The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-08-16
From The Nation.

."HOSE who deplore the lamentable
 ignorance of the Bible In our day
 X will find fresh cause for dejec- tion in the fate that has befallen a Biblical allusion by the chairman of the progressive national committee, Victor Murdock of Kansas. In statement positively guaranteeing that his party will be in the field next year, he saId that the progressive platform had be- come "the ark of the covenant" to hun dreds of thousands of aggressive Americans" and added that there is not township anywhere without its group of - devoted wholly and solely to its preservation" The word we have left blank Is variously printed in the newspapers. One of them timidly gives it as "gittities" Others boldly take the plunge and make it "Hittites.v This last must seem to Kansas progressives. who know their Bible so well, not only ludicrous but insulting. For the Hit titles were, along with the Amorites and Canaanites, driven out by pious 1sreal. Andrew Lang said of the de- funct London Academy that 1t was too much occupied with Obscure contro- versies about the Hittites." Such con troversies are unknown in Kansas There people bred on the Old Testa- ment understand perfectly that the Hit titles are name of reproach, and the idea that Victor Murdock could apply it to his beloved progressives must seem deliciously absurd.
 But the "gittites' that got by the proofroom of one newspaper-who are they? The word was perhaps passed as good Kansas slang-somthing like git thar" Alas for the lack of a Bible or. at least a, Concordance! Every Sunday school child in Kansas could at once turn to II Samuel. vi, Il, where we read: And the ark of the Lord con- tinued in the house of Obed- edom the Gittite three months; and the Lord blessed Obed -edom and all his house. hold" It is that kind of Gittites who are now to be found in every Ameri- can township, according to Victor Mur- dock The only wonder is that while discoursing about the progressive ark. he did not point out the danger of lay ing an unauthorized hand upon 1t. In Kansas. at least. they would have un- derstood him if he had referred to the fate of Uzzah. who sought to steady the ark, but was smitten for his presump- ton. and "there he died by the ark
 A good many progressives are appar- ently in fear of similar punishment If they stay too close to the ark of their party. At all events. they are quitting it with suspicious haste and in an em- phatic manner. In New Jersey. on Sat urday of last week, there was a meeting of the progressive state committee. The first order of business was the read ing of letters of resignation from four | members of the committee. One of them was from the redoubtable George L. Record, who wrote that he had rejoined the republican party as now the best means of securing the triumph of pro- gressive ideas. However this may be, the New Jersey opinion of MT. Record s astuteness Is such that his defection is
 taken as sure proof that he sees nc
 chance for the triumph of ideas, or of anything else. in the keeping alive of
 the progressive party. Ex-Senator Col
 by, it is true, affirmed that it would not disband in New Jersey, but 1t il
 plain that 1t is already largely dis only waiting the signal to go to one
 or the other of the old parties. An other progressive, Colby, the resent can- didate for United States senator from
 New York. Is giving his former asso. ciates some amazed thinking to do He speaks in high praise of Senator Root
 whose programme for the constitutions
 convention, as Bainbridge Colby under stands 1t. smacks of the purest progres. sivism. On top of this come reports from Michigan that the progressivei
 of that state are strongly in favor ol
 nominating MT. Root for the presi.
 dency! Do we sleep. do we dream?
 Over the spirit Of the progressive
 dream a great change is evidently com
 ing. It Is shown by the various indica tions we have noted from time to time
 1t Is also shown by both the tone ant the substance of the national chair mans manifesto. He assumes. to b, sure. a fighting posture If Victor Mur dock assumed any other. we shoult
 think he ought to be consulting hi'
 physician. He Is nothing if not bellis
 erent. T am ready to say fiat-footedl!
 that we progressives are going into tn, 1916 fight as a party and to win" Bu his explanations follow. and they ar' fatal For MT. Murdock tells us tha the great battles" of next year will be. not over candidates. but over plat forms. If that Is SO. the heart will q once be taken out of the proEressiv party as 1t existed in 1912. There wal then, of course, lot of talk about th' platform, but the real thing. the onl, thing that counted. was the leader
 Never was there clearer evidence of tn, Idcminance of personality. The colone lcould have written any platform h,
 nlsaGed; .hie obseaaed~ followsrs would