Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-07-07
USES OF A SENSE OF HUMoR
IN OUR NATIONAL AFFAIRS
The Example Of a Traffic Policeman and
Ben W. Hooper, Of the Rail.
road Labor Board RI

VOU wouldn't suppose. contemplating an
l. ordinary--or extraordnary-trafic po-
liceman such as the estimablc John Nc.
Manus. who swings the signs at Fifteenth
and Walnut streets. that he could be in any
way related In significance to affairs Of
national import. Yesterday McManus was
celebrated in the news because some one
discovered that he had that rarest Of gifts,
a sense Of humor At the same moment a
sense Of humor native in Ben w. Hooper,
chairman Of the Railroad Labor Board, was
reacting to save an ugly and dangerous sit
uation on the railroads after mere logic
and technical reasoning had tended only to
make it worse.
McNIanus, If all we hear is true, doesn't
fierccly ride people who err unconsciously
against minor traffic rules. He doesn't feel
that his uniform. his dignity and his cause
are insulted by every motor driver who falls
into an unimportant mistake. He seems to
have learned what all extremely wise people
learn sooner or later, that when you laugh
ut a man-derisivey, brutally. angrily or
sympathetically. MS circumstances dictate
you go further than any legal instrumental
ties will ever get you in the effort to dis
cipline his soul.
Mr.. Hooper, member OF the Public
Group of the Railroad Labor Board, may be
distantly related to John McNIanus. The
fercest friends of the nsurgent shopmen,
writing of Hooper, call him "a sensible and
kindly man." And 1t was sense and kindl-
ness rather than any formal rule or dictum
that broke n deadlock created by legalistic
and routine minds between the Federal Off
cials and the rail corporations on one hand
and the strikers on the other.
Had Hooper acted In the manner made
familiar by the conventional public official
he would have stood sternly upon his dig
nifty. instead of sending a very calm and
conciliatory message to Jewell, the shop
mems leader. He would have thought of
his pride and he would have burnt elaborate
offerings to 1t. He couldn't have found 1t
in his heart to unbend and be human.
What Hooper seems to have perceived
was the human and emotional factors be-
hind the barricade Of claims and counter
claims erected between the Labor Board and
the strikers
After ALL" he seems to have said to
himself, these men are in all essentials just
like me. Doubtless they think, that they
have the right upon their side. They are
sore and they are worried. Perhaps I
shouldn't have called them outlaws. That
is hard word. I'll talk to Jewell again.
He's n red.hcad, but he's human, too"
And Jewell, at the height of his temper.
seems to have been instantly softened by the
sudden emergence of n sensitive and kindly
and informal gentleman from the chairman
of the Railroad Labor Board. OF course
he'd confer! He'd confer with anybody!
sense of humor you see means more
than an ability to perceive the ridiculous.
Usually it is founded on goodness of heart
and sustained by breadth Of view. 1t is,
in reality, sign of the highest form Of in.
stnctive wisdom.
No one knows how much damage has been
done to the world by statesmen who had no
sense of humor and were therefore, half
blind to the fundamental truths about the
origins of human impulse. The strutter in
public Office Is always inefficient. Usually
he is a failure. The man who is forever
looking Mt himself in glass and forever
bent upon the maintenance of his own dig
nifty Is obviously not sure of himself. A
little of the willingness to unbend. II it
existed in half dozen important quarters,
would have made the coal strike impossible.
A sense of humor and the light that 1t
might have cast upon most Of the conflict
ing claims at Versailles might have saved
the peace. But the humorless vanity Of the
diplomatists made anything like brond rea-
soning or humane compromises impossible.
1t may be that sense of humor rather
than highly involved and uncertain political
formulas of new type may be, as the Irish
say, the saving of the world, If it is ever
able to grow and flourish in the murLy airs
of international diplomacy.
Traffic men who roar and stutter are about
as useful in the streets as the infexible-
minded table FOUNDERS are in an important
conference OF any sort. 1t is the men with
the humane and humorous view of life and
people who release good impulses in all sorts
Of people and clear the jam most effectively.
They go long way toward making people
do right by making them ashamed TO do
wrong.
jewell and his men went by Chairman
lfooper's stop signal. And instead of call
Ing patrol wagons and drawing n crowd,
Hooper sauntered across the street and
leaned on the side of JEWELS car and talked
TO him good naturedly, as any man would
do who had right knowledge of the diff.
cuties Of travel that confront most people
in these unsettled and changing times.