The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1922-12-08
Greatness.

man in ali history Theodore Roos
= welt is second greatest and Willial
- Shakespeare third. Other successfl
. candidates for the ten greatest me
of all time ranked in the followin
, order: Henry Wadsworth Longfel
" low, fourth; Alfred, Lord Tennysor
= fifth; Herbert Hoover, sixth; Charlie
- Dickens, seventh; John ]. Pershine
. eighth; David Lloyd George, ninth
. Andrew ]. Volstead, tenth.
) No doubt there will be some merri
!. ment over this selection, but is il
much worse than other lists of the
greatest? Who is the greatest man
= in history? Conventionally, the an
!, swer is either Caesar or Napoleon.
That occasional historian, Mr.. H. G.
Wells, blew off his choicest invective
against these heroes. Most of his
reasons for disliking Caesar and Ma
, poleon would probably be shared by
the Epworth League, however much
|
with Mr.. Wells. To each his own
hero. Wells has six, not including
Wells, of whom all but Aristotle and
Buddha escape the memory. They
were both heather, and consequently
unacceptable to the Epworth League.
Men of letters will snort at the lit
erary members of this group-except
Shakespeare, who was probably nom
MATED to carry the rest of the ticket
with him. Longfellow and Tennyson
among the greatest men of all time!
Where are Marcel Proust, James
Joyce, Sherwood Anderson? Each |
to his own tastes. The Epworth |
League runs to militant Christianity
in its selections, but includes only one
man renowned as a reformer-Mr.
Volstead. What, says the indignant
Socialist-the ten greatest men of
history without Karl Marx? Mr.. Vol
steads reform covers about as much /
territory as Mr.. Marks reform, SO
far applied only in Russia, and works
about as badly. We think we'll of the
EpWorth Leagues ten greatest Now
let the League pick out the ten worst
men of history.-New York Times.
The Epworth League seems to have
overlooked very great man in this
list-Jesus Christ, the son of God.
And then there was the Apostle Paul, |
whom the ministers of the Gospel are
pleased to apostrophize.
We remember the quotation made
from Col. Jesse Sparks, many years
ago a member Of the Tennessee Legis-
ature, of the five greatest mon of all
history. 1t was about as amusing II
as the list quoted in the II
Times. Colonel Sparks selected Jesus n
Christ, st. Paul, George Washington, II
Napoleon Bonaparte and Sitting Bull. II
Politics and religion make strange II
'edfellows. Therefore the align II
lents Of hero worship. But the
league was very absent minded in
eed to choose without even mention ii
ng the name they profess to hold HI
bove all others
Maybe the League was selecting
18th the evident intention of exclud-
lg Biblical characters. The list is II
Ill a little remarkable in that it Hi
looses Roosevelt and disregards Hi
'ashington or Lincoln. Roosevelt III
as very great President, but as I'LL
'litician he was wholly revolution iii
y and unreliable. A Republican. Hi
went into the Progressive cam iii
ign advocating the destruction Of iii
e Supreme Court by popular cleo iii
IN. He took the political thunder
Bryan and LaFolIette and out
used them both in proclaiming the III
itiative, referendum and recall. a
ideal overthrow of trusts and what
t. His record as President shows
at he suspended the Sherman act iii
allow the corporate union of Fed
Il Steel and Tennessee Coal and II
n. Hill
But enough of Teddy. He is not Hi
of our heroes. I'LL
Again, an English doctor Of letters u
Is that the works of his country
n, William Shakespeare, are not
hodox and of no great value to
literary world-the tragedies and
ledies that established the English
aking stage as one of the great in mis-
utions of the past and present hel
s-the works which made famous hel
illustrious line of trageaians from Coz
Elizabethan period down to the Der
sent, including the names of Bur- ing
G, Betterton, Davy Garrick, Bar sal
Cooke, Keynble, Edmund Kean, eau
JUS Brutus Booth, Macready, For Nc
Edwin Booth, Mccullough, Irv- \
Mansfield, Forbes-Robertson and per