Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-31
DEMAGOGUES AND RADICALS
IN A PARADE TO OBLIVION
The Time Is Coming for a General
Cleanup In National Politics and
In Trades unionlsm

The Time Is Coming for Genera
Cleanup In National Politics and
In Trades Unionsm
THESE are hard days for every sort of
fanatic and demagogue in American
life. What conferences and committees
think of Mr. Wilson or Mr.. Lodge, of
Judge Gary or Mr.. Foster, of the peace
treaty or the coal strike does not greatly
matter.
1t is the collective will and feeling of
the country that matters.
1t is the silent judgment of the people
that is terrible and final, as all men know
who have observed the certainty with
which it elevates men or breaks them
when necessity arises.
The national mind is patient and a
little slow Give it time. 1t is having
the opportunity it needs. In Congress
and in the strike debates the fanatics and
the hard-boiled apostles of industrial
feudalism have been dragged out into the
light that will kill them. If Mr.. Lewis
and the miners leaders have not yet
learned anything from the fate of Foster
| they might look with profit at the things
that have been happening to other dema
| gogues who have found a temporary
refuge in Congress.
The peace treaty and the league-of-
nations covenant have been under fire in
the Senate since July 10. Amendments
and reservations proposed and wrangled
over have fallen one by one and the
treaty is now exactly as it was when
first offered for ratification.
Has the time been wasted? No; not
| by any means.
The treaty has been the wall against
which a number of men who have out
| lived their usefulness have condescended
to beat out their political brains. In the
! light of the recent debates we have per-
.ceived the dark and weak places in the
Senate.
The country has been permitted to see
Mr. Sherman as a sinister and futile
comedian. The people of Missouri now
have the true measure of Jim Reed. Mr..
Knox has dropped to the level of an
illogical and badtempered bitter
yet only year ago he was seriously re-
garded as a presidential possibility.
Senator Johnsons worshipers in Califor
MIA have seen their idol as clamorous
Snowman, wabbly on his feet and unable
to be consistent even in his prejudices.
Mr.. Lodge, who wanted to lead the coun-
try, proved that he couldn't even lead
band of guerrilla politicians.
The treaty of peace meanwhile has
withstood attacks as furious as ignorance,
bigotry, partisan hatred and sincere
patriotic convictions could make them. 1t
has broken down nowhere. There ought
to be great reinsurance for the country
in that simple fact. And the old strange
magic of events that has made itself felt
in every national crisis is operating
again in Washington, where destiny is
directing a wholesome process of elimi-
nation.
So Foster and Fitzpatrick and Lewis
and others as red as they will have to 60
from organized labor before long. Troops
at the mines, with guns loaded for mis-
guided and bewildered strikers, will not
be a pleasant spectacle in America, but
it will be more pleasant on the whole
than nation cold and hungry and in
confusion.
The perils of the situation are on the
side of the miners, and the frightened
statement issued yesterday at Indian
apolis shows that they know it.
In larger philosophy there would be
little reason to rail bitterly at the strike
leaders or at the sorry crowd of haters
and obstruetionists in the Senate who
pray for the night to stay rather than
prepare for the duties of the morning.
Properly they are objects of the sort of
sympathy that always must be felt in
the presence of inevitable casualties.
These class-conscious guerrillas of in
dustry or politics are not interpreters of
| America or of any purpose that America
will accept. They have been fighting the
forces of evolution. They do not move
| with the slow and mighty rhythm of
| national consciousness. They have been
fighting as hopelessly as if they opposed
themselves to the tides of the sea.
The nation itself is all-inclusive, toll
| Grant and patient 1t will support only
| those men who, because of like impulses,
serve not class or a faction, but the
republic itself.
Such men always happen along when
they are needed. They find the meaning
of America and they come with minds
and spirits endowed seemingly by destiny.
They belong to no class. Rich and poor
are alike to them-because they have
been rich and they have been poor.
1t was said that there could never be
another Washington. When Lincoln died
the nation mourned and said he was the
last of his kind. Roosevelt appeared in
the psychological years to advance to
power as if he were pushed by a mys-