Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-09-12
KIPLING TALKS ONCE MORE
FOR THE HEATHEN TRIBES
ne mourns for the Tories and for
World Of Foolish DeIusIons
Swept Away In the War

| "ouiu say lt sooner or later. So
Senator Borah and the New York World.
roaring in unison even as the lions of tho
| wilderness because the First Minstrel Of
| armed Toryism accuses us of entering the
war late and quitting It early and taking
AL the worlds gold" cause one merely TO
yearn for the day when America will be
grown up and sophisticated. IF this is
the view OF England rumbles Mr.. Borah,
and kipling has been called the voice of
the English soul"
The voice of England! The voice of
England like the voice of France and Bel
gum and Italy, hasn't been heard since
the weary armies checred for the armistice.
AT that hour the politicians and the poets
and the profteers and the propagan andists
left their clubs and came to the front and
dismissed the peoples who won the war
as II they had been hired supers in an
a"tul play. 1t was in England that the
Tragedy OF that occasion was strangest.
For the group that most efficiently mis-
represents England, Mr.. Kipling, next to
the editor of the London Morning Post.
was the most distinguished voice. He
always had odd and dangerous delusions.
ne believed that The Englishman Who
dresses for Dinner and Talks Rudely to the
servants, as differentiated and set apart
from all other Ensishmen. was exclusively
and by predestination the savior of the
earth and the doer Of the will of God Oddly
enough, or naturally enough, as you will
have 1t, the Englishmen Who Dress for
Dinner and Talk Rudely to Servants didn't
greatly Ike M-. kipling. They have many
admirable characteristics and they are BY
no means the insufferable lot that he made
them appear. They. who were glorifed as
snoos' rather disiked Mr.. Kiplins. They
said his stuff smet of fiunkyism.
In the generation that has Just ended
war was the favorite diversion of Old World
aristocrats. kirling sang of guns in
high, ecstatic voice. How many lonesome
Iommies had to be slaughtered away from
home, how many white regiments had to
be sacrificed, how many black and brown
men had TO be slain to keep his bloodthrsty
muse in humor, no one will ever know.
But very strange thing happened The
guns that Mr.. Kipling had helped TO bring
nearer and nearer to England Numbered at
his very door and one of his own sons was
slain. Since then the laureate of British
miiitar!sm has been filling his world with
sounds not of gay triumph, but Of recrimi-
nation and bewidering grief.
1t Is easy TO sympathize with Kipling
the poet without failing to recognize the
monstrous deficiencies Of Kipling the re-
porter. AS he passed most of his life in
India md .e
!nsurgence that brought Gandhi as an omen
OF endless trouble and retribution; as he
was in Russia and felt none of the ground.
swells of oncoming revolution. and as he
was in the United States and learned
nothing of our instructive hatred of the
organized insanities of European politics,
so he was In the midst Of the war and the
peace without knowledge of ruling facts or
an ability to perceive them.
If we were two years and seven months
late In the war, we were at least in time
to save Britain and the British armies.
AnG hose two years and seven months were
or should have been, a period Of terrible
revelation for Mr.. Kipling. All the youth
ful life Of Britain, all the treasure of the
empire, all the energies OF brave and
great spirited people, were dedicated to the
task Of demonstrating that the Engishman
Who Dresses for Dinner and Talks Rudely
to the Servants could be, unaided,
master Of human destiny.
Most OF this expenditure was waste. The
British bled and spent and borrowed and
endured matchless agony for years before
the legend which Kipling helped to create
could be broken down and before the war
was organized for victory rather than for
the defense of decaying social and political
traditions of the nation. Nowhere in the
lands Of the heather could Mr.. Kipling
have seen so barbarous, so wild a sacrifice
as was demanded from the people of
Britain by the vanity Of stupid but socially
exalted ruling groups. The horror was
brought to an end only when the war seemed
almost lost.
The England That Had No Voice Is now
in a life and death struggle to survive the
misdeeds of the England That Had. There
are still In England few people, and
Kipling Is one Of them, who believe that we
should have thrown in our own lifeblood
and our own treasure to sustain the ro-
mantle tradition that gave the destlnies OF
the world for time into the hands of men
chosen for their names and their clubs
rather than for their talents and TO keen
alive the superstition Of the divine rights
and privileges of vanishing tribe of
Tories.
But the English as a people aren't fooled,
even by Kipling. He fooled them too often
In the past. They know, as Kipling
doesn't, that 1t was Foch, rather than
Pershing or Wilson, who stopped the fight.
Ing and refused to let It go on after the
Germans had accepted the terms of peace.
Foch said he didn't want any more massed
murder. The French didn't want addi-
tionai areas of their country needIessIy
| devastated. The Germans were PROSTATE
and dissrmed. But the guns were silenced
| and Mr.. Kipling doubtless was Ill at ease.
| nhvtouslv he knows natbine os Al.