New-York tribune., 1919-11-18
Repentant Radicals

Repentant Radicals
The commonest spectacle just now
ls the repentant radical, returned
like a prodigal to the ways of his
forefathers, and wondering, if he is
honest with himself, just what has
happened. Has he lost his enthu-
siasm and courage and become pur-
blind and bedridden, psychically
speaking? Or has the world gone
mad, and is he Simply maintaining
his sanity against a food of new
and strange heresy? One such spe~
ulator writes in The Atlantic Month";
IL, with that engaging candor which
seems to flourish in the anonymity
OF the Contributors Club. What
did not this writer applaud in the
old RED" days Socialism had its
beautles-cven anarchy with the
dynamite extracted). Blithe denun-
Citations and clear-cut theories
reigned supreme.
And now what has happened? The
walls of the old faith are falling in
like house of cards. Bolshevism
appears to be cruelty and selfish.
ness, a scheme too simple foy. the
complexities of human nature Sup
pose you do take away from him
that hath and give to him that hath
not, how much further along are
you? And so on. Even hateful,
Capital takes on conceivable merits,
and even noble and admirable Labor
(alasD is seen to be sometimes
selfish and unreasonable
1t is an exceptional person who
has not gone through some Of this
reaction from radicalism in the last
few years and months. Some have
been carried further than others;
but the tide has affected all. What,
queries the writer in The atlantic
! Monthly, is the cause?
Is it age or the WEAKNESS produced
by the anxious years of the war?
Or is it that, when it comes to the
real test, l am afraid of the new, of
the untried? Am /, after all, only a
conservator of the past, one of those
obstructionists who are the despair
OF the young reformer?
II try to stiffen my faith in my
self by saying that not every change
is progress, and that restessness is
not necessarily aspiration. But why
should l not frankly acknowledge
that l am middle aged, and that my
reaction is a biological necessity? Or
must l agree with the unfaltering ex-
tremist, whom neither life nor ex-
perience changes, that I was never
anything but parlor radical?"
The youth and old age hypoth-
esis is the simplest and most con-
venient answer. Under it the prog
ress of the world is neat, even
uprising curve; and the Individual,
start him where you will in his per-
ambulation, above, abreast of or be-
low the world as it then is, soon be-
gins to curve sharply downward in
evitably crosses the curve of prog
ress by middle age, and ends in the
cellar of conservative opposition
to all change. This is too conven-
lent to be true, unfortunately. There
are old radicals, just as there are
young radicals; and sweet and sour
in both classes. Evidently there are
individual causes that play hob with
whatever general influence years
have to dim ones mental adven-
turousness.
Also there is the unmistakable fact
Of history, even radical history, that
the curve of world progress is far
from the even thing postulated
above. In the time of the French
Revolution, let us say, that curve, if
recorded on social seismograph.
would show wild swoops and joggles
guaranteed to break the heart Of any
theorlst. Are we individuals change
able and f1ighty by comparison with
the world at large, with the general
stream of joint progress? A very
good case can be made out to show
in behalf of most Of us that it is
the wild old world that wabbles, not
We 1t is not that the world, moving
on, overtakes the radicalism Of our
youth. The worlds progress moves
IN no such sure and steady fashion.
Rather, in this theory, is it like a
giant pushball that first radicals,
then conservatives, push this way,
then that-and at times hold in one
spot by even pressure on opposite
sides. Or going back to the graphic