Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-05-02
IF BOLSHEVlSM WERE A PILL
REDS WOULD LIVE IN PALACES
The Cult, With Police, Detectives and
Legislatures Aiding Calamity, Scores
an Advertising Triumph


an Advertising Triumph
L7CSTASY should be the portion of the
IL brethren who call themselves red.
With two dollars worth Of dynamite and
some paper boxes and the tireless assist
ance of the police they have just obtained
about billion dollars worth Of the adj
vertising they covet.
Terrorism, How often yesterday did
that black word leap out of newspapers
to make the hearts Of timid folk skip
beat?
Somewhere in an alley man with a
feeble and malignant mind, who should
be decently away in an insane asylum,
imagined himself to be the hand of
God And what followed after that might
have led you to believe that the land was
suddenly populated with dynamiters and
that the stupendous structure of demo-
cratic. government was somehow threat
ened
"They shall not march," said the
police-meaning the dstraught members
of tiny minority that would like to run
the country for its own benefit. The
suppression that the irreconcilable radi-
cal loves better than his life was lavishly
provided for him. And so it is necessary
to ask once again whether it is best to
let a man speak his mind and violate the
law in the open, where he can be seen and
heard and arrested. or to suppress him
and permit him to violate the law in
secret, where he may remain serene and
safe?
The manner in which public opinion
was stampeded by handful of neurotics
yesterday with the flicker Of hysteria in
newspapers, among the police and in the
Legislatures was one of the oldest of
recent phenomena. There were some
STRINGS and outcries in the lunatic
fringe of the free thinking element in the
United States. Otherwise reasonable
men went tiptoeing and whispering
about to secret discussions. There was
a shaking of heads and rumors of secret
police modified in secret.
What in the name of all that is sane
and reasonable are we doing with Sc
cretly organized and armed organizations
in these days of our history? TO what
far place have the wits of the Pennsyl-
vania Legislature flown when it solemnly
debates impossible and dsgraceful laws
because there are some people about who
would rather march under banners than
work at their jobs?
1t must be said for the red brethren
| that they are the best of press agents.
| The record of yesterday should delight
| their restless souls. Some bombs were
found in New York and at once all the
gathering phrases of the old-fashioned
dime novels were unoosed again like fire.
| works at a picnic.
| The bombs were "marvels of inge-
nuity." Did any detective ever find a
bomb that wasn't marvel of inge-
nuity" in the first hours of bright ex-
| citement before second look showed it
to be an inferior bit of amateur plumb
| ing? Was there ever plot that was not
"nation-wide"? We do not recall any of
the sort in the piquant annals of sleuth-
ing in the United States.
The red folk owe the detectives a debt
of gratitude. They owe much to the
police everywhere. The Legislature al
Harrisburg has been lending them gal.
liant and consistent aid. The hotel-keep.
ers who meekly permitted their cooks tc
walk off their jobs for twenty-four hours
instead of firing them incontinently con
tributed something to the days triumph
If the radical propagandists want tt
be rich they have only to apply thei,
talent for large-scale advertising in ;
practical way. If they would do as wei
for pill or a hair tonic or salve or {
circus as they have done for their cult
they could wing it any day to high plac
among the "plutocrats."
Behind the outward fantastic aspect O
May Day in this country there were yer,
definite suggestions of trouble that i
not new.
There are two groups of radical think
ers in the United States. One includes
small group of unconverted rich me
whose selfshness, stubbornness an
ignorance make them hardly less dan
gerous than the apostles of unrest at tn
opposite extreme Of the economic ques
| ton These are the last of the America
czars. They are selfish group, firml
convinced that they have been divinel
appointed as keepers of the national cor
science and given to the delusion tha
riches involve the privilege of dictatio
! to servile thousands. They are radical
. in true sense of the word.
, Opposed to them in constant state
: irritation is another group of the viz
: lently radical-the job haters who beliey
/ that they are the only ones who have an
troubles.
: Between the two extreme elements /
/ the great sane, reasonable America
I people with decent aspirations and a d
1 sire to live and work in peace. II is tn
I vast majority WHICH suffers mdst by Il