Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-01-16
THE COWNSMAN
What Is the Matter With Philadelphia?

~ remarkable personages, 1t snail not %
said Of the Gownsman that he never repeats.
He knows the value of a refrain. song In
| which all can Join in the chorus; a slogan,
an advertisement the damned Iteration" OF
which compels attention and a resting place
at last in the memory. Wherefore. once
more the question that will not down: What
is the matter with Philadelphia?
We seem to have reached a stage at least
in which pretty much everybody. except tho
Mayor, is dissatisfied. For while most of us
sincerely wish that we might be cleaner ply
sically. morally. civically, there appear to be
those among us who would like us to be even
dirtier than we are and who do their part to
make us so. When a man is acknowledged
to be III, at least we need treat him no longer
as in perfect health. The issue is drawn be-
tween those who would cure him and those
who would kill him. or at any rate continue
to bleed him. 1t is battle between con-
stitution. good. bad or impaired, and the
microbes. Jones, Smith and Robinson For
the political microbes have been fattenng
on poor old Philadelphia now for many
year..
TIKE other patients. the dear old chap Is
their kind, are deeply interested in diagnosis
involving, as diagnosis always does, the call
ing Of many very simple things by very hard
names. For example, DR.. Harrison s. Norris
expert In civic symptomatology and very
daring eclectic practitioner. finds the condi"
tion of the patient not only chronic and now
precarious. but really congenital. what can
you expect" he asks, "of n constitution the
basis of which is non-resistant Quakerism
infused with a dour streak Of Presbyterian
ism?' Other practitioners find the trouble
in the name Germantown" in the refusal
of busybodies to let the 100 per cent pure"
Philadelphia police alone. in the absence OF
Mr.. Wilson in Europe or in the presence of
Mr.. Daniels in Washington. DIR. John Archi-
bald MacCaum suggests. with creditable
originality, that the trouble lies largely In
the low salaries which we pay our teachers.
"HearI Hear" with Doctor Garbers sal
airy raised to a hundred thousand a year and
Governor Brumbaugh when he returns to
teaching. given living wage Of say fifty
thousand instead of his paltry pittance as
historian of the Commonwealth, the Gowns
man doubts not that Philadelphia will be at
once restored to civic salubrity and
flourish Of all the arts.
ITO BE doctor is to disagree not only with
l. other doctors, but--as n det-with most
patients. DR.. John d. McIlhenny. a practi-
toner of long standing-not invariably pat
at Harrisburg, appears to have mistaken the
hectic flush of the war posters which recently
glowed the countenance of Philadelphia
for the health of real art. And DR.. John
Mcclure Hamilton, the noted facial special
list, so lost control of himself for the moment
as to laugh outright at Doctor McIlhenny.
This very reprehensible. for when an
admring constituency sends a doctor to Har-
risburg to attend on a Governor who Is sick.
1t must be assumed that he knows a circus
poster from Murillo. Perhaps the most
convenient of the several nostrums which
have been offered to save poor old Philadel-
phia is first to deprive the old boy of the
potations semi -politico reformatory that he
so loves and then turn over the remains to
the women. When the women get the vote
but who is the Gownsman to forecast time.
tide or what women will do. might do, could
do to Philadelphia, to the vote or to any
thing else?
s TO Quaters the Gownsman has
n opinions of his own. Comfort and no very
great surfeit of thinking has done it's work
upon them. They are the safest people in
the world and will sit in statu quo for gen.
erations Your veritable Quaker is often
admirable when the spirit moves within him;
but his engine is set in the reverse and when
1t starts, is as likely not to move back
ward Besides, this Is not the age for any
great agitation. at least of the Quaker spirit
except against fighting. Doctor Morris may
be right in attributing poor old Phladephia's
lack of a healthy appetite for anything diff
ferent. his home-loving unacquaintance with
anything he has not always known. his
apathetic senile spirit, to the Quaker blood
in US. For, like many another good thing.
II is better to have had a grandfather in
trade, or a buccaneer. or q Quaker. than to
be one yourself
The Presbyterians are not so easily dis
posed or--they never are. In fact. recovery
from Presbyterianism is often slow and
sometimes of an alarming character. Scotch
in origin, there remains to the end a kind of
Scotchiness in them. a recalcitranoy to accept
anything that other people accept. They have
chosen a hard way for themselves and like
to see 10 IL tnat noDouy eiSe is easier Being
themselves of the elect, they prefer a GER
tainty to the choosing of people of whom they
are not so sure. They are a stiff-necked gen.
Grafton, bearing the yoke with fortitude and
eXacting the same of other cattle. They
would rather listen to bad music in their own
churches on Sunday than allow others to
listen to good music outside. They are
strenuous, not a relaxed fiber, in the body
polite, and the Gownsman is of opinion that
Doctor Morris in this aspect Of his diagnosis
is wrong. 1t is a tonic-not always palatable
but tonic It is to live with the Presby-
terians
YJNHE Gownsman has been doctored many
l. times, always wisely II sometimes none
too well; but he is not the right kind of
doctor-at least any other doctor will tell
YOU So However, he yields to the weak
tI.