Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1921-01-27
A Wise choice

through MS own WISE CIOlCe, Ill dc
cord with the taste anddesire of the
some discussion of the manners and
methods of the occasion, ended by Mrs.
Harding's own authoritative voice.
There will be dignity and impressive
ness. There will be no ostentation,
no idle display, no extravagant ex-
pense. There will be no appropriation
of public money from the deficit
haunter Treasury of tax-burdened
nation. There will be no grand
stand" to mar the majesty of the
Capitol whose stately precincts afford
fitting stage for the most august of
ceremonials. There will be no parade
wearying to marchers and spectators
alike There will be no ball to en-
gender heart-burnings and to crafty
cheap vanity There will be merely
the spiritual procession of more than
sixteen million citizens whose tree
and independent suffrage made Mr..
Harding President, and the attendant
audience of a hundred and five mil
lion Americans who will with confid-
ence acclaim him as their leader in an
entrance upon a new and nobler day.
Let it be clear that upon such an
occasion, generous expenditure should
not per Sc be grudged. This nation
can we'll afford once in four years to
pay an ample sum for investing with
ceremonious majesty the induction of
its Chief Magistrate into Office, and
assuredly the people should have such
opportunity as they may desire for
private contributions to the same end.
Republican simplicity does not demand
there is a time to spend, and a time
niggardliness nor deny festivities. But
to refrain from spending. At time
like the present, with an embarrassed
Treasury, an over-taxed people, bust
ness depressed and unemployment
rife, and with supreme need on every
hand of retrenchment, economy and
thrift, it will, in Mr.. Harding's con-
vincing words, be timely and whole
some 60 practice the utter denial of
public expenditure where there is no
real necessity" and it will set "an ex-
ample of economy as we'll as to SIM
plicity which may be helpful in the
process Of seeking our normal ways
once more"
The decision of the President-elect
in this matter is typical, in itself and
in contrast. A little more than two
years ago his predecessor made a
"progress" to Europe in such extrava-
gance of lavish and sumptuous state
as the world has scarcely seen since
the decadent splendors of the Caesars.
To him, millions Of other peoples
money meant no more than the small
bust of the balance, when his own
pomp and pride were to be ministered
to. That, too, was typical. It was
typical of the era of extravaganza,
orofigacy and waste into which Presi-
lent Wilson plunged the nation with
the recklessness of those who once
cried after US, the delugew And
he did that with the money of ma
ton which, with singular deliberation
and emphasis, had just recorded
against him a vote of lack of con-
fdence.
Now comes his successor; a man
who has just received from his nation
such vote of confidence as no other
man in the history of the country or
indeed of the world ever had received.
If ever there was a President who
might claim charter from the people
o adopt his own course, that man is
Warren G. Harding. Yet in the very
act of receiving such a commission,
he insists upon the spending-or,
rather, the saving-of the peoples |
money with the same scrupulous care
which he might apply to his own,
earned by hard work and accumulated |
by rigid self-denial.
The contrast between the two per-
formances is, we have said, typical |
1t is significant not merely of the per-
sonal difference between the two men, |
though that is by no means a negli- |
gible consideration, but still more of |
that of the two administrations or
the two eras for which they stand |
The one has been autocratic, vain,
luxurious, regardless of the wishes or
the burdens of the people, so only that |
its Dictator's personal pride and
WITNESSES could be gratifed. The other
rives indubitable promise, in the be-
ginning of its course, of genuine de- |
simplicity, and a quick SYM
pathy with the desires, the needs and
the aspirations of the people. 1t is
because of its denotement of this cir
that the forthcoming in
auguration promises, through the wise
of its chief participant, to
be perhaps the most appropriate and
worthy that the late history of the
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