Naivete Triumphant

Sophistication. Early in June, newspapers published an account of the arrest of a number of men in Los Angeles who, it was charged, had conspired to kidnap for ransom Mary Pickford. The editors of The New York World, sophisticated, published the following editorial:

PUBLICITY FOR MOVIE STARS All of us will find sympathy for Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, et al., who were marked as victims of a kidnapping plot. The worst of it, no doubt, is the publicity involved. To the average person this might not mean much, but to a moving picture actress, already much in the public eye, it must be particularly distasteful. Of course, we may be thankful that the plot was discovered before any damage was done--except the publicity. But even so, there is danger that the thing will become epidemic. That is, enterprising press agents, now that the jewel-theft scheme has pretty well worn out, may try to fake kidnapping plots and in that way get their employers' names in the paper. Let us hope no such epidemic breaks out.

Naivete. In Los Angeles, last week, a trial came to an end. The jury, naive, convicted two of the prisoners of 'conspiracy to kidnap Mary Pickford, acquitted a third. The judge, naive unbeliever, sentenced the two convicts to ten years each in San Quentin prison.

Mystery Dissolved

Last Sunday morning on the newsstands of Manhattan, the Graphic* gum-chewers' sheetlet of Bernarr Macfadden--"father of Physical Culture"-- appeared wrapped in its rotogravure section. Preempting the front page was a large picture of Woodrow Wilson with the legend:

"THE DRAMATIC STORY OF WILSON'S LAST DAYS, REVEALED FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE REAL STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED BEHIND THE LOCKED DOORS OF THE WHITE HOUSE AS THE PRESIDENT WAS DYING." /-

Within the paper, in a section with In Death House 4 Years, Albert T. Patrick Now a Successful Business Man; Stage Scandals Made "Out Front." Says Marion Davies; Beauty on the Auction Block; A Stage-Door Johnny's Memories (an Original Macfadden True Story) etc--amid these appeared Secrets of Wilson's Last Days in the White House. . . . As Told to Smith D. Fry.

Well, what is the secret told to Mr. Fry by a person unmentioned? In the unknown's own words:

Why should I be a party to a secret from which all the other citizens of this nation and the peoples of the world were shut out?

That is a mystery in itself and a secret that is now only being told for the first time to the readers of this paper. The newspaper correspondents who watched day and night every method of ingress and egress at the White House in the hope of gleaning some hint of what was going on within knew that every day, except Sundays, for 455 days before Woodrow Wilson died I went to the White House and later to the Wilson home on S

Street, but despite their every effort they could not find out why.

But now it can be told. Woodrow Wilson had become an inveterate movie fan.

What would the people of this country have thought at that time, a critical period in the history of the nation and the world, had they known that the White House had been turned into a moving picture palace? What would have been the effect on the public mind and possibly on international affairs had it been revealed that the great East Room, the scene of historic events beyond number, had been darkened into a cinema theater with a screen on which were flashed the doings of film cowboys, bad men, detectives, flappers and all the varied characters of the celluloid drama?

Answer that question for yourself, as you can readily do, and you will know one reason why the veil of secrecy hung so black over the White House in the days when Woodrow Wilson hovered between life and death.

Deadly Rivals

In the great days that were once upon a time editors battled with stinging epithets and murderous eloquence, denouncing each other for the traitorous scoundrels they were. Nowadays, circulation departments battle and editors support them when called upon.

Last week the Daily Mirror (Manhattan), Hearst gumchewers' sheetlet, printed the following editorial :

$10,000 IN GOLD

Readers, you can earn $10,000 in solid gold if you can suggest any workable plan that will stop the imitating of the Daily Mirror by the Chicago crowd that runs the Daily News.

We are TIRED of being imitated by the Daily News and are willing to pay $10,000 to any intellectual giant that will tell us how we can SHAME them, DISCOURAGE them, CAJOLE them, COAX them, PERSUADE them, or SCARE them into stopping their infernal, chameleon-like imitations of the Daily Mirror.

Think up your plans. Send in your plans.

For every letter we print, we shall pay $5 to the reader that sends it. The suggestion must be very short, not more than 50 words, which is enough to describe any good idea.

For the idea that really works, and that for the period of one full year can be shown by impartial judges to have stopped the imitation of the Daily Mirror by the Daily News, we will pay the large reward of $10,000 in gold.

Our patience is exhausted, as you will notice, by the Daily News' foolish imitation of our effort to reader public service and cooperate with the Government in popularizing the $2.00 bill. We shall not bore you with details. You all know how the chameleon imitates color, how the monkey sometimes cuts his throat trying to imitate his master shaving. We do not want the Daily News to cut its throat exactly, although it will do so if it allows the whole public to know it is only an imitator, but we do want and intend to stop the imitating. Hence the offer of the above magnificent reward.

In helping the Government to popularize the $2 bill, the Mirror had been printing the numbers of such bills daily and giving away $100 to whoever found them in circulation and brought them back. Of course people began to buy the Mirror to look for the lucky numbers.

The News likewise began to publish lucky numbers -- numbers of $1 bills, and offer $100 to anyone who brought the bills in.

So far the battle was of circulation managers and then the Mirror's editors promised $10,000 to prevent imitation. No one is likely to win that prize, because to an unpracticed eye the News and Mirror are as alike as two pins.

Incidentally the News came into existence in 1919 -- five years before its rival.

*Known to many as the Pornographic. /- President Wilson died almost three years after he left the White House.