The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1923-10-06
MAGNUS AND THE SMALL FRY

The visit Of Senator Magnus
johnson to New York was not
without It's comic aspects. Our
local leaders OF political shock
troops, the romantic rebels" as
they have been called, gathered
about the rough Swede from the
Minnesota farm to feast and to-
flatter him. Here was perhaps the
earth shaker that they so much
need in their make-believe revolu-.
tionary business. He had torn
things open in Minnesota; might
he not be the man taey SO long
have sought, and mourned because
they found him not. who would
bring about that general convu.-
sion which they will not be happy
until they get? So with great
curiosity and unconcealed eager
ness they buzzed and fluttered
about the Western disturber If
the conservative. peace for a whole
afternoon and evening, taking
note OF him and plying him with
questions to discover whether, al
ter many disappointments, they
had not at last found man after
their own heart to lead them to
the destruction of what they are
pleased to call "our rotten social
order"
If they sought the presence of
Magnus respondent. they left it
detected. The fellow has SO much
to learn, displays such depres-
sing amount of horse sense!l He
denied that he was radical! All
that he is bent upon at present is
to obtain a measure OF What he
cOnceives to be justice for the
farmers. For the soft-Landed in
tellectuals who fiocked to him in
this city, and who toll not. neither
do they spin, he must have had
an unexpressed feeling of some
thing like contempt. At all events.
he was not here to give them aid
and comfort. If they wanted to
get up snug little third party of
their own, that was their affair; he
would have nothing to do with it
at present. His iii st and main en-
deavor would be to make USE CT
one or the other of the existing
parties. If that failed, it wolld DE
time enough to talk. Meanwhile
he made it plain that he would
neither part nor lot with the little
groups of our best thinkers who
lunch on the social revolution and
dine off the dictatorship of the pro-
letariat.
1t Is a part of the unconscious
humor of our romantic rebels that
they are sublimely unconscious OF
the figure they cut in the eyes OF
the observant. 1t is probable,
therefore, that they did not give
thought to the spectacle they were
making of themselves in groveling
before Magnus Johnson. 1t was, in
fact, the worst possible example CT
that which they so Indignantly at
tack the worship of the god OF
things as they are Senator John
son had won great success in
Minnesota. That was enough Tor
them. They would hitch their wag-
on to his star if they could. To be
sure, they had long been preaching
the doctrine of the, need of educat-
ed and inspiring leadership, OF an
enlightened vision Of the future, of
passionate devotion to the welfare
of the wronged and inarticulate
masses, but what did all that mat
ter if they could somehow consrive
to attach their movement to this
I rude Orson of the prairies?
Their whole display of them
selves was so ludicrous that it did
not seem as if any touch We're
needed to make it complete. But
that touch was added by Magnua
himself in his partly amused and
partly scornful turning away from
the little credulous band that fan
cied him to, be one who would
start out to lead them with a torch
in one hand and a bomb in the
other.-New York Times.