The Nome daily nugget., 1935-09-28
Howe About:
Protection for All Destroyed Illusions Coal Oil Johnny
By ED HOWE
o. Bell syndicate.-wNUs Service.

1 with arms In their hands. I am cheered frequently of late by hear. ing of bank robbers being shot down In the streets.
 It Is not for the greatest good Of the greatest number that an armed loafer. with murder in his heart, should demand money belong ing to industrious citizens. The majority of men do not approve of such methods. therefore are not only within their tights in stopping such outlawry. but are to be highly commended. An occasional man ly. ing dead In sle streets, if discoy. cred in violence. is as fine an eNhlbl. ton of morality as assisting the un. fortunate.
 believe congress has violently assaulted the rights of conservative citizens who represent the ma jority. Our country, our homes, our places Of business, are as clearly entitled to protection as banks. Mea sures sufficiently vigorous to be effective should be resorted to in protecting them.
 A writer In a Baltimore paper says the trouble with Americans now Is, they are suffering from the destruction of their old illusion of superiority and infallibiity. Hav- ing been blown completely out of our serene confidence that one of us could lick thirty seven French men, It was inevitable that we should begin to doubt that we can lick any Frenchman at all. We have been suddenly and frlghtfully con yinced that we are no better than so many foreigners, whereas, for a hundred years, we have been as- surfing ourselves that foreigners are low and feeble fellows. What won- der, then, that we have fallen far into the dumps?
 Americans were originally in DOS session of virgin continent, which they exploited with unprecedented speed, and making many mistakes on the way. The resultant colossal wealth naturally gave us the im- pression that our business acumen was prodigious. Everything con- spired to maintain us in the opin- ion that the American Is in all re- ybo walks the earth.
 Then came the crash of matter and the wreck of worlds in 1929. Suddenly 1t was revealed to us that some of the most awe-inspiring fig ures in the American business world were in reality appalling chumps; that many political demigods really knew no more about statecraft than the average barber does about geometry, and that there is, with possible exceptions that may be counted on the fingers of one hand, not really competent interna- tional banker In Wall Street. The country swarms with smart young salesmen, but the wise old heads in the business world are few in mum. Der, and far, indeed, from being in control. Naturally. our first reac- ton was stunned bewllderment tha. swiftly passed into paralyzlng fear, and everybody bawling absurd ly for help.
 No figure in history has i'm pressed me more than man called Coal oil Johnny. He was a fool fellow living in average American fashion in Pennsylvania. oil was found on a piece of wornout land he had fallen heir to. Taxes had not been paid In years, but the final limit had not been reached, and re demption was possible.
 The oil discovery made Johnny rich and he at once moved to New York. where he became the most reckless spender the world had up to that time known. Because of his unexampled folly, he became one of the worlds most famous men.
 One morning he awoke to find himself stripped, forsaken and for gotten, except that we say now he was the greatest fool in all history. I don't know about that. Have not many millions been equally fool ish all over the world In the past | dozen years? The men who loaned billions abroad in the first years of the war; was even Coal oil Johnny equally reckless or foolish? Look at the appropratlons of con gross In the past dozen years were the financial operations of Coal oil Johnny worse?
 Instead of noble monuments to Wilson, Harding, Hoover, Borah, Norris, Brookhart, or the La Fol lette boy, think there should be erected monuments of disheveled, dissipated, careless man, and la beled: "A Typical American: Hon. Coal Oil Johnny, of Pennsylvania. Remember what a fool he was, and try to be wiser"
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