Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-29
SIDETRAcKING OF MILLENNIUM
GIVES GROUND FOR CHEER
The War Didn't Bring II, Admiral Jelicoe
Fails to See II and the World Is to
Be CONGRATULATED on Its Escape

| Be congratulated on Its Escape
WTHIRRING along the cables from
w far-off New Zealand comes a mes
sage of cheer that was evidently intended
to be quite the reverse. "A look around
the world,' means Admiral Jellcoe,
"shows that the millennium is as far off
as ever"
One can almost see the crocodile tears.
The fighting mans notion of a good
peace is one that is gained by a good
war. Trade loyalty is powerful senti-
ment. Hudson Maxim, here at home,
evinced it the other day in announcing
his purpose to pursue the path of dscov-
cry in military engines. He expressed
serious doubts that the human race had
entered on an era of perfection.
General Wood upon the same theme is
profoundly skeptical. At the mere
mental picture of a f1awless planet the
| United States Senate is stirred to its
| depths.
But the sensation is not contagious.
! Is any sane or sensible individual, not
talking to hold his job, really worrying
about a sidetracked millennium? Did
any one but a chronic sentimentalist-
| though these were plentiful-actually
believe that the world war was ushering
US all into a state of painfully monoto-
nous Nirvana?
Armed strife is intrinscally a detest-
able argument The world, save profess
sional militarsts and those who thrive
upon their performances, is heartily sick
&c i ,r-1,,-
the league plan, despite mis-
placed commas or other inevitable imper-
fections, appeals to the practical wis
dom of mankind.
Whether more wars of major caliOer
will be fought is a mystery-like tomor-
rows weather. There is, however, a
chance of postponing them by work
able cooperative scheme. But no guar
antee of the millennium goes with that
formula. Subtract from Admiral Jelli-
GOES pretentious utterance the hint of his
instructive prediction for a good sea
scrap and it is a positive stimulant
| The interrogation point is a symbol of
| mankind at its healthiest. In this sense
it was an obsolete symbol in China for
some two thousand years.
China was not wondering whether a
| Plumb plan would work or would be too
radical. China was not pOndering the
labor-capital query. China was not ask
ing if her Wilson, on tour or at home,
her Lodge, her Borah, her Taft, her Hay
wood, her Walsh, her eastern manufac-
turers or western "nonpartisan" farm
ers were right or wrong. China had art
and an exquisite Journalism. She also
had degradation and sodden oppression.
She had not the interrogative mood.
By our philosophy, at least, she had not
life. Did she have the millennium?
There were complacent mandarins who
would virtually have admitted it.
The millennium lure is an old-timer
In perhaps the darkest age of recorded
history it was extremely potent. The
notion that "the smoke and stir of this
dim spot which men call earth" would
vanish on New Years day 1000 A. D..
prevailed strongly throughout Europe.
Intellectual stagnation was the prelude
to the new life. Men did not think.
They waited.
The wave of disappointment which
swept through the Christian continent
when the date came and the earth whirled
on and nothing happened was akin to
that in which deluded dreamers tenn
porarily sank after November II, 1918.
The fair specious promises faded. More
questions were asked when all should
:, have been answered.
The world fumed and stormed intel
lectually in peace as it had physically in
war. 1t was alive-more alert than it
had ever been--to query, to investigate,
to reflect.
The mass mental energy of this ball
was never so intensely fluid as it is today.
Employers are actually thinking about
the labor problem. Workmen discuss
world politics, debate economic and So
cial systems. Women are citizens, and
where not yet in law at least in intel
lectual quality.
Public opinion was never so individual
istically subdivided. We have had and
still have original sin. Now we have
original virtue, original truths, original
half-truths, original sophistries.
Involuntarily or otherwise, the aver
age American is a better citizen than he
was before the war. He knows more
He questions more keenly. The shake-ur
is to some extent thing apart from
actual campaign experiences.
The average returned soldier is reti,
cent He is,pondering, whether he real
ICES it or not, the terrible beauties anG
uglinesses of modern strife. If it is sim,
ply shocking enigma now, that fact
need not render it meaningless as the
years roll by. Today it is the immediate
aftermath of the struggle in which h'
and those who stayed at home are chiefly
interested.
"Where is your millennium now?'
| .ooI,s hnIsbevispo IF anvwhera n 10 !,