The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1922-09-07
WHAT OF AMERICA?

pessimist seems to be needed today.
Eight years ago the ''pessimist' who
dared intimate that there might be
another war was consigned to the
nearest sanitarium or told that, in
spite of Bill Bryan's theories, human
ity was rapidly "evoluting" through
''cosmic law" to a state of divine per-
lection. In fact the world had gotten
so much "better" that 'next week
should see the end Of wars, riot,
Iynchings, strikes, sabotage, massa-
cres, poverty, and everything else
that interferes with US in our pursuit
of the almighty dollar. But "next
week. hell broke loose, the Germans
started for Paris and it's still loose.
It appears that the Editor of the
Los Angeles Times is a constructive
pessimist'' and an editorial by him on
July fourth, 1922, may we'll be SER
iously studied by one who has the in
terests of our country at heart.
Here is a partial quotation:
What Of America?
"They have buried their dead in
Illinois, and American civilization is
composing its face to that bland ex-
preston that has come to be its main
reliance against all questioning, all
charges and all doubts.
But questioning and doubt are not
=, 70
death nor assured by that smooth
countenance of society through whose
hasty makeup show the sears and
ulcers Of a raging disease.
Americans must answer the ques-
ton, What Of America?
It is being asked today all over
this broad continent; asked by
Americans, asked in shame, humilia-
ton and fear. Their country. their
democracy, their laws, institutions
and civilization are under indictment
and the indictment goes unanswered.
Obedience to law is liberty. So
stands it written over the door of
our courthouses. Can Americans
read that solemn injunction and fail
to acknowledge to themselves that
tested by it there is no liberty in
America?
There is no liberty where there is
no law. There is no liberty where
there is no protection for life or prop
erty. There is no liberty where there
is no respect for human rights, where
justice cannot be invoked both for
the security of society and the pun
ishment of its enemies.
What of America?
Rich, luxury-loving, mOney-grub-
bing, politically corrupt, lawless
America. Land of liberty, land of
sacrifice, land of soldier dead, of
patriot devotion, of patriot ideals
sealed on so many heroic fields,
watched over now by no spirit of
America, but only by the cold mani
mate monuments that are Americas
last remaining sentnels.
The most Iawless country in the
world. A country of universal syni-
cism, skepticism and inhnuman ma
terialism. A country that raises
stately memorial to Abraham Lin
coin and forgets or openly jeers at
his teaching. A country where class
hates class and class arms against
class, shooting and lynching and
burning and dynamiting while the
law looks on and the public is so in
different that it even looks away. A
country that throws open its gates to
alien criminal and alien lunatic, to
anarchist, bomber and hired assassins,
and where few Americans are born,
few vote and few lead.
What of America?
What of its liberty and laws, its
beliefs, faiths, sobriety and gravity
of thought and action that were the
America of old? If this republic
could not endure half slave and half
free, can it endure half law abiding
and half lawless? Is there no leader
ship left to this land, on which so
much hope of humanity is fixed, to
point uot the course it is travelling
and to call upon it with the voice of
a Washington or a Lincoln or
Roosevelt to stay?
What of America?
We need leaders who are not only
honest and fearless but intelligent.
One may well be excused for gloomy
pessimism on perusa1 of the average
list of candidates for public Office. In
view of the venality of much Of our
Metropolitan press it appears that we
must look to the support and patriot
ism of the press on those far flung
prairies still blessed with the clear