Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-23


Eyes, it confscated deposits in excess of
100000"
Little CLEAN Of satisfaction in inquisitor's
eye, "And do you justify that?
"Yes, in the circumstances. AS, perhaps,
you justify your own government s recent
confiscation of the liquor in this country.
"Ah, but you don't pretend to think that
those two cases are at all parallel?'
"What mean is that confscation is not
a new and terrible method exclusively re-
sorted to in Russia. Your own government
in your own revolution confscated the prop
erty of the citizens who opposed 1t, the
Tories. And again, when the citizens of the
North opposed those of the South, the North
contiscated vast property in the South, the
slaves"
MIR. MARTENS, a quiet little engineer,
1Nl has mind that works all the time and
he knows his history.
The senator's, not having had to use their
minds in finding historical precedents for
revolution, are devastated when Martens
brings home the fa0t that peoples in revolu-
ton behave very much alike everywhere
They kill their enemies.
They seize their enemies property
They rediscover logic and, thrilled by its
Guidance, want to 60 wherever it leads.
Thev hate compromise as a habit of slaves.
They forget fear and in general scandalize
the nonreyolutionary part of mankind, which
likes TO have fear treated with great respect.
A Nd one striking thing that revolutions
n everywhere and always do IS to bring the
very best brains available into their service.
You NAV not agree with the Lenines,
Trotzkys and Martenscs, but you have to
| admit their ability.
Look at our own revolution.
When did this country have its best brains
| in its service!
When it was breaking away from Great
Britain and setting up the democracy that
| was to be the pattern for all other democ-
racies. -. ;,
ION Modisou-we have one hundred times as
many people in this country today, but it
| would he impossible to point to one single
man in public life who is equal to the least
| Of these.
WHY? We are going concern today and
II is not of vital consequence now whether
we have Washingtons, JeffersOns and Ham
| iltons to serve us or not.
| In a revolution it is a question Of life and
| death whether we use our best brains or not.
The sense that il we don't hang together
we'll hang separately sharpens everybody S
| wits.
The Russian revolution has had the whole
world to fight.
However impossible is its "dictation of the
proletariat," it believes it and naturally does
not put forward fools and incompetents to
fight the whole world for it.
q q q
| CCIENCE, at least advanced science, has
~ just thrown over ether, that handy sub.
stance which used to pervade all space.
The Enstein theory, which only twelve
men in the world understand, knocks out
ether along with our ordinary conceptions
of space and time.
Thinking of space the way we used to, we
had to imagine it filled with ether.
Thinking of space the way the twelve
disciples of Einstein do and the way the
rest of us should il we only could, we can
no longer imagine it filled with ether.
Good old ether, which used to conduct
tho suns rays across 90,000,O0O miles of
space, which used to afford "A passage for
| radio rays through solid substances or, nut