The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-03-07
THE REPUBLICAN PLIGHT

The Republican congress failed to do any thing to advance the prestige of the Re- publican party, and thus unkindly placed upon the Republican national committee the heavy burden of trying to convince the peo- pie that the congress was a success. The committee is very faithfully settling down to it's thankless and hopeless task, and has already assured the country that during the sxty-seventh congress more constructive legislation was enacted than by any con- gress in peace times. Now nobody should laugh at that statement, for it is not intended as joke, but is rather the resort of des- peration. What else could the committee do? If it were really to try to enumerate the worthwhile laws' of the last congress, it would be indeed embarrassed, but as long as it confines itself to generalities, the evil day of reckoning is postponed. Never did a congress leave the maj jority party so in the lurch.
 The committees statement says further: "The tremendous and in many cases unpre- cedented increase in industrial activity, in number of wage-earners, in pay-rolls, in bank deposits, in savings accounts, in all wholesale and retail business which has ta- ken place in the last two years has not been accidental. Conditions have grown steadily and consistently better from month to month since March, 1921, during all of which time the sixty-seventh congress was practically in continuous session. This improvement would not, indeed could not, have taken place had that congress been enacting laws hostile to or hurtful of the industrial, agri- cultural, commercial or financial interests" An! Perhaps that is the fabric of which the sixty-seventh congress was woven: It re- trained from passing hurtful laws! That is indeed record to be proud of. Condi- tions were gradually becoming better, and congress, if we forget the tariff, very gens erously, did nothing to prevent! Doubtless the Republicans expect to go back into of- flee on that record.
 Perhaps it would be enlghtening to those whose education has proceeded along politi- cal rather than economic lines, to knaw that months before the last presidential elections and before the results were foreseen, MT. Roger Babson, the nations foremost statis- tician and business economist, said that the depression was at it's lowest ebb, and that, following the unerring laws of economics, times would become steadily and continually better until the "area of recovery equalled the area of depression" If politics was to have anything to do with it, MT. Babson did not say so. The logical inference is that times became better, not because of the sixty-seventh congress with it's inert Repub- lican majority, but in spite of it. The CO., rollary to that is that the Democrats can in no manner be held responsible for the period of depression for which they were blamed by their political opponents.
 The sxty-seventh congress will go down in history as the congress which forfeited a golden opportunity for the outstanding exhibition of constructive statesmanship. Hardly ever, since the beginnings of our government, has a congress stood on the threshold of such a magnificent vista of national expansion and development; and never has congress so resolutely closed it's eyes to the vision or so blindly groped where it was so easily possible to see. The Republi- can national committee points to only one thing, the budget and certain consequent economies, but as everybody knows, that is bookkeeping and not statesmanship A congress is known by it's constructive achievements and not by it's ability to re- duce expenditures during a period of de- clining costs. Although well worth doing, clerks could have done that.
 SIR ARTHUR ON ECTOPLASM
 Sir Arthur ConansDov1a aav. U;nderr+o