The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-11-16
FOUR YEARS OF RESPONSIBILITY.

FOUR YEARS OF RESPONSIBILITY. k The Literary Digest, under its cut of Mir Coolidge and MT. Dawes in last weeks issue, has this significant line: "Facing Four Years of Responsibility" That is an aspect of the presidency and vice-presidency that is often lost sight of !. in the general feeling that the office is one conferring great distinction. Yet there is no doubt that our chief executive pays heavily for the distinction; pays with years subtracted from his own life per haps; pays by abstracting four years of peaceful pursuit of his private affairs and turning them over to the care-laden function of administering this great and complex government. Some men take their official burdens more easily than others. but ever the toll is heavy. Visi- tors to the White House few months after the accession of MT. Coolidge re- marked upon the lines already made upon the presidents countenance by the cares of office. Therefore, it behooves the An16TlCdL pcOPiS Io uo "AAA" SAiSJ >N~AA to make that burden lighter, for it is their country which is served and their coun- try's welfare which it is sought to pro- mote. The verdict should come at the end of a presidents term of office, and no purely political hostility to the execu- tive has proper place while any admins tration is under headway, unless there should arise such evidence of maladmin- istration as has never yet been discovered in the personal conduct of an American president.
 This, of course, does not mean that congress should always agree with the | president on matters of legislation, for such a situation would deprive the na- ton of the benefit and counter-balancing value of our highest deliberative body. But filibusters for the sake of impeding the legislative calendar or for the block . ing of an administrative measure merely for partisan reasons are intolerable and foreign to our conception of government by the majority. There is ample room for honest divergence of opinion with out the introduction of any obstructive tactics prompted solely by political ambi- ton or intolerance. The dignity and the welfare of the nation demand that each administration be allowed to function freely, in order that there may be no governmental marking of time when our affairs are straining at the leash. We cannot stand still without losing ground, for the world is progressing.
 Such an attitude does not, however, imply an obligation to accept blindly and without discussion the measures and poli- cies advocated by the administration. On the contrary, there is nothing more wholesome nor conducive to good gov ernment than the free expression of 2 honest opinion. For this nation ever to arrive at a state in which everybody thought alike on all important subjects would be to reach an intellectual and e political desert. All new ideas, measures and policies require to be threshed out in the arena of public discussion, as well as .. on. the floor of congress. No matter whether the chief executive proposes them or somebody else, the safety of this na- tion demands that public opinion be un- trammeled and outspoken on questions ln- volving the public welfare or the conduct of the government. Freedom of speech connotes freedom of thought, and it is 2 on independent thinking that popular self-government depends, if it is to sur Vive.
 Surely we have arrived at that degree of intellectual development, however, when logic may be divorced from preJu- A dice and we may take issue with politl- :, cal opponent without developing personal { animosity towards him or seeking to con vey the impression that he is governed by Improper motives, simply because he IS on the opposite side of the question in discussion. If there is belief that pub lie man is corrupt and dishonest, then there is nothing to do but expose him, ot course; but that is quite different from casting aspersions upon a dlsputant character simply because he is political opponent.
 MT. Coolidge has been returned to the ; presidency by d great popular majority The minority equally accepts him as its president, and is not to be distinguished from the majority in the fidelity ot It's devotion to the nations best interests.
 rv CT, rnD CIrDDT TC POOEC