Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-11-06
SCRATCH AN AMERICAN:
YOU'LL FIND A PATRIOT
Election Results Encourage Those Who
Have Confidence in the Voters
Rather Than the Friends OF
Presidential csHd ddates


Presidential csId idates
AS MANY things can happen in eight
a months, it is prudent to husband
prophecy about what the Republican ma
tional convention will do next summer, in
spite Of the temptation to make forecasts
based on the result Of Tuesday, election.
One thing, however, is certain. Gov
ernor Calvin Coolidge, of Massachusetts,
has become national figure. He met
the issue of radicalism and riot fairly
and squarely without finching. What
ever the result might be, he was deter
mined to stand for law and order and for
the supremacy Of the regularly constl-
tuted government over any organization,
labor or otherwise, which sought to set
itself up as supreme. He stood for the
American idea of democracy, which is
government by the majority of all the
people and not government by class.
Involved in this is support of the gov
einment which the majority has set up.
Some weak-lneed people were afraid
Of the outcome because they believed
that there was a "labor" vote, in diStinc-
tion from a vote by free American citi-
zens. They knew that two-thrds of the
population Of Massachusetts is made up
of foreign born and citizens born of for
eign-born parents, and that only one
third was born of long-standing native
stock. They knew also that Massachu
! sets is manufacturing state with tens
| of thousands of members of labor unions.
The combination of labor men and the
unassimilated foreigners was supposed to
be tinctured with extreme radicalsm and
in sympathy with the ideas of the men
who organized the strike of the Boston
policemen. The Democratic candidate
acted on this supposition. He appealed
with the arts of an INSCRIPTIONS dema-
| gogue to class hatred and race hatred.
But the result has proved that the fire
under the melting pot had been lighted
long ago and that the population had
been fused into a solid mass of Ameri
cans. The voters have rebuked demagogy
and rejected its councils so emphatically
that it will be long time before any one
! in Massachusetts again makes the kind
of appeal which was addressed to the
voters by Mr. Long, the defeated Demo-
cratic candidate.
President Wilson's telegram OF con-
| graduation to Governor Coolidge tells
Long where he gets off. Long is repu-
dated by the national head of his own
| party and Coolidge is held up to view as
the champion of law and order, an issue
on which, as the President well says,
call Americans stand together
| The issue was not whether Governor
| Coolidge was right, but whether Massa-
chusetts had so far forgotten the funda-
| mentals of Amercanism that she would
reject man who had upheld them in
spite of popular clamor 1t is reassuring
to every one with confidence in the sound
ness of the thinking of the American
electorate that a state with so varied a
population, a population so typical of
what makes up America, has sustained a
man whose loyalty to the right as God
gave him to see it resembles that of Lin
coin in the grave crisis when the slave
holders sought to fasten class govern
ment upon the country.
When the issue was raised there was a
man at hand ready to face it and to do the
right thing. This gives US confidence in
what has been will be- and that neither
bolshevism nor class tyranny can ever
get foothold here.
Whether Coolidge is seriously consid-
cred for the presidency will depend on
the developments of the next few months
If the arrogance of the labor leaders is
not abated and they continue to seek to
dictate to the government what it may
or may not do, then the nation is likely
to demand the nomination of some one
who has the courage to face the labor
bosses and denounce them and their
plans.
It was because Rutherford B. Hayes
fought the greenback craze in Ohio that
he was nominated for the presidency in
1876. He was sound on an issue that
was deluding many fiabby thinkers and
was in danger of spreading unless sum,
mariIy checked.
History may repeat itself and the de
mand for the nomination of Coolidge may
be irresistible, but that is still on the laI
Of the gods,
The results in other parts of the coun
try are only less significant than in Mas
sachusetts. They indicate that bossisn
and demagogy cannot triumph when th'
voters are aroused. In New York, wher,
Tammany gave a judgeship nomination
to a young and inexperienced lawyer a
rebuke to faithful judge whose tern
had expired, the voters have reelected
the faithful judge and rebuked the boss
The Judge was a Democrat, but he wa
indorsed by the Republicans and sup
ported by the leading men of the bar
regardless of party.
The great city, with its large foreign
born population, will not tolerate the in
! lection of politics into the courts, prov
ing, as in Massachusetts, that the fire ha
been burning under the melting pot an
, fusing all elements into solid Ameri
can mass,
panuhlican will succeed a nannocra