The Nenana daily news., 1919-06-23
MIR. BURLEsON'S DEFENSE.

In employing press agent MT, Burleson has adopted custom which has become general in Washington. In former times statesmen were con- tent to leave the advertisement of their virtues to volunteer friends in the press. But virtue is so common at Washington nowadays that, left to itself, it would be no more mo- ticed than a buttercup in a flower show It must be painted or gilded or bronzed. We presume that as a careful man the postmaster general pays his publicity promoter out of his own pocket, for the appropria- tion bill makes no mention of any sum of money for the encourage ment of puffery In any case the artist earns his wages. He will shine even in the noble fraternity which includes such distinguished names as
 
 George Creel and the late Jumbo Davis. He draws an affecting pie ture of a modest, self-sacrifcing pub lie official who sees his duty with austere eyes and goes ahead to per form it regardless of the cost to himself. He discovers in him quail ties of gentleness and restraint we never suspected, and calls upon the public to pity a great statesman in danger of destruction by the claws of a ravening press.
 But at the risk of being consid- cred cold-hearted, says Golfers Weekly, we must insist that MT. Burleson's personal characteristics have not the weight of two-cent stamp in the controversy which is raging about the postoffice depart ment. It makes no difference wheth- CT the general" is or is not head strong, arbitrary, egotistical, little informed; whether he did or did not coin money out of the sweat O. convict labor; whether he is Q good leader for the Democratic party or fatally bad one. He is called to the bar to defend himself solely as administrator of the department of the government which is nearest to the daily life of the public. The charges against him are that under his administration the postal service has deteriorated and has become in efficient and slovenly; that it has been used tyrannically; that the poorest-paid and most competent em- ployees have been illtreated while the higher officials have been en- couraged in the belief that they are outside the law and beyond control by public opinion, and that in gen. eral the department has become a mere bureaucratic nest, incompetent, extravagant, and arbitrary. These are the principal counts of the in- dictment. Through his publicity pro- moter Mr Burleson answers by tell ing what pleasant man he is in his daily life and how cruelty his manners have been misjudged. But the plea will hardly satisfy the pub lie, which has suffered from the scandalous failure of the department to respond to the test of war times. Soldiers and others whose mail is not delivered promptly, if at all, and who receive their telegrams twenty four hours after filing, are apt to be dissatisfied. Unfortunately for MT. Burleson, they have come to the conclusion that under his admins tration the department has not been operated to satisfy the public, but to please the officials in control.
 The attempt of the postmaster general to prove that he is attacked because of his advocacy of the out rageous zoning system of confsca- tory postal taxes is about as foolish a performance as could be imagined. The public outburst was bound to come, for impatience has been seeth-