Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-07-15
YES, RoLLo, WE CRY OUT
FOR A NEW FOURTH PARTY
And Events at Three National Con.
ventlons Indicate the Need OF
Fifth One, Too
THERE seems to be no way of avoid

Il ing II. All the radicals, all the
nonconformists, all the daredevil think
ers, all the headlong and self interested
groups that furiously invaded the two
big national conventions to insist that
they and they alone knew how to serve
civilization and save the country, have
been getting what, in the language Of
the truly cultured, is called dirty
deal.
No sympathy for their clashing doc
trines warmed the basaltic bosom Of the
G. o. P. The Democrats were cold.
And yesterday La Toilette dazed the
convention Of the disconsolates at Chi
cago by announcing that the platform
on which he was expected to seek the
presidency was too radical.
Has the country lost? Let US see.
The demands and appeals made TO the
different party leaders in the name of
liberalism and other things were at
least broad and infinitely various. Had
we accepted and combined all the phi
losophies for which imposing delegations
have been making passionate pilgrim
ages to Chicago and San Francisco the
country would now have to prepare
hurriedly for simultaneous wars with
England, Japan and Mexico. At the
same time it would have to disarm and
cancel every important military appro-
priation.
We should ditch the Philippines and
Porto Rico without ceremony and leave
tranquil Guam for the first conner.
Washington would be writing its recog-
milton of the Russian Soviets and we
should be setting aside the principles
of parliamentary government to make
way for busy little sovicts of our own.
Individual initiative - that is, ardent
and inspired work-would be outlawed
under the combined pressure of the in
terstate laws, Socialists codes and the
Plumb plan--which might be called the
, Nolstcad act Of industry. And ways
would be cleared for the displacement
Of Congress and the Supreme Court by
a Soviet commission dominated, let US
say, by representatives of Townlcy's
Nonpartisans, Single Takers, the Debs
clan. the League of Wet and Dry
southern Colonels and the Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Waffle Molders'
Helpers.
And so the nation would have been
saved
The old parties clung to the gloomy
notion that thought and work, ordered,
consistent and more or less sincere, are
necessary to human welfare and the
continuance of civilization. The Third
party is tottering toward n somewhat
similar point of view; drifting steadily
away from what the restless minded
have been calling militant idealism.
Surely the visionarics should grieve.
Mr. Pinchot's convention has been in
session for days and yet it has uttered
no word in condemnation of the federal
Department of Agriculture, which,
though absorbing great appropriations
under successive administrations, has
brought us no nearer to the self pairing
potato or the ready boiled egg. Cows
continue duly to refuse to milk them
selves, and are therefore n continuing
irritation to radical minds convinced
that a reactionary bureau Of animal in
dustry has again put something over on
| the masses.
Butter must be churned. We are no
era of Mckinley to the bright day when
ones piano will grow in green
chrysalis and burst forth jazzing glori-
ously while citizens Of the ideal state
lie and listen in the shade of trees COW
cred with a foliage Of paper currency.
II is plain that the dominant political
minds in this country arc reconciled to
the necessity Of toll, which Miss Emma
Goldman used 10 call the curse and
ait!ctIon OF the ages. A Fourth party
is needed 10 ston work, to bring on
wars and simultaneously to force dis
armament; to demand enormous appro-
priat!onS from the government and at
the same time obliterate all the sources
OF federal income. The fight against
the standpatters must go on.
Since no system of parliamentary
government is possible without an cner-
getic minority party of protest, and
since the two older parties are hope
lessly unradiCal, a Fifth party will, OF
course, be indispensable. Such q party
! will have to preach doctrines that soon
will sound strange in this, our land. 1t
Will have to insist that wishes alone
can get you nowhere, and that no for
mula of words, be it ever so witching
/ upon the ear, can cultivate the ground,
boil an egg, dig ton of coal or wiring
bread and cheese and such like out Of
the thin air.
Spokesman of the Fifth party will
have to show again that few people
ever got anything for nothing, and that
those who did we're and are the least
fortunate Of men. As matters look
now the Fifth party would be very
small, for it would include only Ameri-
cans-not Anglo Americans Or Franco
Americans or Irish Americans or Re-
publican Americans or Democratic-
Americans or Labor Americans Or Cap
italist Americans or C0.'tge ALneri-
cans or Proletarian American but
plain, everyday men and women who
are Americans first and above all things
because of loyalty 70 the generous land
and the generous institution. by which
they have lived and found as2a.aegs.
Bigotry and hatred are q.sW,tr, that
do most harm to those Vtc c..,.ys,e
them. So your Fifth party wgU.d be
in most ways charitable and r., ses-!ng.
patient and assured. IL wG.c krgY
that nothing violent endures and That
all great things have been slow!y sc.
complished. 1t would put its great
trust in the slow but terribly certain
and terribly just forces of social evo.
luton.
1t is not difficult to imagine the
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