Stardust

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

If a portion of the people are damn sick of these Clean Cut Young Men, as Nemo declares in your issue of February 13, another portion of the people, I venture to suggest, are also damn sick and tired of the Jittery Juveniles who so insistently yap their disbelief in the honesty of those who, as a matter of good taste if nothing more, actually prefer cleanliness, decency, and integrity to their opposites.

The attitude of Nemo isn't fair. I do not question, and I doubt if Lindbergh would question, the fact that the crass vulgarities of Nemo and his type are true reflections of character. Even if addled adolescents were not so noisily boastful about their Scollay Square standards, the same would be as obvious as dirty finger nails. No one disputes their preference for bawds, flasks and vacuums. It is easy to believe that their taste is genuine. By the same token one can readily admit the looseness of their code of business ethics. If they were on the other end of a Government contract or any other contract, they would bear watching. This would be taken for granted and due credit, without reserve, be given them for tricky cleverness. No cry would be raised that they were hypocritical.

That another standard of honor and taste does exist, however deplorable, Nemo cannot deny. Otherwise there would be nothing at which he could stick out his tongue, otherwise nothing at which he could thumb his nose; nothing against which he could display his contempt with the Bowery razz. It would seem to be only fair, then, that he should accord to the other school, the same frank admission of honesty of character and motive freely granted him.

Unless one accepts the doctrine of the eternal damnation of infant souls--and how could a young modern fall for that?--the evidence points to the fact that it is as natural for some people to be decent as for others to be indecent. I is essentially a matter of taste. They become Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts because they like that sort of wholesome thing. They grow up with a flair for clean living and a respect for pure motherhood, for the same reason. In their business dealings they are straight shooters. They look you fair in the eye. Honestly, they are made, or have made themselves that way, just as Nemo is made, or has made himself the other way.

To my mind, Lindbergh is as genuinely of the former type as Nemo is of the opposite. How come, I can't explain, but there you are. To make me believe that Lindbergh was guilty of trickery or of collusion with trickery, would require as much evidence as to make me believe that Nemo was guilty of decency. The one stands innocent, by virtue of his record, until proved guilty; the other by virtue of his record, stands guilty until proved--awful thought--innocent. Frederick Orin Bartlett