The New York herald., 1922-08-06


|" HE notion that youth must do
what age has failed to do
point the way out for a dis
ordered and bewildered world-seems
to enjoy a singular vogue just now.
1t appears in the most unexpected
quarters. Young men who hitherto
have rather suspected that the game
and elderly gentlemen, who until re-
Gently have let drop no hint that they
thought there was anything to find
the way out of, have joined in send
ing out S O calls for the help OF
the youngsters. Such disillusioned
and depressed souls as the radicals
of the Clarte Movement have drawn
from the war the moral that youth
full idealism is the need of the age,
and apparently also the hope that
it will appear. Such persistent apollo
gists for the present social oder as
DIR. Nicholas Murray Butler have
lately gone SO far as to speak ap-
provingly of the perennial revolt of
youth against the customs and insti-
tutions it inherits from it's elders
A skeptical impulse suggests that
this sudden Willingness 10 take
youth in at least as a sort of junior
partner in a going concern Though
going not quite so well as of ODD
is bit too patronizing. Is it merely
the WEAKNESS of the aging men who
have had our destinies in hand
it a stroke of conscience brought on
by thousands of youngsters who
have gone forth joyfully to de for
the mistakes and the incapacity OF
those whom Barrie, in fine bit of
irony, called their betters? Or are
these elder advisers beginning really
to suspect that something vital is
wrong and a new set OF leaders is
imperative? Those whose predestinei
role is that of plaintiff in the case
must give them their due. They
must not be too cynical.
When an artist speaks one some
times gets purer vein of truth. The
artist is given 10 picturIng things
clearly and sharply. not to Guessing
them over and dressing them up as
the politician does His view of re-
ality is likely TO prove more reli-
able: he may burst out badly with
what statesmen garb in euphem-sm.
Listen then TO one who never be-
fore publicly talked politics. who has
been engaged in creating things that
seem far more real:
THE League of Nations said
Barrie at st. Andrews, lis very
fine thing, but it cannot save you
because it will be run by US tthe
betters). Beware of your betters
bringing presents. What is wanted
is something run by yourselves
"a League of YOUTH. You have
more in common with the youth of
other lands than youth and age can
ever have with each other. Even
the hostile countries sent out many
a son very like ours, from the same
sort of homes, the same sort of uni
versities, who had as little to do as
our youth had with the origin Of
the great adventure"
If league of youth is needed in
other countries, what of that most /
misled of nations? In Germany the I
State (Which Bertrand Russell once 4
defined as a small group of elderly I
gentlemen) was peculiarly supreme !
and the natural idealism of youth /
was with singularly systematic pres I
sure distorted into a worship of an
inflarled imperial nationalism. There I
the betrayal of youth was carried. 10 .
such a trasicaly thorough point that I
the system came tumbling down I
upon the heads of its makers, leav- +
ing youth nothing 10 do but give up (
the fight or begin all ever again. 4
Perhaps in some ways this may /
turn out to have been q. good thing. \
One of the most interesting chap 4
ters in Prof Manthey-Zorn's illumi- /
mating survey of Germany to-day, 4
and the most representative of his .
theme, is his account of a sort Of /
league of youth that thrived and 4