The Washington times., 1920-04-12

Without rashly asserting that
anybody is wrong or reckless, II
may be said that the nation will
md a new way Of settling its
troubles, or it won't make much
progress in much-discussed recon-
struction.
To change your thought and
divert 1t from railroad trouble,
you are gayly assured that sugar
is going to 25 cents a pound, which
means many scores of millions
more TO be taken from the people.
And II 25 cents a pound, why not
so?
Sugar men tell you not to COM
plain, because gasoline has gone to
30 cents and probably will 60 to
80 cents. Profiteering prices GER
tainly keep each other company as
they climb.
However, not all Is darkness, for
at least two small business men
have been arrested for charging 10
cents too much for a cotton collar.
High finance sees its little ray
of light in the darkness. 1t was
distressed about q bonus for the
. soldiers. That might have meant
more income tax. But now comes
the suggestion that the soldiers
little bonus "be raised by tax of
one per cent on all sales" This
tax of one per cent would raise
enough money to make it possible
to repeal the excess profit taxes,
and that Is the sweet milk in the
financial cocoanut
Thus, dearly beloved, the soldier
will get few dollars, very few,
and every man, woman and child
will be taxed one cent on every
dollar spent, not to give money to
soldiers-they wouldn't need q
tenth of that, but to exempt the
very prosperous from excess profit
taxes.
All things work out well, for
those that have. Not SO well Tor
the citizen who worries about the
! price OF sugar; but what does he
amount to anyhnM3-
Don't his votes prove that ne
cares little what happens to him!
In q few months you will see him
parading with a torch and telling
his friend, with yells, that he has
voted such and such q ticket "all
my life" He has, indeed, which
explains why he has been more or
less robbed all his life. Remem-
ber once more what Douglass, ex-
slave said, after he thrashed the
overseer that wanted to thrash
him: "Those that are thrashed
the easiest are thrashed the often
est"
Those that are robbed the cas-
lest are robbed the oftenest.
Lenin, trying to teach the
working feet of Russia to do Rus
sia's thinking, discovers, in his
own words, eve must draw peo-
pie who understand administra-
ton from the former ruling
classes, while preparing prole-
tartan workers for administrative
positions"
There's the rub. How long will
it take to prepare a proletarian
for an administrative position :?
With one or two lucky crosses,
like the one that produced Leon
ardo da Vinci, you may do it in
one generation. But with prole-
tarians who have done no concen-
trated thinking on either side OF
the family for ten thousand years
YOU will need hundred genera
tions to mike an administrator.
You don't change a proletarian,
with a forehead one inch high, to
an administrator by telling him
that the world belongs to him.
You have got to increase the
height of that forehead and the
depth of the convolutions within.
That takes time.
However, although you can't
make proletarians into administra-
tors over night, or in one genera
ton or in ten, you can at least
organize your proletarians, teach
them to use their united strength
in such a way as to compel admin
istrative ability to consider them
treat them decently, giving them
their share of what they produce,
That is what Lenin will accom-
plish, and all that he will accom-
plish, if lucky.
The husband sent home the
valuable parrot, his wife cooked il
for dinner. When the indignant
husband said the parrot could talk
five languages and was worth 500
the wife replied: why didn't he
say something?"
That's how young gentlemen OF
the New York World feel about
Hoover, their Presidential bird.
They started saying they would
make him President, whether he
ran as Democrat, Republican
Christian Scientist, Seventh Day
Adventist or /. W. W.
Now, poor Mr.. Hoover having
been cooked in Michigan, the
World asks, "Why didn't he say