The Liberal democrat. [volume] (Liberal, Kan.) 1911-1924, 1920-01-15

III announcer SET, anu 40 mourning dL Ill
to politics per Sc. Politics is our in
heritance and our yoke, and has been
since the first convention of cave
men met to divide the meat among
the chaps with the biggest pull, and
will be until the men in the back
room figure out how much there will
be in it for them if they allow some
favorite son to be first up at the
sounding Of the final triumph.
Politics is inescapable. Therefore
politicians are inevitable, because the
one breeds the other; because the
presence Of the. medium predicates
the practice Of it by the mediums /;
and because the people have no time
to attend to it, being concerned in
such important affairs as having
enough money to get touring car
to replace the flivver, and other and
similar paramount undertakings.
Consequently, with such humility as
the circumstances demand-which is
considerable humility, because the
way Brother LAGOON and family al
lowed themselves to be tangled up
with the serpents is mere fox trot
compared with the way we have al
lowed the politicians to entangle us
with humility but with fervor the
politicians Of America are herewith
addressed:
Gentlemen: Though it may have
escaped your attention, there has re-
Gently been fought in this world a
large, not to say imposing, war; and
that war continued for the space OF
four years, resulting not only in a
considerable dislocation Of condi-
tons that existed prior thereto but
seemingly demanding, after its close,
the institution Of methods, policies
and practices to meet and cope with
the new conditions that have ensued.
1t is not too much to say that the
political situation that at present ex-
lists in this country is as foreign to
and far removed from the political
situation that existed prior to July
28, 1914, as the situation that exist
ed in April, 1861, before our Civil
War; as new and novel and mo-
mentous as if we were just constitut-
ed nation, and demand political
treatment in harmony with unaccus-
toned requirements.
New problems press; new align
ments exist. Old adjustments are
destroyed; old policies do not fit
The structure of our Government is
no longer a three-story-and -basement
affair, but a Woolworth Building, anC
then some. Our method of transpor
tation is not by stagecoach and is by
aeroplane. Instead Of being nation
al we are now international. Instead
of being isolated and doing bushes!
GU our own side street we are nov
established at the worlds busies
corner. Everything has changed
everything is in step with the times
everything and everybody but you
We find you in Washington, at tn
state capitals, everywhere across thi'
country, playing and planning you
politics as you or your predecessor
played and planned them in 1872, il
1884, in 1896. We find you actuateC
by the same impulses, governed by
the same set and rigid rules, devoted
to the same precedents and tradi.
tions. We find you fatuously trying
to measure the three-thousand-mile
political requirements Of this coun.
try with the same foot rule that was
used in 1910. The results of the
war have made no impression on you.
The changes in circumstance, con-
dition-even in civilization itself
have passed over you. You sit and
dodder and plan and execute accord
ing to formulas as archaic as if they
were for the political direction Of the
Aztecs rather than for the political
direction of a people who have gone
forward a hundred years in the past
five.
Is it not possible, gentlemen, that
the circumstances, the conditions, the
position and the possibilities and
predication of this country should
get a more intelligent, more ad-
vanced, more commensurate political
consideration than the invariable
consideration you give 1.-THE con-
sideration as a party and partisan
question? Are we not now at a
place where some heed, some small
heed should be paid to our political
problems on the basis Of American
| lbIn anu JIlc HeeuS VI hUleIlCd IdJIICl
than on the needs of party; and based
on something wider, broader and
more in consonance with the present
day than the effort to get a partisan
advantage and retain partisan con-
troll?
Is there not some way that a gov
ernmental policy can be considered
save as the effect the adoption Of it
or the defeat of it will have on some
class or racial vote-on the labor
vote, the foreign vote or any other
class or supposedly united vote? Will
you never learn that no class, no
sect, no section Of the American peo-
pie votes as unit? Cannot you get
little vision-just little-and see
that what this country Of ours needs
now, and must have, is a political d.
rection that does not comprehend
partisan advantage Of one set Of men
or another, nor an appeal for votes
from one class or another class, but
does comprehend an advantage for
the whole Of America and the entire
American people? Is there not some
politician who has a mind of suffi-
Gent intelligence to assimilate this?
Has America no man big enough to
NAV politics for the whole people