The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-06-30
oday
Maniacs and Nations. Rebuilding Not Begun. Anti-Semitisnn Grows. A Menace to Society.
 By ARTHUR BRISBANE
By ARTHUR BRlSBAl

By ARTHUR BRISBANE
 William Sheridan has been in the New Jersey state hospital for the in sane 40 years. Joseph Clee had been there for three years. Joseph Clse seized William Sheridan. banged his head violently against the wall and killed him. Clee said Sheridan mad been "bothering him for five years" although Clee had been in the insti- tuition only three years. It was just .homicidal. manias." the officials said It was not very different from what nations were recently doing to others, and not much more insane.
 And 1t was not very different from what the nations will probably De ,kdosng pretty soon and a good many years from now.
 This ought to be the age of pure ! constructive work All American energy. intelligence and skill should be devoted to building up after the war Instead, governments, indus try and business are concentrated on K the problem Of avoiding more tearing down.
 How to keep afloat our flagships that cost Americans ssOoo.ooo,ooo is one problem.
 How to deal with strikes in coal mines on railroads. all threatening industry is another. Evidently the war did not touch us with enough violence to teach real lesson. Flu rope got real lesson.
 The next piece of news from Flu rope may be the escape of the Kaiser from Holland into Germany to head the reactionary movement. After that the news may not be so pleasing to the Kaiser. His cousin, of Austria. was not very fortunate. The outbreak of anti -Semitism all over the world, from brutal mobs in the Ukraine to polite and refined professors at Harvard. is emphasized by the murder of Rathenau His father~wa Jew, and Germans's anti-semitic fury, centered on him, was made all the more bitter by his extraordinary ability and unselfish devotion to the national welfare.
 For the hundred thousandth time judge inflicts the utmost penalty, saying to the prisoner. as though he had been the first to think of 1t, You are a menace to society"
 Many man thus sentenced might reply; .Soctety has been a menace and destruction to me. It allowed me to land in a filthy slum. to play in . dirty gutter. to be poisoned by bad food, starved by high prices and to be born of a man soaked with whisky. Why don't you sentence so- eiety along with me?"
 Mayor Hyian's political enemies ! and mockers are his best friends, d. though they don't know it. Just now i the mayor IS planning to give the ses zcr s-Ais city rnesp electric power. Lake Erie Is several hundred feet above New York, twice as high above New York city as the highest part Of Niagara Falls.
 The mayor wonders why he couldn't bring that body of water to New York city, or some nearer body of water. to use 1t first for cheap power. then for water.
 XA h1 every one of New York's 6,ooo, QUO people cheap electricity for cooking, heating. washing, sweeping.
 The corporation papers laugh at him and call him dreamer" They also laughed at him because he stood on the dock, weeping bitterly when his wife sailed for Europe. the first time in their married lives that they had been separated. The weeping wife begged him to take good care of "the baby" their grand child. This also seemed funny to some ot the reporters. It won't seem at all funny to women voters at future elections.
 Mir. Taft tells an audience in Eng land that people in the west and in Cincinnati. Chicago and St. Louis consider Europe something very tar away.
 What happens there doesn't in- terest them very much unless the price of wheat is affected" That may be, but all Americans are in terested in one thtpg, that is hap pening just now in Japan.
 The story is told in the headings of a special dispatch to The New York Times: Japan. leading in naval building. On unrestricted types she is going beyond the 5-3 ratio fixed for battleships, America dropping back. Tn light cruisers Japan Is ahead and nearly equal in submarines on present program"
 Very able statesmen Japan sent to our Washington conference.
 They bow most politely. rub their lands. make very gentle speeches and Japan builds submarines, flying machines and whatever else she may need and with America dropping back"
 However, if anything happens, 1t will give our s1 year patriots an other opportunity for profiteering, another chance to build wooden ships not worth having, flying machines that won't fly. s3,Oo0, ,o00, ,ooo worth of iron ships that the country can't uso after 1t gets them.
 Girard Taxi Driuer