Word: humbug
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...Authors. Princess Radziwill, whose Russian property was of course confiscated during the revolution, is now a naturalized U. S. citizen, and can safely draw the line at being buried by a Bolshevik priest. She also draws the line at the League of Nations ("humbug," "rubbish") but not so safely, because her daughter is an ardent employe of the secretariat. The Princess lives in Manhattan, works for an importer, writes occasional amusing intensities for the press...
...Politicians hand out humbug to the voters-but so does lawyer to jury, doctor to patient, actor to audience, salesman to customer, parson to parish. The politician's condition is that, though human and with himself to care for, he is also the public's servant, subject to idealized standards and extraordinary publicity...
...great grandniece of Benjamin Franklin, who, addressing her fellow Californians before the crucial May Day primary, said: "Smith is the only man who has any human appeal. . . . He is a man. He is open-minded and openhanded. He stirs the affections. He is honest and direct. He is no humbug professing all things and practicing nothing. Vote the humbugs down. Women want real men to represent them in public office...
...Loveday-such was not her "lay." As she explained to a friend (not her mother, who would never have understood), "I'm not a humbug; . . . I say all open and sunny: What I really want is for you to give me a good time. ... In return I'll keep company with you!-literally. . . . They can judge, then, if my company's worth it. What's to prevent them running? . . . It's the same high seas and black flag...
...book is the final all-inclusive footnote on Babbittry, written with a reporter's peculiar genius for marshalling an army of items into significant categories. It must be remembered, however, that a newer school of thought has evidence that Mr. Bab bitt laughs as heartily at his own humbug-Aeries and homilies as does the sophisticate...