FOR AND AGAINST

I do not know if we have paid all the attention that was necessary to the assassination of the American consul in Teheran. Since the event occurred in Persia, and since in truth we feel quite distant from Persia, in spite of our Persian balls, our Persian festivals and our Montmartro-Persian fashions, we have overlooked it, if I may say so, and thought of something else... First of all, we have enough indigenous murders at home to not need foreign imports... However, the crime in Teheran calls for some comments. It is, in fact, a religious crime. It is an additional episode in the old war of religions. A fanatic killed a heretic... That's it...

We know that the American consul, who represented, in Tehran, error, impiety, "new ideas", had imprudently thrown down a real challenge to the honest Persian population, whose convictions remain so respectable. He had dared to exhibit in public a witchcraft device as mysterious as it was diabolical. A very small camera!

With this terrible instrument, which constitutes a shameless insult to Persian beliefs, he had finally had the irremediable audacity to photograph a fountain. A fountain which, as luck would have it, was sacred!... It did not take more, we will agree, to arm the avenging arm of a faithful Persian... The American consul is dead...

We believe very much in progress, in the propagation of modern ideas. There are everywhere, throughout the world, express trains, palaces, scholars and free writers... There are everywhere, throughout the world, the telegraph, the telephone, wireless telephony and the dance hall. And we remember having often met on the racecourses a young gentleman as Parisian as he was informed: the Shah of Persia... Certainly, the young Shah was not offended by photography, nor by the automobile, nor by aviation, nor by the fashions of the Rue de la Paix, nor by the operettas of Mr. Maurice Yvain... The young Shah is a prince on the train...

Yes... All the same, in Teheran, capital of Persia and of sweet Persian tales; in Teheran, where there are such beautiful legends, such beautiful carpets and such sweet essences of rose; In Tehran, a small "vest pocket" is still considered the supreme abomination, and the "roumi" who dares to use a camera still risks being sent to Mohammed...

Progress?... A speck of dust on the world's crust...

MAURICE PRAX.