Gunnison news-champion., 1923-09-28
SENATOR BROOkHARI
n EevD-Champion does not

grzpLs as erninently worthy of read
Ing.
En- IN Page in Delta Tribune
WI senator Smith ". Brookhar,
of luaa Sas befor. he became a Sena-
tor DO not know. can not find
his ZANE in the latest edition OF
Nv Who" and feel no inclination
to -rs Information regarding his
ear life from any less accessible
sour but since his attainment OF the
SEM whatever else he may have
besr. hr has been a procurer OF pub
licItg ,econd only to Babe Ruth, Mary
Pig.t8rd and Andy Gump. That day
VIII does not blaEon his name across
tn 'front.' page Of every metropolitan
ne paper Is day that he would
ma. SIth black peg. He would
j. JOB in asking that il be stained
W.T. the darkness and shadow Of death
an be- allowed TO perish.
Tagticians, cheap and otherwise, al
r,atg receive an amount Of free news
par space out Of all proportion TO
th-r natural interest or their prac-
tic. Importance. Curiosity concern
H.. them Is an artificial curiosity art
Z f. implanted and assiduously cult
va'eI by the politicians themselves.
J. an acquired taste like a fondness
T.. green olives OF craving for cigar
.... There are in public life some
o. Of such exceptional consequence
g., their activities and personalities
Va I'D BE- Of gripping interest even
So ..nut the advertising which public
g.. 0y gErs them, but politicians OF the
e. uUuer sort are not men Of that
B 3d.. Without Office they simply are
9. and even with Office they are not
.-n unless they have a good press
agent Quite evidently Senator Brook
one. II is therefore with CON
HrTuble reluctance that | ada graf
. Gus luster TO his name BY mention
..r j: in The Broader View.
recent speech Senator Brook
aart charged that f. T. Meredith,
zen he was the secretary Of the de-
..artment OF agriculture during the
~ IIaou administration, sat in the
"a al Street game and helped produce
'.o greatest panic in farm prices in
the history OF agriculture" With a
-sUse Of ncpartee quite unusual among
erretaries of agriculture. Mr.. Mere
9th makes his rejoiner in the form Of
nit for libel and damages in tie sum
II 30 cents.
Ny only ground for criticising this
-uIt is that the claim for damages APP
pears to be excessive. Senator Brook
mart probably had 30 cents worth Of
lbelous intention, but he didn't and
couldn't deliver more than a nickel's
worth Of libelous goods.
What panic in farm prices" may
be ! leave TO Senator Brookhart and
those of his admirers who regard
words not as symbols of meaning but
AS vehicles of sound. Panics do not
occur In prices but in the heads OF
men. The thing that happened to
prices In 1920 was not a panic but a
collapse; and the thing that happened
in the heads of farmers was not a
panic but a discouraged disgust that
the collapse that had affected their
prices had not extended to the prices
of hardware, clothes, building mater
ials, coal. freight, and the wages of
those organized industries that had
been able, by a series of wholly un-
justifable strikes, to maintain all of
these prices at their war levels. There
was no panic anywhere except among
those politicians who saw that there
was no community of interest between
striking shopmen and bankrupt far
mers, and no way of getting back TO
congress without getting the votes of
both.
Judge Lands characterizes Senator
Rrookhart as "A man of quite superior
vocal accomplishments" but, whatever
his vocal accomplishments may be, Il
can not take the responsibility of
translating his vocal product INTO in
telligent speech. What he means by
the Wall Street game" a trained
psyche analyst might be able to as
certain. ! can not. You can not. He
can not. | konw that there is such
a place as Wall Street, for | have
been there. but | found there none of
the sinister wickedness that is imputed
to Wall Street by political dema-
gogues. 1t is simply financial center,
different from thousand other
American financial centers only in the
narrowness and crookedness of the
street in which it is located. and in the
volume of business that is transacted
there. The "Wall Street of a politi-
cal speech is an expression of purely
mythical significance used by dema-
gogues to brighten rustics into voting
fright" just as the COLLINS of Little
Orphant Annie" celebrity are used to
brighten naughty children into being
good.
II in this example of his vocaliza-
tion Senator Brookhart refers to the
raising of the discount rate that occur
ed toward the end of 1919, he should
be informed that this was done not by
anyone who "sat in the Wall Street
game but by the Federal Reserve
Board. However, if Senator Brook
hart proves that Mr.. Neredith-either
in or out of "the Wall Street game
was in any way responsible for this
advance of the discount rate, he will
have proved that Mr.. Meredith is en-
titled to volume of public gratitude
that no other secretary of agriculture
has ever deserved, and will have wiped