Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-03-16

where in the high places to the eyes Of a
dazed but still appreciative world.
Governor Brumbaugh and the personal
diary from which he is to read presum-
ably crushing records of his intercourse
with State Senator Sproul are dimly
reminiscent of the tumultuous Bolsheviki
roaring in the Foreign Office at Petro-
grad and Haunting the secret treaties of
the old government in the light Of day.
He began well. If Senator Sproul did
embellish with rasping "damn!" the
cause of prohibition, for which he is now
flag-waver-in-chief, we will welcome
prsof Of it. The incident has bright
significance. The Senator would seem to
be man of painfully limited vocabulary.
No one will pity him in this black hour
of his showing up.
But the literary art as it is applied in
diaries is a curiously revealing thing.
Diaries are test of personality. They
are a temptation. They are the Past,
refusing to go away. They are twilight
shelter for multitude Of ghosts, dead
things that turn and stir and lift troubled
faces and pluck you by the elbow when
the pages of their resting place are
turned.
Governor Brumbaugh has promised US
some divertng days in opening his Lit
tie Black Book to the world. For cheers
will greet the appearance Of that odd
bibelot only if it be opened wide, like the
gates of the morning or the road to
Petrograd.
The awed crowds that foregather to
hear just what the Governor said to
Senator Sproul when the Senator tossed
off that naughty word about prohibition
will listen intently for the chief revela-
tions-for the passages in the Little
Black Book which must be written some
where to reveal the origin of that curious
ingenuousness which has afflicted Mr..
Brumbaugh ever since he went to Har-
risburg as Governor. And there will be
multitudes waiting for the chapters and
records of those lyric afternoons when
Mr.. Brumbaugh had his trousers pressed
three times in quick succession at the
expense of the State. When Mr.. Brum-
baugh declaims from his diary at this
point he may set his stuff to music or he
may even sing it without any suggestion
of unseemlness. They must have been
wonderful afternoons, filled with peace
and the assurances of well-being.
Did Mr.. Brumbaugh, with the natural
disposition for words and their effective
employment, manage to fight the tempta-
tions Of the sonnet form when he wrote
in the Little Black Book of those chauf-
feurs whose beauty of soul and charms
of manner caused him to endow them
with S5 tips from the contingent fund of
his office? We shall see, we shall see.
No one has ever been able to learn what
the Governor actually thought or felt in
bub that attended the general disclosures
last year.
There are pages of the Little Black
Book surely in which the name of Will
liam H. Smith, former State Banking
Commissioner, figures large. When Mr..
Brumbaugh reads that part of his diary
from the stump he will be listened to
eagerly. What was the light that broke
upon the Governor when, after Mr.. Smith
had announced his determination to keep
his department clean of politics, Mr..
Brumbaugh told him he loved him like
brother and asked the next day for his
resignation? The Little Black Book
should tell that, too. What discouraged
and depressed DR.. Samuel G. Dixon in
the last days of his life when, after
long and admirable administration of the
State Department of Health, he was
crowded and mysteriously harassed until
rumors Of his resignation became gen
eral? And the check for $1,000 sent by
Senator George T. Oliver, cashed by Mr..
Brumbaugh and never satisfactorily
explained? Will the Governor read the
complete narrative from the pages of his
Little Black Book?
One thing can be said for the Boil
sheviki: when they start thing they
finish it. Their imitators cannot afford
to do less. A cheerful summer should be
in prospect, therefore, for all those who
can find time to listen to stumping
Governor.