Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-02-11
THE TWENTY-YEAR CYCLE
WHICH PROVES STATESMEN
Public Opinion and Its Faults of Laziness
Viewed in the Light of the Roose.
welt Memorial Meetings

where in the country at the meetings Just
held to honor the memory of Theodore
Roosevelt. The light Of conviction put a
glamour upon the eulogies written in news
papers that once we're seized with con.
yulsions of dislike whenever Roosevelt's
name was mentioned \ very real affec-
tion shone through utteranccs of men in
Congress and in pulpits and on platforms
here and there who made secret Of their
dislike and distrust in the days when r. r.
was struggling to make himself heard.
II was impossible not to wonder how q
good many of these orators would have felt
If they were suddenly confronted, in the
midst Of their perorations. with the record
Of ugly and ungracious things said twenty
| years ago, before Roosevelt was dead
when understanding and sympathy would
| have strengthened and comforted him.
| In the old days Roosevelt was not "a star
| in the sky" to some of those who recently
have been searching their souls for sounds
with which to do honor to his memory.
| He was not the greatest of Americans"
nor yet "a man of destiny"
He was a wild.eyed leader of the mob, if
you were to believe the men who didn't
IL
jejune adventurer, an anarchist, a man
| with a chip on his shoulder who was sure
to lead us to chaos and disorder We used
| to be told by some that he had to be
opposed and suppressed at all hazards If
the country wasn't to be whipped to the
dogs.
So the more cheerful and enlightened
views eXpounded at the Roosevelt memorial
meetings involve IA lesson in human psy-
chology, in politics. in Americanism.
7. r. was even more fortunate than Lin.
coin or Washington. There were innumer.
able hard-headed and hard minded men
who passionately denounced Washington
as traitor even after he was Chief
Executive. Lincoln was in his grave for
years before the common consciousness
of the nation knew the loneliness and
splendor of the mans soul or the miracle
Of charity and tenderness that has been
left TO us like heritage and like a light i'm
the wilderness Of these very days. Lincoln
was hated roundly. 1t was twenty years
before his own people understood him.
Twenty.year cycles are interesting in
American life. The greater minds that we
have produced often range about that far
ahead of mass opinion. And usually they
are left to fare alone upon the lonely
frontiers of life and it seems always that
the country is full of people who believe
only after disbelief has become no longer
possible
Surely there is something infinitely sad
,lsc all .l,g.
gence is the habit of all the Free Peoples
Asquith in England is even now one of
the conspicuous victims of the trait. He
was tricked at the great crisis of his
career. forced out of office at a time when
he could have been of the greatest service
to his country, and, by his silence. proved
his patriotism in time when the cheers
were all for the men who delivered
orations,
II will not do to say that neglect and
harsh criticism and misunderstanding are
to be accepted because we are thus as
sured of the survival of the fittest. The
short sight of democratic peoples and their
poor memory often react against their own
interests. 1t gives them the habit of drift.
ing. Ii often leaves them victims to the
iileH Will the iOuutSt VOICES. we can never
achieve the ideal democracy until we de-
velop the habit of looking backward and
forward over the periods of twenty years.
1t will not do TO think only in terms Of
the present. The life with which we are
concerned lies in the future. The Republic
lies in the future as well as in the present
And its best defense is an enlightened
public opinion. Armies and navies even
are of secondary Importance.
The men who. by genius or great devo.
tion. do the great services for the country
would be able to go it alone in any event
Fortitude and patience are in them They
themselves suffer least by recognition be.
lated or denied. We would be the richer
and the stronger IL we could understand
them more clearly at the beginning as we
usually understand them toward the end
OF their struggles.
The twenty-year cycle is always a good
thing to keep in mind. What, for instance,
will the United States be like in twenty
years from now? What will its needs be?
What will Europe be like in twenty years?
These must Of necessity be concerns of any
one who wishes to think inteligently and
constructively OF the immense issues that
now confront the American people.
It may be as we'll to remember what a
good many people are in the habit OF for
getting-that the war has left more than
ruin in Europe. 1t has left national spirits
tempered by fire. 1t has left new hopes,
new aspirations, resolute purposes in many
places. II has cleared the way for new
national energies The next generation
will not see Europe dattened out, broken
and dispirited 1t will have to deal with
a Europe reawakened and with sharpened
purposes. II is Of the future Republic. OF
the future generations rather than OF our
own immediate conqsrns that we shall