prevailmg hostility on
the part o f our leading journals and
uewspapers toward virtually ali cont-c-
mporary American progressive lit­erature.
How long may one ask-before the
io-called "dangerous'- books of to-day—
books like : Steve Nelson's The
13th Juror and Howard Pasfs Silas
Timberman — are removed from the
Attomey . GeneraUs list and warmly
weIcomed throughout the land as im­portant
contributions to our democ­ratic
culture! • .
What a time Mark ,Twain had m
getting a f air hearing for his book
m the new5papers and journals of
his time.
Huckleberry Pmn " is a dangerous
r.ioral influence on the young," said
the Library Committee of Concord,
Mass, m its statement excludlng it
from the library. The decent citi-zenry
responded to this attaok by the
"moral iceoergs" as Mark T w a i n c a l -
led them, by electmg him to an
honorary membership m the Concord
FreeTrade Club.
The book was rapped in ali Boston
i!ewspapers. The Boston Transcript
editorialized: "Huckleberry Pmn is
SO f lat as Weil as coarse that nobody
wants to read i t ."
But somehow the book got around
to the ordmary folk. And Mark Twain
wrote to his publisher, Charles L .
Webster: " T h e expulsion of Huck
from the Concord library as trash and
suitable only for the slums will sell
25, 000 copies for iis sure."
The Boston Advertiser reprimanded
the author for his "flippant attitude"
and called his book " a failure."
Most of the adverse comments came
fiom New England but the book was
roughly treated in the midwest as
well, as for instance this revlew in
the Arkansas Traveler:
"The book is condemned, ; Ameri­can
critics say, because it is vulgar
and coarse. Tlie days of vulgar humor
cre over in this contry. There was a
time when a semi-obscene joke would
find admu:ers, but the.reading pubhc
IS becommg more refined. Exag-gerated
humor will also pass away.
The humor of the future must be
chaste and truthful.", . . •
Another rag sneered that Huckle­berry
Finn would f md readers only
among that part of the population
that goes for ^'blood and thunder dime
novels."
: Huckleberry Finn had one or two
defenders among the literary gentry
of those days. The writer Joel Chand-ler
Harris, wrote to the author on his
50th birthday commendmg his de-piction
of character.
' T h e book is life," he w'rote. ""Here
we behold human character stripped
cf ali tiresome details. We see people
The Qrigin of
Shotgun Gauges
With the ädvent of the duck and
grouse seasons, the sound of the shot­gun
is heard in the land. Whether
the old shootmg iron is a 12-gauge for
ducks or a .410 for grouse, the peren-nial
discussion of the ongin and the
meamng of shotgun gauges sizes will
arise. District Porester G . A . Hamil-tonof
the Ontario Department of
Lands and Forests of f ers this con-tribution:
.
"Originally, the diameter of a one-pound
round ball of lead was accep-ted
as. 1 gauge. The diameter of
each round ball of a pound of lead,
equally. divided into four round balls
represented 4 gauge. The diameter of
each round ball formed by dmdmg
a pound of lead into 12 equal portions
corresponded to the calibre of a 12-:
gauge gun, and so on. Vanous manu-'
facturers of shotguns have only re-cently
ätandardized the exact gauge
dlmensions.
"The nimrod is Just as interested
in the Size of shot used as m the
gauge of his gun; No. 6 shot for ducks
No 9. for snipe and so on. This num­ber
designation of the shot used m
shotgun shells is somethmg which
simply grew. For some reason, ap-parently
no longer known, the num­ber
of the shot can be found by sub-tracting
the diameter of the shot in
hundredths of an inch from 17. For
example: No. 6 shot is 0.11 inches in
diameter and 11 subtracted from 17
gives 6, the number of the shot. S i -
milarly. No. 2 shot is.0.15 inches in
diameter.
" T h e shot size, naturally governs
the number of pelle ts in the load.
This in turn helps govem the pattem
of your shot and density of shot with-in
the pattem. There are 90 No. 2
pellets to the oimce, 225 No. C and 585
No. 9 pellets.
growing and living. We laugh at their
humor, share their gnefs . . . "
In most cases, however, the critical
leaction followed the course set by the
Concord library, said Arthur Vogel-back
m 'American Literature.' (Nov.
1939).
Some critics even predicted that
Mark Twam was finished as ä writer.
He fooled them; however. He went on
to write.Pudd'nhead Wilson, Joan of
: A r c , Following the Equator, The Man
That Corrupte'd Hadleyburg and many
other books that have smce become
classics.
One can see now that the attacks
cn Huckleberry Pmn were. largely
inspired by Mark Twain's rough, m -
elegant satirizing of the hollow men
oi his day and particularly the bigots
and hypocrites who kept the Negro
in subjection.
And though his book was about
Huck and J im during slavery days,
Mark Twain was also writing about
life in America twenty years after the
Emancipation Proclamation when, as
a result of a crooked deal engineered
li Washington, the Negroes were
betrayed and the ex-slaveholders
etrengthened their hold on the south
He was writing about a boy, Huck
Finn, who had to choose, as.men must
choose today (1955) between decency
and degration.
Huck had to choose between con-forming
to what was temporarily the
iaw: of the land or doing what he
believed in his beart and mind was
just;'
Huck struggled miglitily with the
question which is still before us.
If he helped a young Negro slave's
f llght to freedom he would of course
be branded in the eyes of the Attomey
General and polite society generally
as a subversive and traitor.
But if he "obeyed the fules" which
rneant turning informer on his best
friend, would he . be able to sleep
nights?
Huck tried to steel himself against
Jim. He wanted to "obey the rules"
but he had his selfrespect to think of
too. .
In fact 'he had written a note to
Jim's master* explaining where the
slave could be found but he couldn't
get himself to ."lend it. .,
Because after writing it Huck "got
to thinking: about our trip down the
liver; and I see J im before me ali
the time, in the day and in the night
time, sometimes moonlight, some-times
storms, and we afloating along
talking and singing and laughing.
Eut somehow I couldn't seem to strike
on places to harden me against h im
but only the other kind. I'd see him
standing my watch on top of hl§'n,
stead of caUing me, so I could go
on sleeping; and see h im how glad
he was when I come to him ngain
in the swamp, up there where the
feud was; an v/ould always- ci
me, and do ever
of for me and
was; and at laj
saved him by te
smallpox aboarc
f ui and said I «
J im ever had in
ly one he's got pened to look ar
per. It was a cl(
and held it in m
blmg. because I
ever, betwixt tw
ea it. I studie
holding my bre:
niyself: "Ali rig
and torc it up."
Huck made h
the nght one fc
counti-y's dem
threw in his lo
.were fighting f
He made up "wickedness" in
came sort of nai
tegmning he vi
s'teal Jim out if I could thin!
T would do thai
as T was in, ane
as well go the
In such eloqi
"literature does
the bondsman's.
ed toil," said B<
introduction to
berry Pmnput
: Yet like Swift:
berry Pmn wai
as an adventur
was to be found
of cbildren's re:
Even after sev
ing literary wori
for. A recent C
cf: Huckleberry.
cntire character
all-white entertj
kind of censor
Mark Twain wh
peared.
PS: There ha:
of Mark Twain';
cxpression towd
must be rememt
writing about J
was slave territi
It would have
reality to have T
räcist ideas into
Missouri backw
Twain showed tl
he was gomg wl
racter Jun m a
THANK
Nephew: "Tha:
the present."
A u n t : " O h , thi
Nephew: " T hi
but mother tolc
just the same."