The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-09-07
Light on the Mighty
BY FREDERIC J. HAskIN

WASHINGTON, D. c., Sept THE
time seems to be close at hand when
no politician will be hero to his
constituent-when in fact, no public
figure, dead or alive, will be hero to
any one who reads.
Instead of considering presidents,
senators, diplomats and generals great
men, remote and different from our
selves. we will know more about their
weaknesses and failings than about
any one else's. A certain public man,
for example, has impressed the whole
world with his dominating manner.
He seems to regard himself almost as
god certain writer who has stud
led psychoanalysis, among other
things, writes a piece about him and
shows that he is really a timid fellow
with an inferiority complex, and that
all his lordly manner is a desperate
effort to pump his own courage and
make himself believe that he is OF
some account.
The writer may not be wholly cor
rect, but at least he has offered a
plausible theory. Heretofore our public
men have been sold to US by campaign
oratory and journalism. A voter might
easily have read five years ago, in the
magazines and heard in speeches a
million words about leading public
men, and have known less about them
than he did before he started. The
reason was that nearly every word he
read or heard had a political bias He
could read an article on the presiden
tial candidate. praising him to the
skies, comparing him to Lincoln and
/ Roosevelt and all the other party gods
showing a picture of him with his nine
children and explaining what a mode
family man he was, setting him up as
nothing less than unmitigated perfec
| ton.
| With equal ease this man could fine
articles in which the same presidential
candidate was shown up as an incom
petent and a tool of the trusts. i
would be proved by documents tina
his Observation-Disclosures was ar
Indian horse thief and that he himself
| once went to Atlantic City for week
end with his cook.
A Misinformed Public.
What should the voter believe If {
stupid and partisan man he woulC
agree with what supported his party
| anu IL al llltClllSCLlt duu
fellow he would believe nothing. HI
would admit that it was impossible TO
him to get any real estimate of tn,
men for whom he had to vote. that g.
per cent of everything written ant
said about our public men has beel
just so much sand in the voter
eye.
There have been few exceptions, O
course. The brilliant Journalist. San
uel G. Blythe, wrote a long series o
sketches of public men which were dis
tinguished by satirical and compare
lively unbiased point of view. H
destroyed more than one meretriciou
reputation, and politicians feared hir
as a darkey fears the devil But h
was lone and exceptional figure, an
furthermore he was a caricaturist i
words rather than a competent analys
of men and events
The honest and scientific analysis Q
public men is an art which has com
into being within the past few year:
and which is just now getting a foo
hold in this country. Beyond doub
it derives its strength and its method
from the science of psychoanalysis
however much some of its practitioner
may try to deny the fact.
Its most conspicuous example so ia