Evening star., 1932-10-08
Tunney and the GraYbeards.

Gene Tunney, the ex-pugilist, be-
lieves that "the young men and women
of America should take political affairs
out of the hands of the older states
men" He wants the country governed
by its youth. With magnificent assur-
ance, he says:
The political minded young man has
far more energy, spirit, courage, vision,
ldealism and honesty than the usual run
of graybeard politicians. 1t is claimed
that youth is unreliable. is not in the
habit of thinking through, is impulsive
and dangerous when in high places.
Yet. when complimenting the reputedly
great Secretaries of the Treasury, the
fatterers invariably say: The greatest
Secretary of the Treasury since Alex
arder Hamilton" Hamilton happened
to have been at the ripe age of 80 when
he established the system of Govern
ment financing that has hardly been
changed to this day.
The assurance with which these senti-
mentS and observations are put forth
certainly Is most impressive. That they
are both poor history and poor psy-
chology is less obtrusively apparent.
Mr.. Tunney forgets that Hamilton had
the guidance of more mature minds
than his own. He did not establish
the system Of Government financing"
unaided. He had the assistance of his
chief, George Washington, a quarter
century his senior Left to himself,
he was, in the judgment of Dr. Francis
S. Philbrick of the University of Penn
sylvania "indiscreet in utterance, i'm
polite in management, opinionated,
self-confident and uncompromising in
nature and methods" Edward Chan
ming says of him that 'he was the
organizer Of exploitation, the originator
of monopoly and made some Of the
cruelest political blunders in our his
tory" Mr.. Tunney apparently does not
realize that his ideal of government was
IAN aristocratic Republic, with Presi-
dent and Senators chosen for life and
the State Governors appointed by the
Federal Government" The fact Is that
Hamilton was indebted to William Pitt
for much of his financial philosophy,
and Pitt was a younger man than him
self! But such details, of course, will
not deter Mr.. Tunney. He has cause
to plead and accuracy and logic 60
overheard together.
His readers, however, may be inter-
ested to be reminded that among the
great leaders of the party to which he
belongs have been such brilliant
Youngsters az thomas Jefferson, Andrew
Jackson, Grovc- Cleveland and Woodrow
Wilson, who attained the White House
at the respective ages of flfty-seven,
sixty-one, forty-seven and fifty-six,
and remained in the Office eight
years each Speaker Garner, for whom
Mr.. Tunney solicits votes, is at the pres
ent moment an eager STRIPPING of only
sixty -four, while Gov. Roosevelt is a
mere fifty.
To claim for immaturity, as Mr..
Tunney does, all the virtues of energy,
spirit, courage, vision, idealism and
honesty" is unscientific as well as un-
kind. Men do not cease to be ad-
mirable when they cease to be young.
The human mind is made of sterner stuff
than Mr.. Tunney imagines. 1t does not
break down nor atrophy at its meridian.
It simply practices a more sensible
economy. The names of Plato, Aristotle, |
Socrates, Aeschylus Euripides, Sopfo- |
cles, Herodotus, Archimedes, Demos /
themes, Cicero, Caesar, Tacitus, Ovid, !
Seneca, Suetonius, Boethius, Alfred the !
Great, Charlemagne, Dante, Petrarch,
Boccaccio, Cellini, Queen Elizabeth, |
Shakespeare, Bacon, Charles V, Ger
vantes, Erasmus, Luther, Frederick the
Great, Voltaire and ten thousand other |
time e-transcending thinkers give lr-
contradiction to such Oslerian
nonsense. Mr.. Tunney is entitled to his |
own opinion, but it is just as well that |
the modern world has been endowed |
with the mature experience of men and
women like Benjamin Franklin, Samuel |
johnson, Darwin, Huxley, Spencer,
Bismarck, Gladstone, Queen Victoria, !
Goethe, Kant, Emerson, Carlyle, Long !
fellow, Bryant, Holmes, Hawthorne,
Lowell, Walt Whitman, Dickens, Thack- !
cray, Victor Hugo. Leo XIII, Clara |
Barton, Frances Willard, Mary Lyon, |
Horace Greeley, Mark Twain, Thomas
Edison and numerous equally useful (
souls who were not bereft of energy, |
spirit, courage, vision, idealism and |
honesty" when they emerged from the |
larval stage of life.