The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-11-26
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY z. HOUSE
lFrom Philadelphia Public Ledger)

we leave 1t 10 you as 10 Whetner we
shall become embroilAd in controversy
with him. Very WELL we'n take shot
at it. You continually profess" he
writes, ''to know all about the COM
mon people. the average person, the
man in the street, etc, and you have
| deluded yourself irSo believing that
unimportant person is ignorant of ev-
erything except the necessities OF life.
1 have noted many of your cynical re-
marks, most of which I could con-
trovert myself, and it occurs to me
that you bound the Intelligence of 9TH
ers by your own
Well, the controverting is good Let
G. K. S. go ahead and controvert all
he likes, up to 900 words. TO use
| time-Worn example, the Sermon on the
Mount was compressed within 500
| words. G. K. S. ought to be able to
controvert anything that appears here
in in 800 or less.
The thing that seemed TO irk G. X
S. was our reference the other day to
the rawlings of the "shootmouths" IN
connection with the secret conferences
of the arms parley. We remarked
there was nothing we enjoyed more
The ridiculous and the absurd appeal
to us as first. class diversion. The
American ''shootmouth" is nearly al
| ways ridiculous and absurd. He is in
spired by a desire to pick at some-
thing. He almost never knows any
| thing about his subject or the indi-
viduals at whom he picks.
We are. perhaps, an average Ameri-
can. Which is to say that our motives
are reasonably good and that We are
reasonably decent and honest. We are
as keenly interested in the welfare of
the race as G. X S. We can't see that
lyaG he eli oh as difFaran0a n II zi
whether the conferences IN Washing
ton are open or secret We don't
think 1T makes any difference to G.
K. S. We are willing to believe the
bic for it and who are sitting in it are
actuated by as good motives, and are
as honest and sincere as we should
be in similar circumstances. Why,
otherwise, should the conference have
been called at all? They are working
on a plan which nearly everybody
agrees will, if consummated, rebound
to the great advantage of the WELL
known race. What is the objection
to them doing it in their own way
Provided the thing is done, who cares
whether they do it under cover or in
the open?
Our own limited experience in af-
fairs is that nearly everything of i'm
portance is settled across a table and
! q
dozen men write the terms of agree
ment. 1t is. of a fact, the only way
anything of importance can be ac-
eomplished. A mass-meeting is the
most futile proceeding in the world.
No great body of representative citi-
zenS ever designs anything but the
fran eWork of a plan. A board of d.
reetors which stopped directing long
enough to consult the individual stock
holders would soon be administering
bankrupt concern. Since whatever
is done in Washington will be done
across a table located in a remote
I council chamber by half dozen men,
why attempt to maintain the fiction
that is u free performance, in which
everybody interested has a hand?
If everybody concerned in it had a
free hand in the conference in wash
ington, it would not adjourn until
1888, and the secretary in his detailed
report of the proceedings would ex-
plain that nothing had been accom-
plfshed. If members of the confer
ence were forced to listen to the wall
ing of Individual citizens, they would
all be crazy by spring. The human
animal can be pushed just so far.
Such knowledge of the common
people" as We possess proceeds from
! two sources. One is that we are one
always been -ln direct contact with
them That probably accounts for the
eynieism to which &c. K. So refers,
! if it is cynicism. Individually. the
average American citizen is a good
hearted, kindly disposed, fair-ninded.
neighborly and accoTnm odating per-
son. En- masse he is stupid, unthink-
ing, easily led in any direction, heart
less and cruel. The place to see the
American citizen at his best is in his
own home or amid familiar surround
ings. The place to see him at his
worst is anywhere crowd is gathered.
Work in our capacity as a news
paper man has led us into many great
crowds. We nearly always emerge
from such crowd blushing for our
kind. OF ali the crowds. the football
crowd probably is the fairest and most
sportsmanlike. 1t is less heartless.
less malevolent, perhaps, than any
other mass assemblage. But that IS
accounted for in large measure by its
class. The football crowd grades con-
siderably higher than other mass as
| semblages. The baseball crowd is
much more nearly representative It
is the baseball crowd that laughs
heartily when the poor devil of an
umpire is injured by a foul tip and
reViles the players on opposing teams
in language which cannot be trans
ldleO 4HtO 0ecSht epeeSHs because -
is entirely safe to do so. The fight
crowd is of about the same caliber.
I There was one remarkable thing about
the crowd that gathered for the Demp-
sey-Carpepder fight. That was
marked absence of "shootm ouths."
There were only two or three in ear
shot of this spectator. And so we set
it down as the highest-class crowd we
had ever seen under circumstances at
all similar.
It was as baseball reporter that we
got our first reverse on the AmeFi-
can crowd. We sat for a number OF
years in n press box adjacent TO and
in close touch with the grandstand.
Representative citizens by the hun
dreds came to sit in the grardstand
every day Uptown and in any indf-