The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-02
PRESIDENTS MEMORIAL ADDRESS

nation.
 PRESIDENTS MEMORIAL ADDRESS
 President Coolidge may not be au ora tor who arouses his hearers to a pitch of exaltation or fervor, but he speaks clearly, sanely and forcefully on ques- tions of national and international inn port. His hearers or readers may not agree with him, but they can respect his opinions and his intelligence. It is relief also to have a public speaker able to deliver an address on patriotic oc- casion without verbal pyrotechnics or rendings of the Armament. We are be- coming more and more an intellectual people. In order to sway public opinion nowadays a speaker must appeal to com mon sense. That is partly because we are better informed and better read than those of another day. It is partly be- cause the great majority of people are now reached through the printed word rather than by the fires of oratory. It is far easier to detect drivel in print than drivel delivered with all the arts of a finished spellbinder.
 One question affects the president very deeply. It is that of our entry into world court. In this matter it appears that the senate has somewhat got the cart before the horse. While the Lodges and the Peppers may have the legal right to prepare and introduce world court plans, and while the senate may have the legal right to consider, accept or reject them, yet the question is primarily an extra-national and diplomatic one. Therefore, it would be more in accord with custom, and more fitting, for the proposal of any international association to originate with the executive, that is, the state department, than with the leg islative. In the present instance, it would probably be far more ably done by the state department, for MT. Hughes ability towers above that of the Lodges and Peppers to a marked degree. Indeed, under other environment, it is easy to picture MT. Hughes as the spon- sor of our entry into the League of Ma tions, rather than into the side yard of the league, as the world court might be termed.
 MT. Coolidge's theory of the world court is in principal measure an inherit ance from his predecessor. He frankly admits that he favors the Halding plan of associating ourselves with the league court, with, to be sure, the well-known reservations, without which any Repub- lican considers himself politically naked and exposed to the shafts of.league SUD- porters. The reservations are a~cloak that loosely conceals the living form un- derneath. Everybody knows the form is here, but the cloak, that is to say, the reservations save the face of the Re- publicans, 50 to speak.
 Mr. Coolidge adopts the logic of those. who approve the league principle and purpose, but, like his political contem- poraries, he refuses to go to the end of his logic, for he respects the party fetich that counsels avoidance of the destina- tion. The Republicans are on their way, but they travel with reluctant feet with many halts,' and with many a pretense of not travelling the road at all. If any body is deceived, it is themselves. After expressing his adherence to the Harding idea of a world court, the president says:
 We cannot take step in advance
 of this kind without assuming cer-
 tain obligations. Here again, if we
 receive anything we must surrender
 something. We may as we'll face
 the question candidly and if we are
 willing to assume these new duties
 in exchange for the benefits which
 would accrue to us, let us say so.
 If we are not willing, let us say that.
 We can accomplish nothing by talk
 ing a doubtful or ambiguous posi-
 tion. We are not going to be able
 to avoid meeting the world and
 bearing our part of the burdens of
 the world. We must meet those
 burdens and overcome them, or they
 will meet us and overcome us. For
 my part, I desi1'e my country to
 meet them without evasion and
 without fear in an upright, down.
 right, square, American way.
 Taken out of its context, these words could easily be understood as an argu- ment in favor of joining the League of Nations. Curiously enough, the same argument in reverse was the principal one used in the senate to defeat the Will son peace program. Because we had to Surrender something" said Messrs. Lodge and his fraternity, therefore we must keep out of it. It only goes to show that a good acrobat can climb either up or down on the same rope.
 SAVING HABIT AND BUSINESS