THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH

It's finally happened. The very thing we've dreaded so long. A turtle lives two hundred years, a man three score and ten, but a child star is a very fragile bundle--so Shirley has retired, at the advanced age of eleven, to leave the stage to her less weary successors.

All our friends are heart-broken. They remember how Shirley gave new life and artistry to such old and unimaginative stories as "Heidi" and "Blue Bird." We're pretty well down in the dumps ourselves--for even more profound reasons. In an American youth polluted with the destructive forces of Communism, Fascism, Atheism, Cynicism, and Bertrand Russell, little Shirley has been the only ray of pure and unadulterated sunshine. For half a dozen years now, she has stood for all that is fine in America's young people. And so we say with Bill Robinson: "Virtue is never its own reward--except in Shirley Temple's pictures."

But there is one bright side to the picture. Remember what a shock it was the first time you saw Mickey Rooney, the sprite and very juvenile Puck of a few years back, pitching in a parked car with some uncomfortably adolescent bit of fluff. Well, just imagine how much more horrible it would be to see a slinky Shirley sipping her Mumms Extra Dry under the subdued lights of the Stork or the Ritz Bar.

So long, Shirley. Please don't make any farewell tours. God bless you--and bless Him for making you an only child.