On hearing that Mr. George Herman Ruth had signed to accept an annual salary of $5,000 less than the President of the United States a dirty-faced little boy approached the flopping idol as he left the brewery of his employer, Colonel Jacob Ruppert. "Say it ain't true, Babe!. Oh, say it ain't true!" pleaded the little lad in a treble of anguish. The great left-hander bowed his head. He could not meet the accusatory gaze of the little lad. His lips trembled as he tried to frame a reply. Then he dashed the tears from his eyes and hurried away, leaving the little boy slumped across the steps of the brewery, sobbing as though his heart would break. It must be true! The effects of these revelations will become obvious in the very near future. This is a commercial age, and the youth of the land will want to become Presidents instead of Babe Ruths. Of course there will be a few who will retain enough of their boyhood ideas to exclaim, "I would rather be left-handed than President," but the majority will look upon the Babe as an idol with plaster of paris feet. The political outlook for the future is ominous.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "On hearing that Mr. George Herman Ruth had signed to accept an annual salary of $5,000 less than the President of the United States a dirty-faced little boy approached the flopping idol as he left the brewery of his employer, Colonel Jacob Ruppert. "Say it ain't true, Babe!. Oh, say it ain't true!" pleaded the little lad in a treble of anguish. The great left-hander bowed his head. He could not meet the accusatory gaze of the little lad. His lips trembled as he tried to frame a reply. Then he dashed the tears from his eyes and hurried away, leaving the little boy slumped across the steps of the brewery, sobbing as though his heart would break. It must be true! The effects of these revelations will become obvious in the very near future. This is a commercial age, and the youth of the land will want to become Presidents instead of Babe Ruths. Of course there will be a few who will retain enough of their boyhood ideas to exclaim, "I would rather be left-handed than President," but the majority will look upon the Babe as an idol with plaster of paris feet. The political outlook for the future is ominous." in the context of "W. O. McGeehan, waxing ironic in the wake of news that Ruth had dropped his initial demand for two years at $100,000 per, signing instead for three years at $70,000, in "Down the Line: The Babe Cashes In," The New York Tribune (March 4, 1927), p. 22" to mean that wisdom is timeless.