The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-04-26
FROM OTHER PENS
THE ABANDONED ro1rRTH


The safe and sane" Fourth of July
| committee, which has served notice
that there will be no celebration of the
national holiday at the national capi-
tai this year unless sufficient funds
come in unsolicited, virtually marks
the abandonment of the program
adopted three or four years ago. The
announcement conveys the idea that
the spirit of '76 is on the down grade
in this community, but the apathy of
the public is susceptible of another
explanation.
A Fourth of July celebration pro-
gram that denies Young America a
large hand in its preparation and exc
cutlon can never strike the popular
chord in either youth or maturity. The
committee made a sad mistake in ar
ranging for patriotic demonstration
the ruling idea of which was to tie
the young folks hands behind them
and fntrust every detail to the elder
patriots. The events of the day were
staged and carried out with a display
OF s9demnlty more suggestive of a me
morlal service than an exhibition of
national feeling. The fireworks, the
principal feature, was really a fine
spectacle of its kind, but it differed
in no particular from the conventional
display, and being confined to a sin
gle spot, it suffered by comparison
with the thousand and one Individual
displays distributed over the entire
city and participated in by tens of
thousands of people, big and little.
The ''safe and sane Fourth as un-
derstood in Washington failed to
please, because it smothered the spirit
1t was purposed to cultivate. Natural
ly, and reasonably, the people fell
away from it. The committee grfeves
for community so lacking in appre-
give. them something better than the
noisy Fourth, with it's mishaps and
ginger, but it is not too late, we make
bold to say, to discard the "safe and
American into confidence and consid-
Grafton, and make an appeal for sun
port on the basis of general participa-
ton, with every hope of success
Washington Post.
THE FOLK OF STATUTORY FADs.
II some person with patience and the
trouble of gathering together ali Of the
foolish and t1npractcable bills that have
been offered in the legislatures of the
various states this year, he would have
a collection of freakish things not to be
equaled outside the walls of a dime
museum. And the part about II that is
not at all humorous is that a certain
portion of these bills have passed and in
the governors of the states and thus
found their ways into the statutes There
has .t always been more or less of this sort
of thing. but this year the rage for fad
dish legislative enactments seems to have
reached high water mark. SO that WELL
persons will be disposed to heave
a sigh of relief when the legislators fin
ally adjourn and return to their homes.
Governor Foss, OF Massachusetts, has
just vetoed a bill which prohibits the use
of the common drinking cup in public
places. He says, rather dryIy, that the
" lxed paper cups which are supposed to
take the place of the common drinking
cups. frequently pass from mouth to
mouth in railroad trains. that the pur-
pose of tie legislation is defeated. Now
the general drinking cup may OF may not
be a desirable thing but how in the world
DO these statesmen expect to make people
particular or sanitary by processes OF
law. In other words this sort of a bill.
while commendabIe in itself is but an
other indication of the tendency to treat
The citizen as though he were helpless
child. without the desire or the power to
ook after his personal affairs. It
parentalism carried to excess. If it con-
-inues we may look for laws directing
each member of the family to clean his or
1er teeth before leaving the house in the
morning. And If this. why not regula-
ion calling on the small boy to wash his
ACE and comb his hair on going to school?
These things may sound ridiculous, but
hey are not whit more so than some
If the laws that are actually put on the
statute books of some OF the states.-
Bulletin