Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-08-19
THE TIDE IS RISING
Men Like Senator Callinger Serve to Show
How Far Up the Beach II Can Go
In N S;pole Generation

II
MEN like the late Senator Gallinger
AVA are useful in their old age because
they are like rocks off shore by which we
mark the progress of the rising tide.
The world does not stand still. The
progressives of one generation are the
conservatives of the next. They are de-
nounced by the old men as radicals and
in few years they are condemned by
the young men as stand-patters. But in
spite of it they have served their genera
ton and served it we'll
Senator Lodge was a hot-headed en-
thusiast in his youth. He is one of the
balance wheels of Congress today, pre-
venting by his opposition and wise coun-
Gil the younger men from moving too
fast. Joe Cannon is the representative
of point of view which is rapidly pass
ing. Even Mr.. Bryan, who was radical
of the radicals in his thirties, is not
moving fast enough now to satisfy the
young men. The political theories and
practices of the late Senator Quay are
condemned where they were once held up
to admiration as the practices and theo-
ries best fitted to the state of the times.
When 1ce are pessimistic it is aceu to
take long look backward, that Ve mag
discorer hoU high the tide Of human
progress has risen and holU far out to
sea are the rocky peaks of the former
leaders. Go back to the Civil War times,
for example, and consider what Lincoln
did and compare it with what Wilson is
doing, and then you can get some idea of
the changes that have taken place in
American political methods. Mr.. Wilson
is denounced because he plays politics,
but the most serious offense of which
Mr.. Wilson has been guilty, in giving
preference to Democrats and in seeking
to secure Democratic success at the polls
is trivial in comparison with the common
practices of Lincoln. The great Hi
noisan unblushingly used patronage to
buy the support of Congress for his
plans. If he found a man opposing him
he concliated him by appointing his
friends to office. And this was in the
days before the civil service reformers
had begun to condemn the spoils system.
Lincoln merely used the weapons at
hand for winning his fights. His methods
were regarded as legitimate. But ne had
not been dead ten years before the abuses
of the spoils system impressed them
selves upon idealistic young men and
thew began an agitation for reform.
| And conditions are mucn better today
than the dreamers Of the last quarter of
the last century imagined they would
ever be.
And the fact that ,ve are not content
even now is the most avholesome sign Of
the times.
The radicals of the present decade will
be the conservatives of 1910 and the sons
of their friends will be denouncing them
as stand-patters and old fogies and be-
hind the times, just as Senator Galllnger
was condemned during the later years Of
his life.
But if one wishes to be thrilled with a
vision of progress one has only to look
back at the emotions aroused in the
world by the ambitions of Napoleon and
compare them with the emotions which
we all experience at tne contemplation VI
the German methods and plans. Napo-
leon was resisted on purely selfish
grounds. He was trying to do on great
scale what the leaders of other nations
had been trying for years to do on
smaller scale. But Germany is con-
fronted by group of nations fighting
for an ideal 1t is not conquest and do
minion that they seek, but freedom fol-
all. The demand that the rights of little
nations be respected is but the extension
into international relations of the idea
of democracy, which is based on the
equality of rights of the individual The
tide has risen so far since the defeat OF
Napoleon that if the spot achcre he stood
acere not marked by buoy no one uoulc
knoac hotO far out to sec 1t t0as.
As to Senator Gallinger. he is dead
Peace be to his ashes. He served hi!
, generation to the best of his lights. L
D his successors do as we'll they need asl
: for no higher praise.