The Bulletin’s Day Book

THE late Oscar Straus, father of Roger Straus, was resurrected at the last Canadian Jewish Congress held in January, and listed among the speakers on the agenda.

It seems that Roger was intended. However, Roger Straus did not come. In his absence, Morris D. Waldman, secretary of the American Jewish Committee, was called on to speak. Finding himself in the position of a substitute of a substitute for a man long since dead, Mr. Waldman was reminded to tell the old theatre story:

Jewish theatre audiences are given to enthusiastic applause of performances that please; not only do they call out the actors and actresses, but they like to call out the author himself for a great big hand. “Romeo and Juliet” was being played this evening–the performance pleased–the audience applauded lustily. Romeo took his bow–Juliet took her bow–the entire cast took bows. Then came calls of “Author! Author!” No author appeared. A din arose–the applause became vociferous, noisy shouting and stamping showed the audience’s determination to greet the author, Finally the manager walked out on the stage, and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, this play was written by William Shakespeare who has been dead these past 400 years. He cannot take his bow.”

A single hiss was heard from the balcony and the lone voice called out. “Hsss, sis a bluff!”

The community council of Dettingen (Wuerttemburg) has decided to give every bridal pair a copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” before the wedding.

The following statistics on the state of the German book market are enlightening: In 1932 there were published in Germany 30,000 books (a total of 120 million volumes) and 60 million volumes of the older works. In 1933, on the other hand, there were only 12,000 books, totalling 30 million volumes and, in addition, 10 million volumes of the older works. The number of unemployed in graphic industries in Leipzig is about 65,000. The spiritual decline in the Third Reich can not be better documented than it is in these statistics.