To the Editor of the "Nortu-Caiva Dainty News."
Sir,—At the present time the Astor House is absolutely unbearable. I am an unassuming and quiet member of society but my nature and naturally pleasant disposition is rudely shattered by a mere glance into the lobby of the Shriners' Headquarters. That such an expedition should ever take place is hard for me to accept without a protest.
For just a moment let us forget Shanghai and remember the waste places of the world. Russia starve ing, middle Europe struggling for life, China hard pressed, our own American problem of unemployment, England's taxation, with France and Italy not far behind in vital needs. Can we with these pictures before us contemplate with equanimity the vision of several hundred pot-bellied and fairly mature men infesting the Astor House and wandering the streets in dinky regalia, topped by the red fez and animated by no other motives than a trip to China, a few drinks and a general good time?
As is well known the order whose members at present misrepresent our American people is the social order of the Masonic Association. Its object of being, is merely fo promote sociability, and it seems to me that at a time like the present such a junketing party could well be foregone. As an American citizen I deplore the impression: that such an expedition must make on the minds of the other foreigners in Shanghai.
Perhaps it might be as well to remind the readers of this letter that in all orders of this sort a certain number misrepresent the whole and though there are doubtless many members of the Shriners visiting Shanghai of whom we may be proud, the ones we see and notice are not those we would choose for our representatives in a foreign land. Therefore, as an American citizen, I protest against an apparently useless expense, a gathering together of ordinary people who, a false impression of our great in spite of themselves, are carrying;
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.