Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-09-04
AMERICAS MIND RETURNS
FROM ITS LONG VACATION
Back From Europe and the Mountains
and the Seas and the Movies, It Finds
Its House In Great Disorder

Back From Europe and the Mountains
and the Seas and the Movies, II Finds
Its House In Great Disorder
TT Is easier to start things than to stop
L them. This rule applies with unvarying
| force to automobiles and William Jennings
| Bryan. fires and 1irtntions. war and after
| dinner speeches. fashions and industrial
| strikes. poker games and human prejudiccs.
| 1t applies in sense to vacations.
Vacations used 10 be self stopping. They
! lasted two weeks and ended with an ugly
/ jolt on Labor Day. But during the Ia It
! few years. even while the American people
! went mechanically about their practical af-
/ fairs. their collective mind has been afnr on
continuous vacation that seemed as it 1t
| might contnuc forever. II has been doing
Europe and Asia and Japan and Guam. 1t
has haunted London. II tarricd in Ireland
and it almost settled down for good in
France At other times it was willing
captive in the queer. uncarthly regions Gre
ated by the frantic imagination of moving
picture producers. II was seldom or never
home.
Trouble may have some good in il after
all. II has brought the vacation OF the
American mind to an end at least We are
back again to look the old homstcad
over. And as q people We are one with the
two weeker who remained away Il mo0th.
Tho premises are in disorder.
The world of routine existence turns upon
the homccomcrs a dark and battered and
awesome countenancc. Mr.. Gompers and
Attorney General Daugherty arc stonng
each other through the windows of the
house. The cat of privilege has eaten the
canary Of our common rights. The jam
closets have been plundcred and the doors
of the house swing dcsolatcly in the winds
! of propaganda.
II the place is ever TO be made habtablc
we shall have to get down at once TO the
! unaccustOmed labor of serious and consistent
! thinking. That is what the average Amer
Jean ought TO realize on this Labor Day
For. if his more familiar habits and trends
mean anything. they mean that thought is
the work he hates most He will toll will
ingy and fight and sacrifice and endure end
lcsSly ~, rgors OF constructive effort.
Ask him to think seriously about public
affairs and he will finch and appear annoyed
and go hurricdly away.
1t is hardly fair. therefore. to blame Mr..
! GOmpers for wildly threatening II general
strike or tierccy to criticize Attorney Gen
cral Dsughcrty for his novel experiments
| with court injunctions as instruments for the
bewildermcnt of unions. These two men are
ns'''ns "''''"t"s w VI. '' ,""' '"'s
know best and they wouldn't have been per-
mitted to fight at al--there would have been
nothing to fight about--if the American mind
had returned earlier from its foreign travels
and attended nationally to problems now left
to solution by violence.
This business of absentee citizenship. of a
vast community of people who. holding au-
thorty, refuse TO use it or learn how to use
| il. is becoming pretty serious for all
| America,
| OF the returning vacattonist sharp and
| Shrewd observers ire saying what one might
say Of all that part Of tn" country which
has been letting its mind wander in Europe
! while the pressing businesses and labors of
! the hour were neglected at home. They say
! that he isn't Interested in truth. that he
/ doesn't want to bo informed or fair minded
/ and that he d"esn particularly care what
| happens to other people or TO the order of
! life about him so long as he can have his
| fling and be amused.
If that is true. II We are all content to be
| part Of blind drift toward an unknown and
| doubtful future. then We ought either to
hire an intelligent dictator to look after US
or be rcconciled TO the settlement of purely
! social questions by fighting. attrition and
brute force, Ask the returning crowds
with the baggage" says a cynic. what they
| know about til" actual condition Of the
transportation system or the life Of coal
miners or the temper Of the railway workers
! or the rights and wrongs of the strikes. They
| know very little. But they care even less -
Well. "" aren't going to put any such
| disagrecable questions to tho returning
rest AFTER me stresses @ or h ensr vacations and