Mr. Taft’s Advice

From The Topeka State Journal, April 6, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

“Don’t marry scrubs,” says Mr. Taft, and makes a subtle pause,
So all the rapt and listening maids can ripple their applause.
Indeed, ’tis sage and sound advice, for once a wedded wife,
A girl who’s married to a scrub will lead an awful life.
A scrub will loaf, a scrub will booze, he’ll gamble if it please him;
But how, pray tell us, is a girl to know one when she sees him?
A chesty fellow comes along, with manners like John Drew;
A knitted tie and green silk socks and eyes of lovely blue.
He looks the goods from heel to hair—a regular high life swell;
He might well be a Claude Melnotte, but how’s a girl to tell?
It means an awful lot to her, for if she is mistaken
She’ll be the one to suffer when he can’t bring home the bacon.
Another knock-kneed, seedy guy, who drives a grocery cart
May have beneath his battered vest a fourteen-karat heart.