The Washington herald., 1922-11-05

seockiag. Ihen 1ccounfs of . few cope
ments between other meas wives and other
wonsnS husbands-whiek WI please chose who
IKE 10 read such STUFF. There Is ! story o. 90
stuut successful bootlegging and l few Jokes
about lsdies smoking cigarettes and wearing short
skirts. An this is bad eaoagh We DO not con-
done L. But do insist that it Is rather innocent
whea compared with the moral shortcomings Of
old-time New Engiand-New England when Mr.
Coolidge was a boy. New England when the
troops mustered for the civil war, New England
when the Puritan settlers had rid themselves of
some OF their righteousness. b
We cannot catalogue here the vices of the
New England of the Vice President's boyhood.
He knows them himself. There Is halo of fond.
memories over the hills today which prevents him
from seeing them in a true perspective
He speaks of wives numbering their husbands
in the Chicago and the Washington OF Ioaa But
for the most part they do It with knives
volvers or poisons-quickly and mercifully. We
hope Mr.. Coolidge will answer honestly-wii not
these women stand better chance before the
bar of eternal judgment than some of the hypo-
critical old farmers of his boyhood who murdered
their wives through months and years of slow
torture months and years of kicks and cuffs and
| curses. months and years Of hard cider "jags"f
The black book of the recording angel may be a
| matter of superstition The Lord will not need it
| when he comes to judge the sins of these hypo-
critical old rascals. Their records carved on
stone-on gravestones scattered over square miles
/ Of hill cemeteries. II is not uncommon, as we
recollect it, to see family plots in the old-time
graveyards with the headstones Of one husband
and six wives. The New England farmer, who
couldn't keep slaves in legal bondage. turned his
| wives into slaves
The little school at the crossroads with the
| blackberry vines and the sumac bushes around it
W a of
what foul hole OF immortality it actually
The Vice President will remember. How much
better the clean, well-ventlated, well-lighted
| munity schoolhouse of 1922. We do not deny the
virtues of rural New England We are foremost
| in admiration of the honest, progressive Cod
| fearing deacons who lived according to better and
more mercful standards than obtained around them
| The New England farmer has a better chance
of salvation He may patronze bootlegger
He may eope with some other farmers wife. He
may stick knife through his neighbor il =
moment of passion. But he has machinery to do
his milking. He doesn't have to force his wife
to do it-with horsewhip il necessary. He can
| plow with tractors. He doesn't have to make
| slaves of his children. He has automobile now
and go riding after church sunny Sabbaths.
He doesn't spend the Lords day reading the
Scriptures and working himself into an insane
frenzy by drinking hard cider. His children are
not apt to be simple-minded. His wife is apt
| to live long he does.
| No. Mr.. Coolidge. The American people don't
need your poverty and hardships again in order to
| be morally regenerated. Once the countryman
| dreamed of physical comforts in a far-away
Heaven. Now he has set at work to construct
that Heaven earth-which is better
| We unable to believe for moment that
the American people skidding down a path Of
roses into Perdton. We are confident rather,
that they climbing, slowly and painfully per-
haps, onto the peaks OF righteousness. We believe
| that the average woman was better in
1920 than in 1000 and better in 1900 than in 1875.