Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-06-03
WHY WASHINGTON IS BLUE
One Part Of the Country That ls Per.
petualiy Against Everything
BY BART HALEY
Washington, June 3.

|
resignation. That is how the dominant
| groups OF senator's, congressman, secretaries
dlplomatists, politicians, lobbyists and muck
rakers accept all things-night and morning
winter and summer, Senator Sherman's
| speeches, Mr.. Lodges egotism, Mr.. Pen
| roses cryptic humor. Mr.. Tumulty's
| jokes, President Wilson's masterfu man
ner. Washington opinion is influenced by
politically minded transient population
| gathered from the four quarters of the earth,
| and politicians are never satisfied.
Washington is a victim of it's own iso-
lation. 1t cultivates introspection as an all
! the year round diversion. 1t tells you
| proudly that 1t has no delusions. The rest
of the country will Judge President for his
way of thinking Washington will judge
him by the persons he asks to dinner. Those
who are not asked to dinner by the Presi
dcnt-and they are innumerable-are con
vinced that the country is far gone in polti-
cal decadence and that the democratic form
of government is a failure. Mr.. Wilson
dimes alone.
OFFICIAL Washington is almost invari-
~ ably against an administration. In the
days of Roosevelt it thanked God for Pen
rose In the days of Taft it thanked God
for Roosevelt. Now it is thanking God for
Lodge, of Massachusetts,.
Washington, unlike the rest of the coun-
try, knows that Mr.. Wilson likes the movies
1t has seen him laugh at vaudeville show.
1t can tell you what he has for breakfast
when he is at home. 1t refuses to accept
him as a demigod and it refuses to view him
even as an able President because it insists
on maintaining an air of superior wisdom.
The nations of the earth and the dwelers
upon land and sea may yet acclaim Mr.
Wilson as a prophet and great statesman.
Washington will still be convinced that the
nations of the earth and the dwellers upon,
land and sea have an appalling shock coming
to them.
MIR. TAFT, for example. had Ford
A'A limousine-a new, shiny Ford limousine
in which he went about Washington in
perfect content, regretting not at all the
magnificent equipages of his White House
days. A thief stole it and all Washington
grtvcd. Had Mr.. Taft suffered such a mis-
fortune while he was President, official
Washington would have said tartly that he
got what he deserved. Why Mr.. Taft might
have deserved to lose his limousine no one
would have been able to say. Every one
would have felt instinCtively that he de-
served to lose, it.
There are times when it appears that
every politician at Washington resents the
presence of another man in the White
House because of a secret conviction that
he himself should be living there, honored
of men. The fact remains that it is only
after you are out of Office far descended
from glory that Washington can take
friendly interest in you.
Uncle Joe Cannon. when he was a power
in the speakers chair was a constant in
citement to the cynics. They used to say
that Uncle Joe proved the danger and the
futiity of our political system. They called
him Car Cannon. They made his name a
symbol of reaction and they called Uncle Joe
danger to American institutions. Now
Uncle Joe is growing older each day and
he is powerful no longer. He does not even
Move with the influential groups of the
House. And Washington says that he is a
great man who never was appreciated by
his countrymen.
60 IT will be in Washington with the
~ President and with any other man who
holds an important Office and so it will be
with any great work of any such man. The
politicians and statesmen who crowd the
Capitol form an isolated group which is too
close to the great facts to see them clearly 4
But the saving element in the situation is
the influence of the busy outside world,
which is felt unerringly in the Senate, in
ernment. Washington knows every morn
ing how they are thinking in Oshkosh, in
the prairie country, in the industrial areas
of the East in New York, in the Far West,
in the Mississippi Valley. 1t never agrees
entirely with the country. 1t feels assured
that the country is in many ways deuded-
but it does the countrys bidding with an
air of sad resignation.
THE Presidents visit to Europe was
L great trial to Washington The ruling
groups refused to believe their ears when
they were told that Mr.. Wilson intended to
go to Paris. What could he do at Paris?
What was the man thinking of? The coun-
try might suppose that Mr. Wilson could
influence opinion the other side but
Washington knew better. Hadn't it seen
the President at the movies, and didn't it
know where he bought his ties, and hadn't
it seen him walking on Pennsylvania avenue
just like any other man?
When Europe began to shout for the
President and accept him as deiyerer
Washington was convinced that some
monstrous mistake was being made Mr..
Wilson was not even a politician. He was
a schoolmaster
There are senators who still feel that thew
could have supplied the key TO the puzzle of !
Europe if the other nations had not been too
stupid to invite them over. Had senators
gone instead of the President to attend the
conference Washington would still have
been dissatisfied. The senators who re-
mained behind would surely have suggested
that it was the Presidents duty to 90. But
after he went they felt that grievous mis-
take made when Mr.. Wilson did NOT
send flock of senators to Paris.
WHEN il is remembered that Washington
w has been left in almost complete
ignorance of the terms of the peace treaty.