New Britain herald., 1929-10-19
Why Mir. Average Citizen Lets His Interests Wane.


 Lets His Interests Wane,
 What does ye average laborint : man in New Britain, and elsewhere 7 read in the daily papers, It is a saf, , bet that most of the Iocal news get! q pretty thorough reading. A .arg.
 proportion of the material on the | sports pages, and various other de partments get about the same inter.
 est Tn certain instances, It is ( moot question, however, whether , the average man reads such import ant news stories as the doIngs o.
 admittedly dry in many , >nstances-and the story of the sen
 ates' lobby Investigating committee in particular
 Thursday afternoon the Observer
 loaned his paper to a friend, while the merits of various brands of cars
 were being discussed on a downtown
 street corner. Out Of the corner Of
 his eye the Observer watched to see
 what the friend would read. A three
 column head blazoned the doings of
 the senate lobby committee in it's
 questioning of Sen. Hi Bingham and
 his recent playmate. Mr. Eyanson.
 On the other side Of the page was
 story about the rumor that Sen
 brandegee had been murdered, and
 had not committed suicide.
 The friend glanced at the Bing-
 ham story and said "Hm." It was
 a very bored sort of "Hm." He gazed at the Brandegee story and re-
 marked "Oh, so Brandegee was mur-
 dered, was he?'
 wonder what American Can is dolhg /! he ruminated, and turned
 to the financial page Satisfactory
 evidence being found that his pet
 stock was holding it's own, he pro- 1 ceedcd to read "Skippy" very greed
 fly and almost licked his chops for | more
 Next the man turned back to page | one, glanced through several stories 1 read one quite carefully, and finally | began q systematic reading of every thlng that interested him through | out the entire paper, in as far as 1 ne could make it's pages turn to his liking in the stiff breeze. It was with evident reluctance that he finally gave the paper up when the Obsurv CT started homeward.
 But the point is that he did not read the story of the alleged lobby Ing activities of Sen. Bngham's tenn proary secretary. And so, as he walked a short distance with the crowd, question seemed in order about his interest in the affair,
 The man frankly confessed that Inc
 doesn't read much Of that sort of S'uif, because it doesn't interest nm, He cares little about the do- lnes Of congress. It means even | less to him that congress is strue- 1 ling to frame tariff bill tha, is s,,r posed to have a widespread influ- ehce on national business. perhans | He reasons that his interest can have i nltle effect on the legislation This IS undenlably true. His likes and dis lkes mean little. taken as the view Of one individual. Collcctivo1v however, it is obvious that the in terest Of some millions of men like hlm could mean whole lot.
 The utter lack of interest shown py many citizens in the tariff as well AS other national cucstiona ;s Just why the senate is having such rulnpus to decide what shall and snail not go into the bill. Public op'hion' some Of the legislators will tell you, IS firmly set on the tariff m their section of the countrv Public opinion to them means what tHD manufacturers, or the organ lzed farmers, or the state Chamber ol commerce, wants. The stand these organizations take does not necessarily represent what the ma Joflty Of people want, of course,
 Of course it can be argued that tHe average man in New Britain does not thoroughly understand the prlhclples of protective tariff as It bears on his own existence. There IS no reason, however, why he should not understand it and take an interest in his government, if he wants the benefits of a democracy Tn other words the slackers amonp :, the citizens, who take little inter- ist Tn government have no one but themselves to blame if they sudden- ; " discover that things are not 10 ; heir liking Seldom if ever are av- , erage citizens sufficiently aroused md organized nowadays to express md drive home their pet theories in , government. They hold the wbip , land. They can have almost any, I hing within reason, if the ma ioritv i 'f them want it and want it bad ! though. But they are content to lei s hings drift, read the sporting page i tnd the things that appeal to them And therein lies the whole trouble I With American democracy-lack of E interest. i