Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-11-21
THE GOWNSM4N
Consistency

TINtE consistent man Is one who stereotypeS
L all his opinions at twenty and prints for.
ever after from the same plate. To make
any change the metal must be cut. the old
idea Chseled out and the new idea for
clbly inserted. new Judgment can be
effectually entered in his brain onlv bv the
process Of trcphining and with the dangerous
risks attending that operation in surgery
nc IS PROUD that' come what may, he will
not change, that through fair weather or
foul he plods his willful way; and hrs
favorite attitude is that of Ajax defying the
lightning
ITO THE consistent man change of mind
L IS as criminal as change of linen to a
tramp. to be submitted to only under com
puIslon, despite the drest necessity, The
consistent man is shocked at an unfamiliar
thought; he takes cold in n current of fresh
IDEAS lie knows no facts but those of his
own marshaling, and accepts no demonstra
ton; ne bows not until he is beaten to the
earth by the inevitable When this over
takes him. as in the nature OF things it
must, he feels that the laws OF gravitation
nave been shattered and looks for the null
tp"catiNn table to go next. The consistent
man is made of the stuff of martyrs. He
VIII light for an exploded theory and die
Tor an opinion which he can not bring him
sell TO acknowledge was Ill taken. Read just
ment to him Is weakness a confession OF
mistake, the pulling of an eyetooth; COM
pI oHlIse' ueNlce or the devil
CONSISTENCY is n jewel. and to be prized
~ precisely as Jewel, Consistency can be
worn conspcuously like a bauble It can be
paraded like diamonds to declare a greater
power than the next man in wealth. 1t can
be boasted about like an unavoidable inher-
lted tralt, blue eyes, a strong beard or a
hareIip Like jewel, consistency is hard,
angular, conspicuous, most precious to the
possessor and virtually useless Consist
ency closes the hand to aims, the spirit to
growth, the heart to forgiveness. 1t takes
the sweetness and SAVIOR out of life and
leaves that broken reed, a sustaining sense
OF Cne's own superiority and Importance.
FTNHE GoWnsman was shocked the other day
i by a man whose friendship he values, who,
beginning life hopefully, Independently and
unfettered by convention, as every free man
should, has settled into a strange and for
bidding consistency which bids fair to harden
his heartStringS as certainly a similar
physical distemper hardcns the arteries He
has not yet arrived at the state which once
caused Il pious Anglican TO wonder how the
good Lord could ever have created a Metho-
dist: but his decline has already reached the
point at which he fears for the sanity of
those who do not things pretty much
as he sees them; and he processes a plying
contempt for the "weakling" who, growing
out of mistake or error, COnfesses that he
has been wrong.
TTNHE gods of ancient Greece who sat on
l. Mount Olympus used 10 make mistakes
and gracefully acknowledge them. It was
doubtless their human frailties that so en-
deared them to their charming worshipers
their COunterparts on earth. And 1t must
have been the terrible aloofness. the savage
implacabity of the god of Isaac and Jacob
which may account alike for the Old Testa
ment anticipations of the warfare of the Hun
and the unovely auSterites of Puritanism.
The huddled figure of recently mighty
potentate, covering in the corner of a rail-
way carriage where the angle might best
protect him against accidental shot, in
darkness, trepidation and silence-here s
the end of man who. feeding the spirit
of a consistent egotism within him, sent a
world into the horrors and agonies of pillage,
slaughter and misery indescribabe to achieve
consistent ambition to become the all
highest earth. Consistency is selfishness
blindness. infatuation; that way madness lies
Tn THE material which goes to make up
L character. strength will always tell /; how
ever. the NetZschean and Carlyian doctrine
of the superman has been discredited by the
triumph of right over might in this war.
Bismarck who died with more sagacity in
him than the entire recent Imperial German
Council of War could muster collectively, was
oVerpersuaded to the eXpediency of ncor
porating Alsace and Lorraine In the German
empire at the close Of the Franco -Prussan
war. Inexorable superman that he was. he
knew that even the logic of conquest may
be pushed too far and that the rebound must
be calculated In any movement. The strength
of unyielding iron Is not that of resilient
steel, and temper is a quality making for
strength superior to mass We could ask
for a more triumphant example Of this
simple truth than the history of this in
its plan, its conduct and its outcome. 1t
has been in it's essence struggle Of plla-
bility. adaptability, and inspired improvisa-
ton against studious preparation brute logic
and meticulous precision. from the forlorn
valor of the immortal "Contemptibles, the
miraculous delverance of the Marne to the
legerdemain that made an army of 100000
men. professional in its excellence, out of
clerks, mechanics and farmers in the space
of year and sent it fully equipped 1000
miles overseas to victory. Consistency op-
posed the draft consistency opposed sending
our militia that was out Of the country, out
OF the State. And consistency has lately
discovered. in the unusual measures which the
times have imperatively demanded, "a dam
gerous trend toward absolutism."
AIO MANS progress, physically or other
~ wise. can be Enthusiastically, uninterrupt-
edly fortnight Geographically, the mariner
can navigate only on the segments of great
circles. To maintain the theoretical right
line he must leave the earth at tangent
bound for the emptiness of space or plunge
with the submarine beneath the waves until
the mud of the bottom stops him. In the
journey of life there are obstacles conditions,
difficulties, not all to be cut through by the
blows of sword or bludgeon, much less by
the butting human head. And the ultimate
port is not always to be calculated by the
momentary direction. When this terrible up
heaval through which we have lived first
befell Europe there was no prayer more de-
vOut or more rational than that which went
up to high heaven that we might be spared
the horrors of war. Then there came a time
when war was less the question than a rea-
sonable fear lest our honor might be smutch.
ed, our free institutions imperiled. unless we.
too, descended into the dirt and sweat of the
arena an anxious state of mind soon to be
followed by the still greater anxiety that
we might not be driven to enter the world
war a divided nation. Shortly there came
a time when all but to a man we were con-
yinCed that there things mora tarrihIo