Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-02

There Are Sigma n . Crsst Readjustmens
in he Field u Politics

terrific current and hoping, without
much assurance, for safe landings. The
reader who, in another colump, refers to
signs Of . new party in America has
observed correctly enough.
We are likely to see a new party. 1t
may be one of the old ones r~eorganized
and re-established, but it will emerge
sooner or later with a new set OF con-
victions, . new appeal to minds made
alert and critical by the war. 1t is con-
ceivable that Colonel Roosevelt or Mr..
Wilson or some other man sensitive to
the inner spirit of America may lead
such a movement in politics. An ordinary
politician will not do. We have grown
too wise for the ordinary politicians.
day that the old parties are virtually
dead in America, was merely interpreting
in terms Of this country q condition that
he has beer able to observe in France
and in England, where the old political
war cries were silenced long g and
where all familiar issues have been
absorbed or obliterated in the newer
concerns that have originated with the
war.
War has justified the democratic
theory after appalling tests. Free gov
ernments, ordinarily slack, have shown
that they can endure Stupendous shocks.
The war has been a great educator in q
broader sense. 1t has given all sorts Of
people, rich and poor, high and humble,
a new sense of interdspendence. A new
broader vision, a greater enlightenment
than either of the old mes, and a larger
charity. Already we are unconsciously
progressing to calmer and larger views.
There, for instance, was the I. w. w.
trial that has just closed in Chicago.
"Bill" Haywood and his co-defendants
were given greater latitude in the United
States Court, greater freedom of speech,
than they could have had on a street
corner in Philadelphia. Everybody was
allowed to talk in Judge Landis's court.
Everybody talked. Everybody was very
friendly. Conviction at last was not
founded on any Of the imagined deviltries
associated with the name Of the I. W. w.
That scrt of thing did not m~aterialize in
the evidence.
Haywood and his friends were found
guilty of attempts to obstruct the prepar-
atoms for war after this country had
declared war. The case against them
did not rest at last upon prejudice or
hatred, but upon the primal motive Of
self = preservation interpreted by the
Court for the nation. Judge Lands ruled
oftenest in favor Of the defendants. Hay
wood himself was amazed-and perhaps,
in his heart, touched-by the freedom Of
utterance granted him in the court. And
all this was in a time of emotion, Of
war, of sacrifice and perils. 1t was virtu-
ally admitted by the Court that the mis-
guided agitators under Haywood were
not merely perverse-that very real in
justice and cruelty had served to drive
some Of them to excuses.
This incident, eloquent of a new con-
seriousness in America, shows how we are
learning to see more clearly. 1t is dupli-
Gated in a thousand ways, in a thousand
places. We had to 60 to the battlefield
to rid ourselves of old hindrances and
decisions, to find that the English are
just like ourselves.
Your Uncle Samuel is in a process of
enlightenment that is not always pain
less. There was France, for instance. He
liked to think Of France as a hare
Drained lass given to ~fripperiss and late
hours and champagne and, somehow, sus-
p~iciously gay. And he found a being
heroic and tranquil and level-eyed, who
has smiled through four years Of tor
ment and fought on calamity above her
dead.
Such revelations are not SO far re-
moved as they seem to be from the logi-
cal concerns Of a political party. Because
your Uncle Samuel misunderstood many
Of his own people, too!
A wider, frssher knowledge of people
and Of their world will have to color
and temper political parties of the future
to give them understanding of the new
international scheme in which they will
surely have to function, directly or in.
directly.
The men who will decide the d~estinies
of mew political parties are learning
truth in tho trenches and behind the
lines. They will not be content Dith
less than truth. They will demand edu-
cation of a larger sort in politics and
some flavor Of tho sort of service to
,ohich they Themselves we're conseerated.
nnux naEfu xuhaa Il AA.aaa ILL I--