Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-08-24
10, WE HAVE A CALIPH!
But Senator Wares Technique in That
Exalted Role Needs Furnishing Up

TT is getting warm again. This, there
fore, isn't time for the excitement
and the high blood pressure that prop
erly might ensue upon the spectacle of
Senator Ware in the role of All Highest
and as the frank embodiment of mu-
nicipal authority addressing the real es-
tate men Of the city with promises of a
fixed tax rate.
That was an odd spectacle, to be sure.
1t was luminous with strange intima-
tions. It left a beholder with a giddy
sense of uncertainty as to whether we
are going forward in a straight line or
swinging around in a circle-back to
ancient principles.
And yet the thing was incomplete.
There should have been tree for Sena-
tor Ed to sit under-preferabl palm
tree. And there should have been a YER
million das and a bejeweled turban to
be tipped at nonchalant angle upon the
Senator's head. and there should have
been sword bearers and courtiers, war
riors, eXecutioners, slaves, merry vii
layers and awed travellers in vivid hordes
gathered in the Presence. Then had
Citizen Worrell and Citizen Crawford
and the hundreds of their delegation ad-
dressed themselves, not to Senator Ware,
but to the Most Astute High and Low
Ruler of the World, the Keeper of the
Seven Great Virtues and the Protector
of the Poor, we should have been in Bag
Jal ch har in hn
days when justice was done swiftly and
fiercely with gesture of the ruler, be-
fore wars of liberation and the order of
democracy were even dreamed of.
The representatives of the real estate
interests passed by Councils and the
Finance Committee and the Mayor
They proceeded to the Head, quite in the
manner of the Orient. Who will ques-
ton the excellence of their judgment, the
wisdom of their procedure?
So far have we progressed in two thou
sand years.
And yet the Caliphs of Bagdad were
wiser and better qualified than the
Caliph of Philadelphia. That is the dis
tressing part of it. Your Bagdad Caliph
seems, even at this distance, likable old
gentleman who preserved through all his
pomp and ferocity high sense of jus
tice, brave tongue and the humility of
heart that is the last attribute of the
truly great. He wasn't pussyfooter.
He would have been frank and honest
with a delegation of his subjects who
called with supplications relative to a
killing tax rate. If the Caliph of Phila-
delphia wasn't frank or brave it is not
his fault. He didn't become Caliph by
accident. He is sustained in his state
of authority by the suffrage of the multi
tude And he is said to have his good
points.
Perhaps he has. But a good Caliph
shouldn't dodge an issue. If Bagdad of
old had been at war, if the officers of the
guard were hurrying to the shipyards,
if all the institutions of the caliphate
were threatened with confusion and
decay because of lack of funds, if the
palace were threadbare and the ways of
traffic were filling up with the sands of
the desert, the Caliph would recognize the
need of increased revenue or decreased
expenditure in the royal establishment.
If he were a good Caliph and a wise one
he would summon his eXecutioners and
order off the heads of a few thousand
expensive retainers and tell his subjects
to go upon their ways in peace. The
Presence in Philadelphia listened pa
tiently to the arguments of his visitors
and assured them that the tax rate would
not be increased. 1--WE shall leave it,"
said he, in effect, ito Allah. Great is
Allah. But the tax rate will not be
bigger. I'll do my best to have it re-
duced."
The retainers at court will live as easy
as before They will eat as well and
sleep as well as ever and there will be as
many of them as there have always been.
The Caiph will not reduce his train or
his army, though such methods of
economy would have been the first to
suggest themselves to a wiser ruler in
older times. How he shall run his
caliphate with revenues less than now
seem eSScltidi " HidIlllelI IL dI lHe IllUt-
mum of efficiency he didn't even suggest.
How funds that aren't adequate now
shall be adequate in harder times he
didn't say. He didn't promise to cut off
any heads, to eliminate any expensive
offices, though such a course would have
given his people a good example and an
assurance of his sincerity. The delega-
ton, as matter of fact, might have
done as we'll to stay at home.
Caliphs aren't what they used to be.
According to a German report "Hinden-
b,, Arl