Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-26
MR.. WILSON VISITS THE TOMB
OF ROOSEVELT PRoGRESSlvISM
Is the President, Too, Signaling for De-
parted Spirits and Can He Raise
the Dead?

RI THERE is dim world reserved for
dead political parties the elevation of
Bainbridge Colby to the secretaryship of
state will cause an enormous flutter
among the shades that walk therein.
| Surely a voice has called to them!
Mr.. Wilson seemingly is not content
merely to bring back departed spirits
that passed over after the agony of the
national Progressive convention of 1916.
Such experiments are for the amateurs.
What the President appears to have in
mind is nothing less than a raising from
the dead. For Mr.. Colby is a most con-
spicuous remaining fragment of Roose-
welt progressivism, a fixed symbol of an
ancient unrest. 1t is true that he died
politically in the year of the Great
Amazement and was reborn Democrat.
Yet the essentials of him are unchanged.
He is still a rebel, but rebel whose
talents are nearer to the level of Clifford
Pinchot than to Roosevelt's level.
In his present aspect Mr.. Colby must be
viewed as the Progressive party. He it
was who nominated Roosevelt for the
presidency when an almost religious
exaltation swept the Progressives' conven-
tion few hours before Roosevelt turned
back into the fold to support Mr.. Hughes
and left his followers at Chicago dazed
and desperate, fighting mad, forlorn and
numb with a grief that was bitterer and
more real than the country knew.
The political emotions of that year
were profound. Passion and hope and
despair ran wild together. Men were
stirred to the deeps of consciousness.
The Progressives in convention were
chanting when the bad news came. Their
eyes, they said, had seen the glory of the
coming of the lord.
Mr.. Colby sat down like man shot
when the fatal telegram came from Oys-
ter Bay. He packed a great weight of
sorrows in his old kit bag and went from
the convention bang into the Democratic
party, quite as man enters a monas-
terry when he is sickened of the world and
wishes to advertise a remuneration COM
plete and final.
Since then large scattered bands of un-
converted Progressives have wandered
like lost tribes in the political wilderness,
refusing to be consoled, knowing not
shelter, nor hope, nor signs of promise,
nor place to rest their heads. The tree
of their purpose faded and died. But un-
less Mr.. Wilson is far less astute than
any one has reason to believe, he is con-
vinced that sap still runs in its roots.
He has found a secretary Of state whose
mind will go along with his. He has
provided a steed and armor for one who
| is a sort of Joan of Arc of the Roosevelt
clans.
At a stroke that astonished the coun-
| try by its uneXpectedness and audacity
| he has lifted a representative of what
was youthful, imaginative, headlong and
aspiring in traditional Republicansm to
| a place in the national administration for
period that may be the most crucial in
our history.
This appointment follows the appoint
ment of Mr.. Crane as minister to China
Mr.. Crane, too, has been only a casual
Democrat. He was originally Republi-
can Of the sort who cannot get along with
| the elder statesmen of his party. And
| he is given a post that will be center
| of world affairs and of unique ambassa-
dorial opportunity as soon as Europe be-
| comes rational.
If President Wilson is engaged in some
| large, new maneuver for realgnment of
| political forces in the United States he
| is playing a ticklish game. Voters in
| dissociated groups may applaud him.
| But Democrats, and especially southern
| Democrats, are sure to accuse him Of
| breaches of party faith.
Republicans will, of course, be trium-
phant. They will see in Mr.. Colby moth
ing more than a mind willing to go obe-
! dently along with Mr.. Wilson's, an out
! lander and a runaway who happens to
have sensitive emotions and a purpose
which it is fashionable to call visionary.
Senator Wadsworth, for example, de-
tests Mr.. Colby. So do most of the other
regulars in Congress. Yet great many
people who hold no brief for Mr..
Lansing's successor will hesitate before
| they let their minds run along with Mr..
! Wadsworth's.
It Is idle to deny that disillusionment
! and discomfort are pretty general in both
| old parties. The Hooverites are a new
type. They exist in vast numbers and
they are politically homeless. Labor is
even talking of forming its own party.
And aren't the women voters, who may
vet turn the national election, openly
contemptuous of the old-line leaders,
whom they are disposed to regard as
either vicious or merely naive?
No one has yet evolved scheme for
the mobilization of the vast masses of
votes now floating in a state of detach-
ment. Mr.. Hays has been valiantly try
ing the experiment, but he is working
against terrible obstacles.
And meanwhile it is to be remembered
that Mr.. Wilson has always yearned to
be the architect Of new party. He has
reasons. He is utterly unable to get
along with any of the parties now in
existence. Is it too much to suppose that
he is dreaming of a party whose mind
1 i