Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-12-08
UNIVERSAL PEACE ARRIVES
FOR ONE DAY EVERY YEAR
If Statesmen Would Climb Down and Mix
With the Christmas Crowds They
Might Learn How to Make
Il Permanent


w emn council and moved to abolish
Christmas, it was clear that Russia is
still in a bad way. The demagogues hold
Russia, and if there is one thing that the
Christmas season does it is to relieve
the world for glorious interval from the
tyranny of routine minds.
From now on humanity will move
with wisdom higher than the wisdom of
Mr. Lodge or NJ. Clemenceau and older
than the wisdom of any school of politics
or economy. The world is not free. 1t
is bound down by inherited formulas,
restrained and hampered by rules and
barriers created in a past concerned
only with eXpediency.
At heart people are generous. They
wish to be charitable, to be adventurous
Warning fingers are raised against them
wherever they turn. They are implored
to be cautious and to be reasonable. Yet
caution and reason alone never accom-
plshed anything of worth. The force
that moves the world takes possession
of mems minds and uses them to build
up or batter down. Soldiers and
prophets. an occasional statesman, an
occasional preacher know it and the rest
of creation follows in the paths they
have made.
And how do they go, these men? Back
always to forgotten ways Of tenderness,
to d rule of compassion, to service in
behalf of great truths fixed forever in
far time.
Once Il year civilization turns its face
from the earth to look up and follow
them.
Russia has gone mad by staring at
formulas. 1t is the last nation in the
world that can afford to abolish Christ
mas.
Our own Senate would be better if it
could be thoroughly saturated with the
spirit that interrupts the hard course
of common thought and action at seasons
lik this After December 25 Mr.. Fall
will continue to demand that Mexico
be cleaned by blood. There will be
renewed outcry from the prophets who
want to see a way cleansed with fire
for the feet of the concession holders.
The coal strike may continue to grind
on. MI. Lodge will continue to lead the
hate song of the irreconciables.
The ups and the downs, the ins and
the outs, everywhere will stiffen again
and go to battle. But for few days
there will be truce of sorts between
warning spirits.
1t will be difficult to hate any one
very greatly. The rich will loosen up.
They will loosen up amazingly and their
limousines will bear gifts to humble
doorways. There will be no poor. No
one will be without friends. To be for
lorn will be to find the eager hands of
a multitude stretched out to you. There
will be a sense of peace and reconcilia-
ton and achievement everywhere. The
world will be free in this interval of
vanity to practice its very real virtues.
And this will not be because of anything
that any one has said or done. 1t will
be because of something felt and under
stood in the hearts of people.
Somebody said that Christianity was
tried and found wanting.
at ,vas found difficult" said Mr.. CheS-
terton, "und it has neUer been tried"
The prospects for merry Christmas
are good. After a reading of the dis
patches from Indianapolis and Wash
ington, Paris and London, happy new
year becomes a matter of some doubt.
But you may look at the faces of any
crowd in any American city without per-
ceiving the least sign of dread for the
| future.
They are gay crowds; gay and assured.
Grievous economists insist that they are
spending too much money.
Obviously the crowds are spending too
much money. They always do. They
seem to have an instructive knowledge
that economists have nS. 1t is said
that they go blindly and trust to Provi-
dence. They are the children of wars
and explorations, of strength and of ad-
venture, of hope and achievement.
1t is more likely, therefore, that they
trust in themselves.
Christmas is educational if only be-
cause it makes US think of the poor and
revise some of the current definitions of
poverty.
There is something the matter with a
time in which to be poor is to be ig-
nominious Poverty is blight. 1t is
waste But troubles and griefs are the
common lot. The rich have a larger
and more elaborate assortment than the
rest of us.
Many people are poor by choice. You
have to buy riches, too, and there are
some who will not pay the price. They
prefer happiness to pleasure. And the
rich who find themselves free on one day
each year to follow their natural i'm,
pulses and divide with their less fortu
nate neighbors can often purchase
great deal of enlightenment with theil
gifts, They may find themselves occa
sionally in the majestic presence of {
part of humanity that gives not only
material things but all its days, tn,
.,r.l