The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-01
A DESERVED DEFEAT.


 Few, if any, presidential candidates in all our history have deserved defeat so richly as Senator LaFollette. Few have sought to appeal so exclusively to inn proper factors among our voters. MT. LaFollette tried to capitalize discontent, race hyphenism and European political fanaticism, not to the national good, but to his own political opportunity. His bid for national disloyalty was so obvious that it had the opposite of the effect he desired.
 As the Worlds Work editorially re- marks: "In certain places, notably Mis- souri, Senator LaFollettes appeal to the assumed disloyalty of Americans of Ger man origin had contrary effect from the intended one. Enough Germans re- sented the implied suggestion that they to give MT. Coolidge a good majority in this normally Democratic state. The in- dustry of stimulating hyphenism for po- litical purposes has suffered severe blow. The resentment of German-Ameri- cans was evidently not confined to Mis- souri, for other states in which the Ger man stock is considerable element, such as Iowa and Nebraska, failed to re- spond to this argument"
 The one success noted by the Worlds Work is the LaFollette attempt "to en- list the support of newly arrived and re- gently enfranchised citizens, chiefly those from Eastern and Southern Flu rope. One of the objections raised to these peoples is that, instead of accept ing American institutions and informing their citizenship with the principles of the Constitution, they seek to supplant our machinery of government and of life with ideas imported from their home land" Thus the third-party leader was willing to barter our Constitution and our national ideals for the political support of those who believed, for example, in Social ism, a doctrine that "has made no prog ress in the United States; it's growth here has been feeble and exotic; this is not necessarily because Socialism is a fallacy, but because it was developed as cure for the ills of Europe, and has practically no application to American conditions. These different conditions explain why American radicalism, trifling in it's num- bers, is limited chiefly to these foreign settlements" in our larger Eastern cities.
 In one respect the LaFollette effort has been nationally of value. It has demon strated the soundness of American senti- ment as we'll as the merit of our new im- migration policy of reducing admission of newcomers from those lands that send us our most disturbing elements. Of the thirty million votes, LaFollette received only four million, and of those four mil lion many were cast in the sincere but liberator, instead of the trouble-maker his record shows him to be. There is now little doubt that he caused many votes to swing from Davis to Coolidge, because the people profoundly feared that he might be successful in throwing the cleo tion into congress, and they would pre- fer any eventuality to that, or to any en- couragement of the LaFollette influence.
 On this point the Worlds Work re- marks: Among the satisfactions of the campaign just closed were the personal characters of the two leading contestants. MT. Davis was a gallant and forceful an- tagonist, who fought difficult battle with little assistance from his party asso- ciates; his great misfortune was that he inherited a party demoralized by con- vention that was little better than an orgy of rancor. The auspices were thus unfavorable from the start. Whether MT. Davis will ever lead his party again is extremely doubtful, but his fine intellect gave dignity to a campaign that sadly needed it and his character lifted the plane of American politics. To have tri- umphed over such man is not the least of the honors that have come to MT. Cool idge."
 Americanism was not even shaken by the LaFollette assault upon it. Therefore it behooves the administration vigorously to discharge the responsibilities of gov ernment, and to develop that integrity of official character, and that harmony among the branches of government with out which our national progress is inn peded. The people of this country have given the Republicans a new opportunity to make good, and the only way the ad- ministration can justify that confidence is to deserve it by its record now inn minently to be entered upon.
 AMENDING COURT PROCEDURE