Word: litmus
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...fall: "They are the truest interpretation of my philosophy. If anyone understands them, he understands me." In prose so immaculately manicured that only the polish is apparent, Santayana descends to the oblivion of limbo and seeks out his beloved, smooth-talking heroes: Socrates, Democritus, Alcibiades, Dionysius, Aristippus. The litmus with which he tests the worth of their ideas is The Stranger, a visiting earthly spirit who sounds suspiciously like a traveling Harvard professor...
...Litmus of History. Cooper comes to a conclusion that many Americans will find distasteful, and more will dispute: "This too had to be granted, that we were the creatures of the history into which we were born. Had the seventy million Germans been born in America, they would have lived out their lives drinking soda pop. And had our nation of Americans been Germans, Andrew Cooper among them, we would have divided just as inevitably into Gestapomen and victims, a few of us heroes. It was history which exposed or concealed our capacities for brutality, heroism or cowardice. . . . History...
...whistle, Captain Midnight's code ring, a compass ring for Shredded Wheat, a radar ring for Peter Pan Peanut Butter) for the major users of box-top premiums. Latest to come off the top-secret list: a "weather ring" for B. F. Goodrich. (A tiny sheet of litmus paper beneath a plastic lens turns pink in rainy weather, blue in fair...
Since Congress put the pressure on it to boot out Communists, the State Department had filtered 3,000 of its employes through its litmus papers for traces of red. Results by last week: 40 men and women had been fired for having what State called "close connections or involvements with foreign governments...
...from still another source came a big hint that it was high time the President revealed more of what has been decided. Old (78) Arthur Capper, Senator from Kansas since 1918, is famed as the original Congressman who could keep both ears on the ground at once. Always a litmus-paper test of public opinion, Senator Capper now said, in a tone of irritation rare with him: "Let us have some more information −truth if you want to call it that about what was agreed on at Moscow and Teheran...