Poetry

Every Government department has its mimeograph machines. Tireless, they serve many purposes--the issuance of memoranda to employes, for example. They are used in the manufacture of official information which is sent, postage free, to the 2,310 newspapers of the country.

Editors recently opened an "official business" envelope from the Navy Department, pulled out two pages of poetry under the title Pacifism, by one Archibald Hopkins.*

They read the first verse:

If a burglar comes to rob you,

Ask him in.

To resist a fellow creature is a sin,

So let him have your cash,

After all, it's only trash:

Non-resistance is the only way to win.

They found it was satire. They read further:

If a ruffian assaults you,

Don't complain:

Mankind was meant to give and suffer pain.

Abolish the police

And assaults at once will cease;

Preparedness is neither safe nor sane.

If a brute insults your sister,

Why object?

You never should get angry; just reflect

If you cringe and run away,

The truly good will say,

Behold another one of the elect.

Why should you love and venerate

The flag?

It is nothing but a variegated rag,

And this vaunted patriotism

Is a cause of needless schism,

Provocative of silly, harmful brag.

*Son of the late Mark Hopkins, President of Williams College.