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[[bold]] Raymond, the Tapir, Jumpy at Whistles, Imprisons Cousins [[/bold]]
[[bold]] Crates to Hold Those Dr. Mann Gets to Avoid 'Regattas' [[/bold]]
(No. 33 of a Series.) [[bold]] By W. H. SHIPPEN, Jr., [[/bold]] Star Staff Correspondent.
BUENOS AIRES-If Dr. Mann brings home any tapirs I hope they won't be afraid of steamboat whistles!  
Not as afraid as Raymond was, anyhow.  Every time the captain blew the whistle Raymond jumped overboard.  That went on for days and Raymond lost a lot of his popularity.  
Dr. Mann, believing the boys and girls of Washington would like Raymond (even if he were a bit jumpy), was bringing him down the Amazon on a river launch some years ago. [[Image--W. H. Shippen, Jr.]]  Every time Raymond jumped overboard the captain had to reverse his engines, drop the anchor and put a rowboat overside.  Raymond and the crew of the rowboat put on some splendid races, with the little tapir doing the Australian crawl, or something, and the seamen laying to their oars.  It was hot on the Equator and some of the crew were slow about applauding Raymond's aquatic talents.  The Indians on the shore, however, cheered and cheered!  Being ignorant savages, with little more than a G-string to their names, they thought the white men were staging a regatta.  
Now the captain, in addition to Raymond, had a lot of coconuts and Brazil nuts on board.  Like many other Brazilian, he wasn't in too much of a hurry-there always being tomorrow or the day after-but he did hope to get down the Amazon by Christmas anyhow.  He doubtless felt that a lot of small boys in the States would appreciate Brazil nuts in their stockings on Christmas morning.
[[bold]] Pre-Whistle Warning. [[/bold]]  
So the captain worked out a system. Being a Brazilian, he loved to blow whistles, Raymond or no Raymond.  So he kept right on blowing the whistle for landings, curves and crazy Indians in canoes, but he began to seek out Dr. Mann in advance. 
"Don Senor Doktur," he would say, "I am about to blow the whistle!"  
Then everybody would jump up and search the ship for Raymond, who usually was busy about his own affairs-nibbling the crews' shirts on a wash line, squealing about under the cook's legs in the galley, etc.  Raymond, being only a youngster, still in short pants (he still hadn't outgrown the juvenile stripes on his coat), would get bundled off to the little boys' washroom and locked inside.  They somebody would run to give the "all clear" signal.
  Even then Raymond would jump into the bathtub every time the whistle blew.
 "I should think he would have caught his death of cold!" I said.
[[bold]]   Dry Jump.  [[/bold]] 
"That shows, William," Dr. Mann said, "that you don't know much about bathtubs on old Amazon River boats. In those days the last thing you'd see in one was water!"  If Dr. Mann gets any tapirs here (he hopes for two) they will be in crates going back.  The ships of the good neighbor fleet have big whistles, and a tapir would have to be a high diver as well as a channel swimmer to duplicate Raymond's stunt.
  Dr. Mann became quite attached to Raymond, as men often do to the creatures who give them most trouble.  He got him safely through to the States.  And then one day, without any warning Raymond died.  It wasn't pneumonia, overexertion, overeating or homesickness.
  He just died--another of the heartbreaks that sometimes go with the collecting business.--- Next: South American Journalism. ---

[[bold]] Argentine Editor Sorry We Arm Our Foes With Pictures [[/bold]]
[[bold]] U. S. Magazines Wash Nation's Dirty Linen In Public, He Says [[/bold]]
[[bold]] By W. H. SHIPPEN, Jr., [[/bold]] Star Staff Correspondent. 
^[[Jun 1 1939]]
BUENOS AIRES.-"Why do you North Americans arm your enemies with such weapons as this?"
  The editor held out a United States picture weekly and thumbed it to the photograph of a college boy and girl kissing as they sprawled on a sofa.  "For years I have advocated the exchange of students between our countries. I have planned to send my little girl to school in the States. [[Image-W. H. Shippen, Jr.]] But after this, no! She will remain in the Argentine!"
  The editor, director of a B. A. daily of 40,000 circulation, and two weekly magazines, was educated in the States and broke in as a cub reporter on a Boston paper.
 "We of the profession," he said, "know the tricks of the game. I know, as you know, that this is no true picture of North American college life...but my little girl, does she know?  She gets too many ideas of life in the States from pictures like this and the movies!
 "If I, knowing the publishing business, knowing America from personal observation, am alienated from your country by such pictures, then what of the masses, the untutored, or, the conservatives among our leading people?   
[[bold]] America's Own Picture. [[/bold]]
"I know that all American young couples do not-what is that dance, the swung?-perform in public like contortionists locked in an amorous embrace; I know the govenors in the States wear shoes, that visiting statesmen do not shave in public-that all society matrons do not pass out from alcohol at gay functions and have to be carried home. "I know all this, but there are millions here who misunderstand. That is true also, I think, in Germany, in Italy and in the Orient. Such pictures are reporduced for propaganda purposes. The enemies of your country say, "Here is America's own photograph of itself! Are the Americans not immoral and k-r-a-z-y?"
"But you buy the magazine?"
"Ah, yes. Of course, I buy it! It is beautifully printed, it contains much of current interest-it has the punch, the sex appeal?...you say? If you of the States wish to picture your weaknesses, who am I to avert my gaze?"
"But you, as a journalist, must know the good of turning light upon little vices that thrive in the dark? Of airing certain affairs of bad odor?"
[[bold]] Washing Linen In Public. [[/bold]]
"Such journalism, within the borders of your country, may be all for the public good...I cannot say. But when it goes abroad that is another story! Of this, I am sure!"
"Who created the taste for the bizarre in journalism? Did the public educate their publicists or the other way around? 

"Here it was a little of both. Our readers are cosmopolitan, well-informed from many sources, highly partisan to various causes, critical and suspicious of propaganda. We try to strip our news down to facts and let our readers interpret them for themselves.
 "We do not sensationalize crime, divorce, or suicide. That news goes on a back page. We do not play up criminal trials. We have never published a picture of a corpse. If we use a picture of a Governer we think it just as good if he wears shoes.
 "A long time ago-four, or was it five, years?-a wealthy man killed his sweetheart. We obtained photographs of the principals, but we did not publish them. We posted them in our office and informed the readers they could call to view them in private...Only four or five came, yet we recieved hundreds of letters thanking us for not exploiting the photographs!"
[[bold]] One Yellow Journalist Tainted All. [[/bold]]
"From my point of view down here, it seems that one great leader of yellow journalism tainted, if he did not color, all the rest.
 "The rise of the tabloid followed. Readers' appetites became jaded. Why read a love story unless illicit, why read of government unless corrupt, of crime unless violent....why look at a picture of a Governor unless his honor is barefoot, or shaving?"
 "As long as I live, and the men I've helped to teach remain in control of this publication, it will be the cleanest tabloid in the world!"
 College boys here have some odd ideas about the behavior of their northern cousins-so do college girls.  One asked me the other day:
"Do all the girls in America act like Carol Lombard?"
College boys here invited my wife and me to a big formal dance they were throwing.  One of our hosts unobtrusively took me aside and inquired, in his best classroom English:
"Senor Beel, is if for you always on occasions of festivity to sing 'Rambling Wrecks of Georgia Techs?'" (I had tried to teach them the tune, several days previously, on a motor launch cruising the delta.)
 "Always, Senor," I replied, "Always!"
 The college boy gulped.  For a moment he was at a loss for words, then took another, and less direct, tack.  In 10 minutes or so he managed to convey the impression, with-out hinting, that a solo on my part would only confirm the misconception of North Americans entertained by his classmates.  I promised faithfully not to sing a single solo. 
 "And Senor Beel," he went on, "if you wish to dance with the senoritas, we will superintend the introduction.  You will not break the back of the senorita's partner, no?  You will not - what do you say? - cut him, no?"
 "No," I said, "No, no, no! That went out when I was in college - 15 years ago."

Next: Meeting With "Beans."

Transcription Notes:
This page contains two articles written by W. H. Shippen, Jr. transcribed as seen above.