TWENTY
YEARS AFTER
v
By FANNIE HURST
(© by McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)
{WNU Service)
OU talk about your dramatic
panoramas of life!
What is more stirringly that,
than a glimpse backward, say
along the twenty years that follow the
college graduation of any given group.
The college reunion is a singularly po-
tent event, It is a stock taking. It
is the moment of resume backward.
Men und women who have not paused
in the race of life long enough even to
contemplate it as a spectacle, are here
forced to face the evidence.
Twenty years after graduation,
Have 1 failed In the race or reached
the goal?
Two men who had not met for those
twenty years were about to come to-
gether for the first time; two men who
had been inseparables through four
years of high school and four subse
quent years at their state university.
The Heavenly Twins, they had been
facetiously called during those years
of their intimacy, It had been a nice
friendship, ceasing, it is true,
tion to have any active
cance, or, for that matter, anythi
® passive quality, because the
of the two boys diverged instantly.
Rex Tyson went to Boston to learn
the shipbuilding business In the yards
’
of an uncle.
Claude Nipher returned to his home
town to take up his fathe
of taxidermy.
Yarie d interests if ever there were.
Tyson ahead in the
enormously profital business of ship-
r's business
+}
king up where |
ind then bre i
jtaries ti
diverge
and
SL once mo
which was
northerly of the
floated steamers of enor-
rawing power,
wis in connection with an enter
prise to launch some gigantic boats
on the bosom of this be dy of water
that Tyson was returning to his home
town.
In the twenty
uation from the state university, he
had not set foot In it,
Rumors of his fine success had come
back, it is true. Some of the deco
rative monthly magazines had carried
photographs of the Tyson country es
itate just outside Boston. The salling
Aists of the big steamships bound for
‘Europe frequently carried the name of
Rex Tyson and Mrs, Rex Tyson, and
the year his son was graduated from
Yale university the papers were quit
agog with the story of the ship mag-
nate's son shipping for South America
aboard a fruit steamer. From-the-bot-
tom-up-sort-of-thing which the Ameri
public loves to observe, and ad-
t
years since his grad-
ires in the sons of its millionaires.
Nipher had followed Tyson's career
Living as he did in the
ler environment of his home town,
closely
is lal boratory built right on the quiet
old frame house he continued to occupy
after the death of his parents, Nipher
had the
scrutiny the various aspects of the
world which interested him
leisure to watch with close
ontside
most,
Tyson's career captured his curios
ity not only because it happened to
whirl around the person of an old
and valued friend, but because it illus
trated a sociological and economic as-
pect of his country. It was Interesting
to study the success of a man like
Tyson and to ponder over just what
conditions made his kind of position
possible,
Nipher married a few years later
than Tyson. Where Tyson had chos
en an eastern girl of some social proml-
nence, Nipher made what was consid-
ered, even in his town, & peculiar al
lance. He married a girl named
Msadalaine de Fond, daughter of a
French Canadian who had drifted
across the line from Quebec and
earned a more or less precarious ex-
istence us a veterinarian. Madalaine
was not only a rather plain, quiet girl,
but she had quite a marked affliction.
From birth she had been deaf, hear.
dng only slightly with the left ear.
Nipher beheld her one evening at the
graduation exercises of the Central
high school, where in spite of her
handicap, she was graduated with
honors. One year later they were
married.
There were two children, normal
youngsters with acute hearing.
One of Nipher's favorite occupations
when he was not working in his lab
oratory and doing important mount.
ing of animals for some of the fore
most museums in the country, was per
fecting an ear disk for Madalalne by
which she might be enabled to hear
more clearly.
Long years after his death, the
Nipher ear drum was to earn great
fortunes for his grandchildren.
But when Tyson returned to his
home city, the Niphers were living the
qilet and uneventful lives of small
town people of limited Income.
Madalaine had no servant and took
igole care of her two children, Nipher
‘himself spent the long hours of the
day at work In his laboratory with
only one assistant, and although he
had come to be regarded as the prime
authority in his field, museum experts
keep pace with his achievement,
Besides, preeminence in taxidermy
to bring a man any great local emi
nence. Indeed it is doubtful if his
was truly supreme in his work.
Nipher was just rather an old fogey
like his father before him.
he had hud time to give any great
years intervening, might have affec
tionately fallen in with that general
estimate of him.
And yet, It was with a glowing
face back home on the shipping mis
sion in question,
Good old Claude!
write Claude a good fat check if for any
reason he might be in need of funds.
Chances were that he was. Taxider-
mist In a onehorse town. Read
Claude had married. A deaf girl, too
Just like old Claude. Undesigning
sort of fellow. Fall for nearly any
thing. Should have kept better in
touch with old Claude. No friend
ships like the old ones. Good old
Claude! Jove, won't ever again get
out of touch with him.
So it was a genial, rather remorse
a train one day in the little city he
had once called home. A fellow with
prosperity written all over him. In
the cut of his clothes, his manner of
lavishly tipping porters and chauffeurs
The look of his luggage. The general
aroma of expensive well-bel
him, 1 ne friends
clasped hands. Big, long, silent clasps,
Nipher met
two or three of them, and then, bag
and lugguge, great big Tyson crammed
into N pher's little old Ford roadster
ind off they red.
vas pretty much as Ty
oreseen it would be, Stufly,
weone shame
vho was Tyson's age to the
—_— looked it least five years older
than his friend,
Life had pussed Nipher by
Had it? Tyson had occasion to ask
himself after his first snap judgments
had worn away and after he left the
house at the end of five weeks where
originally he had only planned to re
main five days.
Had it, or had li assed Tyson
by in a
that he : beginning to realize the
extent t } had been at
the materia i
Why Nipher, with ymplete gnself
CODSCIOUSNONS, *hanted Gregarion
fashion that terrified him, now
verse np Tyson 1 Madalaine read
poelry aiou iri the long, qt
1iet
evenings, feeling its music along her
ot
lips as she transmitted it to her hus
hildren as they grouped
1hout sr in the lamplight
The Niphers went on hikes in the
springtime and actually and without
he plant life
of thelr region and brought home Spe
imeng for slides and mounted their
findings in their “Springtime Books"
ns they «
Madalaine Nipher played the harp
and in the evenings she took on a dell
cate kind of heauty, sweeping her fin
gers slong the strings of the instru
sel feonsciousness studied t
called them
shabby study,
most romantic kind of taxidermy
Mounting wild animais with such fidel.
ity that several of the museums of Fu-
Nipher wild animal display in a Chi-
cago museum was said to be the finest
in the world. Nipher thought nothing
of spending a six-month studying from
dog, the tiger, the llama.
Frequently he went off on visits to
ing him.
own little living room, playing and
acters themselves,
Niphers wrote poetry to one another
Claude and his elder son Merle at the
transformed her into beauty
Close, happy, almost naive family.
Greedy for the beauties of life. Ignor-
ant of its materialisms. Indefatigable
in their quest for the happiness of
harmony.
No wonder that Nipher's face, while
lined with the thoughtful years, was
a face of peace, No wonder that Mad-
alaine at her harp had a strange, quiet
beauty all her own, What more nat
ural than that the children of this
union should share in its beauty?
here was nothing that Tyson could
do for Nipher, He realized that after
his second day in the home of his
friend.
There was so much that Nipher
could do for Tyson,
the second dag of the visit of his
friend.
Samuel
Johnston
[John
Hanson
Washington.)
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
Fourth
3 g of the Declara-
tion of Independence!” you reply.
“But why celebrate that?" you are
asked,
“Because It | h y of our
nation,” you answe And in both
cases, you're only partly right,
As a8 matter of fact, the Declara-
Independence was formally
pted on July 4, 1776, by the Con-
tinental co! 54, but so many mem
bers were al it on that day that
no effort was made thelr signatures
to the immortal document, That was not done
until nearly a month later. On August 2, 1776,
the final copy of the Declaration was ready and
the members en present {all whose names
appear on it, except two Thomas McKean and
William Thornton, 0 signed later) affixed
thelr signatures, thus giving the document an
authority which It lacked u hat time.
So it depends upon a matter of interpreta-
tion whether July 4, when the Declaration was
formally adopted, or August 2, when it was
signed, shall be considered as the “birthday
of a new nation.”
ut now that this “new nation” has come
into existence, obviously it must have a head
or an executive officer if it is to be a “going
concern.” Granted? All right! Of course, we
all know that the executive officer of this new
nation of ours which came into existence 158
years ago Is known as the President. So there
logically follows the question “Who was our
first President?
“Why, George Washington, of course!” you
answer, But are you sure of that?! For again
it's & matter of Interpretation. To be absolute-
ly sure that you're right, you should say “George
Washington was the first President of the Unit.
ed States.” Be sure to put in “of the United
States.” For there was no such pation as the
United States and no such office in It until it
was created by the Constitution, framed in 1787
and adopted In 1788 and George Washington
was the first man to hold the office of Presi-
dent under the Constitution,
In recent years attempts have been made to
prove that several men who held the title of
“President” and presided over the Continental
congress were Presidents before Washington.
But those attempts have met what seems to be
a final and decisive answer, from Dr. Edmund
C. Burnett of the division of historical research
at the Carnegie Institute of Washington, who
has spent 25 years In exhaustive research of
the work of the Continental congress during
the entire period of its existence from 1774
to 1781.
In a statement by Doctor Burnett, issued by
the Carnegie Institution recently, he says In
regard to the “President before Washington"
theory :
“In this year of exceptional grace, the year of
our Lord one thousand nine hundred and thir
ty-two and of the Independence of the United
States the one hundred and fifty-sixth, when we
are celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary
of the birth of George Washington, many old
controversies revolving about the character and
career of the Father of his Country have been
revived-—controversies which seemed to have
been permanently relegated to the realm of
tales that were told—and several new ones have
pushed their way to the front to make their bids
for a hearing.
“Among the themes which are not precisely
new nor yet hoary with old age is one which
declares that the first President of the United
States was not George Washington, but that
this distinction belongs to John Hanson, presi
dent of the Continental congress from Novem.
ber 5, 1781, to November 4, 1782,
“Similar claims, although on other grounds,
have been put forth in behalf of other Presi.
dents of congress, but only that lg behalf of
4
Hanson has been pushed with great vehemence
or has attained any great vogue. In good time
the legend John Hanson, first President of the
United States, will also be assigned ts appro-
priate niche in the Hall of Myths
“The
plain truth of the matte that not
he p
€
resident f the ontinental cong
yton Randol to Cyrus Griffin
‘nited States, either in
urtesy, or otherwise, The first
the first to bear that title,
was Geor on: and all those who seek
to bestow the title of first President of the Unit-
ed States upon any president whomsoever of the
‘Old Congress’ are but chasing shadows, pursu-
ing will-o"-the wisps.
“The Hanson thesis, which has bad its own
variations in the course of its career, has now
assumed substantially this form: John Hanson
wis the first President of the United States,
because he was the first President of congress
under the articles of confederation, the first con-
stitution of the United States,
argument of the Hanson proponents,
to this argument that we shall
devote our examination,
This is the basic
“Was John Hanson actually the first Presi
dent of congress under the ar ticles of confed.
eration? Those articles, it should be recalled,
were adopted by congress on November 35, 1777.
and two days later were sent forth to the sev.
eral states with =» plea for their speedy adop-
tion. Some of the states readily assented, others
ratified with certain provisos, while still others,
led by Maryland, held back until their views
with regard to the disposition of the western
ands should be agreed to.
“By July, 1778, all the states except Mary-
fand, New Jersey, and Delaware had ratified
the articles as they stood and a few months
later New Jersey and Delaware also came for-
ward with their ratifications; but Maryland
stood stoutly by her demand respecting the west.
ern lands (and a most praiseworthy demand [t
was), and not until her demands had been es
sentially complied with did that state agree to
ratify.
The final step was taken on the first of
March, 1781, when the delegates of Maryland in
congress, John Hanson and Daniel Carroll, ap-
pended their signatures to the articles of con-
federation,
“At the time of Maryland's ratification of the
confederation Samuel Huntington of Connecticut
was presidefit of congress and had been since
September 28, 1779. There was no new election
of a president of the body at that time, but on
July 6, 1781, President Huntington gave notice
to congress that the state of his health would
not permit him to continue longer In the exer-
cise of the duties of the Presidency, and on
July 9 congress chose as his successor Samuel
Johnston of North Carolina,
“On the following day, however, Johnston pre
sented his declination, offering ‘such reasons as
were satisfactory,’ whereupon Thomas McKean
of Delaware was elected President (July 10).
McKean served as President of congress until
the election of John Hanson, on Monday. No-
vember 5.
“It is to be observed, then, that two Presi.
dents, Huntington and McKean, had served be.
tween March 1 and November 5, 1781, and an-
other had been chosen but had declined the of-
fice. A chief question therefore is, whether the
Presidents between March 1 and November 5,
1781, served under the articles of confederation,
or whether John Hanson was the first to serve
under and by virtue of that Instrument. The
question hinges on whether the articled of con-
federation were actually in force during that
interval”
Doctor Burnett declares that they were actu
ally in force. He continues:
“To contend, as do the protagonists In behalf
of John Hanson as the first President of the
United States, that the articles of confederation
did not come into force until the first Monday
in November, 1781, is to contradict official record
and official Interpretation.
“As an Instance of the lengths tg whicn tis
L
Msscsmsmmnismms cin. nnn
‘
a
msec
Samuel|
|
untim gion
“The articles of confede
main essentials of the | instru
did little more than put
form the principles on whi
of the United States had t
ducted.
“At all events, it is not to be gainsaid
sven at the time when John Hanson was elected
resident of congress, these United Sta les were
jating their national existence from the
of July, 1776. They have continued to
and that assertion respecting the
nation's birth has held good both
in law™
After discussing the conditions under which
Hanson was elected President, Doctor Burnett
says:
“In any event, John Hansdn does have the
distinction, If It be a distinction, of being the
first president to be chosen for the definite term
of one year, beginning on the first Monday of
November. But this is very far from making
him President of the United States.
“The evidence, It must be repeated, is con-
clusive that no president of the continental con
gress, by whatever name It may be designated,
whether ‘the congress’ as it first called itself,
or ‘the United States in congress assembled.’
as it came later to be called, was ever President
of the United States. And this is true for this
best of reasons, among others: because no such
office as President of the United States existed
until it was created by the federal constitu.
tion, framed In 1787 and adopted In 1788
“The office of President of the United States
which that Constitution created is an office
wholly different In character from that of Presi.
dent of the old congress, whether before or
after the adoption of the articles of confedera-
tion: so different, in fact, that almost the sole
thing in common is the word ‘President’ In
their respective titles,
“The president of congress was merely a
presiding officer, and he was a member of the
body over which he presided: he neither pos-
gessed nor exercised any executive authority.
The President of the United States Is almost
solely an executive officer; he is not a member
of the national legislature: and his contacts
with the national legislative body, the congress
of the United States, are of a definitely limited
character.
“There Is therefore only one rational conclus-
fon that ean be reached, and that is, that George
Washington was the first President of the Unit.
ed States”
(@ by Western Newspaper Union.)