Nonsenseorship by Various

Author:Various [Various]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780649158263
Goodreads: 36018233
Publisher: Trieste Publishing
Published: 2018-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

Reformers: A Hymn of Hate

*

DOROTHY PARKER

I hate Reformers;

They raise my blood pressure.

There are the Prohibitionists;

The Fathers of Bootlegging.

They made us what we are to-day—

I hope they're satisfied.

They can prove that the Johnstown flood,

And the blizzard of 1888,

And the destruction of Pompeii

Were all due to alcohol.

They have it figured out

That anyone who would give a gin daisy a friendly look

Is just wasting time out of jail,

And anyone who would stay under the same roof

With a bottle of Scotch

Is right in line for a cozy seat in the electric chair.

They fixed things all up pretty for us;

Now that they have dried up the country,

You can hardly get a drink unless you go in and order one.

They are in a nasty state over this light wines and beer idea;

They say that lips that touch liquor

Shall never touch wine.

They swear that the Eighteenth Amendment

Shall be improved upon

Over their dead bodies—

Fair enough!

Then there are the Suppressors of Vice;

The Boys Who Made the Name of Cabell a Household Word.

Their aim is to keep art and letters in their place;

If they see a book

Which does not come right out and say

That the doctor brings babies in his little black bag,

Or find a painting of a young lady

Showing her without her rubbers,

They call out the militia.

They have a mean eye for dirt;

They can find it

In a copy of "What Katy Did at School,"

Or a snapshot of Aunt Bessie in bathing at Sandy Creek,

Or a picture postcard of Moonlight in Bryant Park.

They are always running around suppressing things,

Beginning with their desires.

They get a lot of excitement out of life,—

They are constantly discovering

The New Rabelais

Or the Twentieth Century Hogarth.

Their leader is regarded

As the representative of Comstock here on earth.

How does that song of Tosti's go?—

"Good-bye, Sumner, good-bye, good-bye."

There are the Movie Censors,

The motion picture is still in its infancy,—

They are the boys who keep it there.

If the film shows a party of clubmen tossing off ginger ale,

Or a young bride dreaming over tiny garments,

Or Douglas Fairbanks kissing Mary Pickford's hand,

They cut out the scene

And burn it in the public square.

They fix up all the historical events

So that their own mothers wouldn't know them.

They make Du Barry Mrs. Louis Fifteenth,

And show that Anthony and Cleopatra were like brother and sister,

And announce Salome's engagement to John the Baptist,

So that the audiences won't go and get ideas in their heads.

They insist that Sherlock Holmes is made to say,

"Quick, Watson, the crochet needle!"

And the state pays them for it.

They say they are going to take the sin out of cinema

If they perish in the attempt,—

I wish to God they would!

And then there are the All-American Crabs;

The Brave Little Band that is Against Everything.

They have got up the idea

That things are not what they were when Grandma was a girl.

They say that they don't know what we're coming to,

As if they had just written the line.

They are always running a temperature

Over the modern dances,

Or the new skirts,

Or the goings-on of the younger set.

They can barely hold themselves in

When they think of the menace of the

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