The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1919-11-03
Boersianer's
Comment
on Business
Nv BocrsiaBer.

In "a Traveller from Altruria-" Will
liam Dean Howells-who has social
istic propensities-notes America has
gone through three stages OF hero
worship.
The first hero was the statesman.
1t was a cult which endured down TO
the civil war, and its final embrace
ments included Webster, Calhoun and
Clay. Then came the military men:
Grant and Sherman, Hancock and Sher-
idan, Halleck. Logan and others After
them the money magnates; the van
derbilts, the Astors, the Morgans
and the Rockefellers.
When Mr.. Howells wrote the OBJ
Iservation-in the nineties-he left the
sad inference that wealth had been
definitely cannonized, that Croesus
would be abidingly the nations ideal
or idol.
Americas leading litterateur was
mistaken. The fetichism which be-
gan in the early eighties is rapidly
waning, having been shorter lived
than it's predecessors. Especially in
the last ten years has the dollar
prince lost caste. Wealth, insolent
for some years, is no longer even
, arrogant. 1t is nervously concilia-
tory. Its device has changed from
Itch DeaP' ito Itch Diem" the slogan,
today, Of every big man and big
corporation is service.
No Class Prevalence.
The humility has not come about
voluntarily. None is more tenacious
| of vantage than the purse-proud.
That subtle yet omnipotent thing
commonly called public sentiment de-
thrones idols, sometimes slowly but
ALWAYS surely. No class may prevail
enduringly in the United States
The reason is, as Mr.. William Ran
dolph Hearst has pointed out, the
citizens of this country are over
| VIII lmingly middle class. One per
cent represents the radicals. one per
cent, perhaps. the plutocrats. Be
tween these wide and tenuous ex-
| tremes is a ninety-eight per cent
bourgeoise citizenry, which is in
elusive of the so-called laborers,
when they are not temporarily mis-
led by extremists.
Ninety-eight per cent are prosaic,
! common-sense people who politically
| are really cautiously progressive.
They have for a time many fads-suc-
| cessively, not simultaneously-the
| are for a time broadly tolerant OF
queer fancies and virulent fanatics:
are patient with high-positioned indi-
viduals and with economic clashes.
| But when the clock strikes twelve,
| when leeway rushes to abuse, when a
| high positioned individual, or a small
| class, or a larger mass threatens TO
become a national danger-otherwise
| national fetch or privilege-the 9s
per cent go into commission effect
lively. Idols are deposed, crowds are
| quelled. If the case demands drastic
treatment it gets drastic treatment
| In the end common sense prevails.
| No Permanent federation.
| Time and again this has been
demonstrated. In recent decades the
| demonstration has ranged from the
| execution of the Chicago anarchists
| to the extinguishment of the Granger
party There is no permanent tolera-
ton of anybody or anything who or
| which runs counter to the welfare OF
| the country as a whole. They who
at present think otherwise or expect
| a different result are really ignorant
of American traits, particularly of the
| chief traits, common sense and a
\ lions.
| The outcome of the current diff
| culties will be the same as of past
difficulties. This is a conviction
which gives due consideration to the
Utopian economic seeds sown by IL
lusioned idealists in Washington, to
| the distention of postwar nerves, to
the dawning realization that the aims
of the war. as regards the United
States, have by no means been com.
] pletely attained. These are serious
factors; two are quite cruel disillus-
| ionists