Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1918-01-10
THE LAME LION.

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the direction OF Thomas E. Watson.
This reminds US that any jackass
can back up against a sick lion and
kick.
Mr. Watson committed a grievous
fault, and grievously hath he answered
it. He had lived in war times, in
startling and stirring times, but not in
times like these He could not adjust
himself to the changes which sudden
" swept over our government. He
could not comprehend, with his pre-
else, old-fashioned appreciation of the
strict letter OF the constitution, the
fact that in critical period like the
present the constitution framed by
men who, however wise and patriotic,
could not possibly foresae conditions
such as exist today-must be stretched
to meet the tremendous and most vital
needs of the hour.
1t is true of Mr.. Watson's case, as
Pompey observed to scyila, that more
men worship the rising than the set
ting sun. The very ones who were
most wont to bask in the effulgence Of
his light when he was in the hey-day
of his power are now chief among
those who scornfully berate and re-
vile him. Paraphrasing Brutus, we
would rather be dog, and bayrat the
moon, than such an editor
Intellectually. Thomas E. Watson is
the PEER of any man produced by the
South-or the North, too, for thet MAJ
tern the last quarter OF century
There is no historical writer living to-
day who is his equal. There are few
mon. on this continent or any other
who possess his facility and fluency
with the pen. There is no more bril-
liant essayist. There is certainly no
better-read man in this country There
are few scholars more profound There
are few Georgia lawyers with his abil-
ity There are few more eloquent
public speakers. There are few who
can attain his craftsmanship grasp of
public affairs There are few with
more political acumen. And, alas,
3~taw. 50 gifted,
with o. ii magnificent and conspicu-
Gus powers, few so versatile, who have
so ignobly perverted their wonderful
talents!
Watson went wrong He did not
understand, until too late, the spirit
Of the times He permitted his preju-
dices and his passions to sway his
judgment. He did not realize that It
was a condition tLat confronted us
not a theory. He did not perceive
that the Washingtonian dignity, and
the Jeffersonian simplicity, and the
Jacksonian vulgarity, and the Harri-
sonian stupidity, and the Rooseveltian
pomposity, all belonged to another era,
and that, instead of a Wilsonian indi-
viduality, the United States govern
ment of today, in its entity, has practi-
cally Invested presidential personality,
as much as possible, and is more ma
tional in its scope and functions, re-
sponsive to and typical of the will of
the people His enmity toward the
President caused him to overreach
his mark-when he aimed at the indi-
vidual, he hit the nation instead-he
assaulted the foundations of the re-
public. But with all his wild endeay-
ors he failed to weaken the pillars
OF the temple his exertions were
such as to break his own back.
And there he is today the giant of
former days, now bed-ridden, as it
were-sixty-two years Of age, the best
years of his life behind him. if not al
most all of them gone; his enemies
exultant, his friends few and fading.
Someone has said that Babylon in all
its desolation is a sight not so awful
as that of the human mind in ruins,
but there is no spectacle more ap-
palling, more pitiable, more pathetic,
than that of majestic. towering in
tellect humbled in the dust We can