Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-23
THE HUMANITARIAN
ECLIPSES THE FIGHTING MAN
America as Well as the Rest Of the World
Is Looking to the Civilian for Leader
ship in Government

MILITARY glory is not what 1t once
A'A was. There was a time when it en-
titled man to the highest civil honors
in the gift of his nation. But that time
seems to have passed.
There is no nation today that was in
volved in the war in which the promotion
of military hero to high civil Office is
regarded as certain.
France has just elected Paul Deschanel
to the presidency. Deschanel is civilian
and has always been a civilian. He
served in Parliament for years and
gradually rose from the obscurity of
new member to leadership and then to
the head of the nation itself. The election
of neither Foch nor of Joffre was serious
ly considered by any one. The French are
content that their military heroes should
remain military men.
Italy has drafted neither Diaz nor
Cadorna into the civil government. The
statesmen trained in civil life are ruling
Italy.
General Haig has not been suggested
as the successor of Lloyd George as
British premier. General French, it is
true, is viceroy of Ireland but that is
semimilitary post at the present time.
The government in Great Britain, as in
France and Italy, remains government
of civilians.
Not even in Germany, where militarism
fourished, is the military hero resorted to
as the savior of his country. Germany
apparently has had all that it cares for
of the military caste and is willing to
permit the man on horseback to keep his
saddle instead of exchanging it for an
executive chair.
And in America the suggestion of
General Pershing for the presidency has
aroused no enthusiasm. The candidacy
of General Wood, which is backed by an
efficient organization, is not really a
military candidacy, but the continuation
of boom which was started for him be-
fore the country entered the great war
at all.
The one outstanding figure of the war
on whom attention in America is con-
centrating is Herbert Hoover, man who
had no direct connection with military
operations, but was occupied in the work
of repairing the damage done by the
armies of the generals. 1t is his brilliant
success as a business administrator in the
interests of humanity that appeals to the
| Imagination.
This sort of thing has not happened
before after any great or little war in
which America was involved. Andrew
Jackson, although he was elected to the
presidency long after the battle of New
Orleans, was regarded as military hero.
So was William Henry Harrison. The
Mexican War made Zachary Taylor Pres
ident. The Democrats attempted to elect
TnT1 -
his military record in 1864. At the next
election General Grant ran on the Repub-
lican ticket on the strength of his reputa-
tion as soldier and was elected. AL
though he had been a Democrat before
the war, the Republicans did not turn
him down for that. They wanted a man
on horseback and they took the biggest
one in the country. Hayes and Garfield
and Benjamin Harrison and Mckinley all
had military records which We're consd-
cred as increasing their availability for
the presidential nomination. Roosevelt
would not have been nominated for the
governorship of New York when he was
if it had not been for his military service
in Cuba in the Spanish War. And so it
has been for as long as the memory of
man runs.
The significance Of the Hoover pres
idential boom lies above all else in its
reflection of a new attitude of society
toward the "glories" of war. And it is
not the only indication of that new atti-
tude. Right here in this city men with
military records were nominated for
Office last fall in the hope that they might
help the ticket on which they ran, but the
civilians were elected and the men who
wore the uniform were defeated-on all
tickets. Their military record did not
help them
The world never before knew so we'll
what war is and what it means. 1t is
now universally admitted to be an evil,
a sometimes necessary evil if you will,
but nevertheless an evil. 1t cannot be
waged without the destruction of life and
property, and when waged on a large
scale it upsets all the other activities of
men. We do not want any more of it if it
can be avoided.
Back of the demand for Hoover as a
presidential candidate, so far as that de-
mand has found expression, is an in
stinctive repugnance to war. Hoover is
better informed than any other man re-
garding the extent of the suffering which
war causes. He used his great abilities
in mobiizing the resources of the world
not occupied in destruction so that they
might be used to mitigate the evils
wrought by the armies far back of the
battle front. He fed the widowed and the
orphaned on larger scale than had ever
before been attempted. Hundreds of
thousands of women and children and old
men are alive today because of the sue
cess of his efforts.
There is an undoubted feeling that this
man who organized relief work can also
do something to organize peace among
the nations. That is what this country
and the rest of the world wish just now.
Whether this country wishes it enough to
make Hoover President remains to be
seen, but it is not at all likely that it will
elect as President any man who is merely
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