Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-10-15
YOU CAN'T BEAT WHEELS

INABILITY to travel meant that people
stayed home. Staying at home meant
serfdom. serfdom meant encouragement
TO Inventive talent. Discouraged inven.
tion meant continued inability to travel.
And the man who was bound TO the land
was bound to the landlord.
Wheels will free any one who wants 10
be free. When Peter the Great opened
his window on Europe he opened the door
TO Russian revolution. When Nicholas
signed the order for the Moscow.Petro.
grad railway he signed the abdication of
Nicholas H.
When the British Tories founded an
empire they destroyed Toryism at home.
For the people Of England could travel to
the ends of the world and be free so they
had to be given more freedom at home to
keep them there.
The States of the West compete with
each other and with Canada for inhabi-
NdhASs llNy NOlHptlG ny OllbllllS IlOlt
freedom than their neighbors Come
live here" they say; I'VE will give you
workmen's. compensation, initiative and
referendum, mothers pensions, equitable
taxes, woman suffrage, progressive Re.
publicanism, progressive Democracy
anything you like, only come; and ask for
what you don't see"
Cities compete. New York wants to
spread out over all western Long Island.
1t knows that people can get into rail-
road train in the twinkling of an eye and
put 5000 miles between themselves and
Tammany. Wheels can do the same for
any one who wants to get away from
government by murder. No one has to
stand for the Wares or for McNichol or
for Judge Hylan and Charlie Murphy.
North and South call to liberty.lovers and
man." said Horace Greeley Go North, GO
South, as we'll as West" cry the new
prophets. Wilmington, now waging
gas fight, with labor demanding reform
and progress, beckons from one direction,
calling for inhabitants. More inhab.
itants." demand Rochester, Bridgeport,
Detroit, from other directions And al
ways, hand in hand with this call, goes
the fight for civic reform at home. Let
us make the town clean for the
strangers."
Wheels will bring us the 1000 900
people we should have, but wheels can
also take away many Of the 1,75O 900 we
have now Wanted, the moment the war
ends: A million men, engineers, archi-
fects, chemists, teachers, doctors, to re-
construct Europe, to fill gaps in Austria
and progress, but needing men. The
whole world will call to every graduating
class of the University of Pennsylvania;
II will be able to absorb every one of
them. The graduates will not need to
settle down under the Vare-Smiths and
Penrose- -McNichols. VIII not? They need
not now. Two thousand OF them are out
Of town on war work, in Europe, every
where. VIII they come back? Why
should they. unless we give them some
thing to come back for?
Six years ago a group of forrner Phila-
delphians were sitting around table in
New York restaurant late one night.
One Of them watched ticker. Boys, the
old towns elected Blankenburg!" I'm
possiblel" mo. it's true" OF those half
dozen former Philadelphians four left
New York and returned to work in their
native city within the next year.
You cannot beat wheels. Wheels VIII
make or unmake us before we know
where we are.
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