Judge — November 5, 1921 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CRUSADE OF HicH Hopes HE philos- | ophy of the bright side is now our national policy. The Presi- dent rallies optim- ism around the peace of the world. He wants to carry our hearts with him and our labor refresh itself with’ good feeling. This is news that blooms. The blithe bee bristles with business—fielders stop fumbling— and the sackcloth-and-ashes epoch is over. The supreme achievement of statesmanship is to suffuse a people with a purpose. Only then does a nation show its mettle. Inertia moves from its moods. The tide ripples into smiles. Citizens put aside their ham- mers, the bookkeeper feels like mar- riage and the boss consults an adver- tising agent. The morbid anatomy of govern- ments indicates torpid biliousness in the masses. The solemn demeanor of old Castile covered many virtues. But it hardened the fibres of energy and narrowed the scope of action. For every nation is like Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, who lost his high seat when he lost his sweet temper. We have world leadership in our grasp. Let us teach moping lands how to eke out their deficiencies with rosy souls. It was wise old David who knew we could not bridle human nature and handed us the precept: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” COMPULSORY PHYSICAL TRAINING HE friends of a handsomer hu- ' manity suggest compulsory phys- ical training. The entire compulsory cult heartily approves the idea. It will make us healthy. It will stiffen our spines. It will make sinew, muscle and bone. It will knit the into battalions of tall grenadiers. It will mix blood and iron in our constitutions. It will build us as rugged as Thor and as athletic as Olympian champions. It will Samsonize us and set all the little gods of efficiency working for us. While enthusiasm is inseparably blended with progress, a community pestered with a plague of enthusiasts will become dizzy with their impor- tunities. The experiences of the war and the experiment of prohibition have generated a progeny of visions. The visionaries, lacking facilities, in- voke the machinery of the Govern- ment on the plea that their private brain-storms will promote public calm. The principle of compulsion, contagiously prevailing, is fatal to our social principles. The fire of one must burn the other out. If the rep- resentative system proposes to qual- ify as an enforcement agency, it will soon be an anemic anatomy. Intellectual culture preserves free- dom and creates wealth. Military service preserves life. But to force folks to practice calisthenics, run foot- races and vault the bar would turn bureaucracies into training camps, and the thews of legislation would strain themselves in rubbing down fat men and putting layers of tissue on lean ones, coaxing bow-legged lassies to swim and short-breathed ladies to play leap frog. Were this proposition likely to give us strength to bear our afflictions we would greet it with gratitude. But while it prom- ises to alleviate the wear and tear of marriage and insomnia, it holds out no hope of profitable crops. We have positive assurances that ill-health is a crime. The advocates of compulsory longevity and forcible feeding are marshaling for drives. Numbers of zealous neighbors, suf- fused with a warm flush of solicitude for the welfare of the species, are seeking government aid in enforcing such an immaculate existence on earth as shall guarantee immortality in heaven. Prudence bids us pause. population 14 We have seven million slackers in illiteracy; the legal rate of in- terest is a flexible fiction; Federal shipping and rail- roading have left a deficit and beady perspiration—yet sanguine persisters flock confidently around the delusion that the Government can do more for them than they can do for themselves, and that the Departments should be forced by law to send down quail and manna to the wilderness. Davy JONES’ LOCKER N that “great day when we shall all be contemporaries together” we will ask Davy Jones about his locker—or impel some Congressional investigating committee to ask for us. How long is it? How deep? And how far beyond the three-mile limit? How did the bottle of rum in it leave a posthumous issue of case goods—so it is said? Such will be the quest to fathom this dark mystery of the waves—for it is a psychic matter, dealing with the transmigration of spirits, and of fishermen who boast with shining faces of familiarity with the un- seen. This yearning for a fish diet—this sudden popularity of the brine—may make us a sea-faring race. We may become the mightiest of the naval powers without an appropriation. Yet, this spirit of adventure, seeking the rich rewards of the vasty deep, has its dangers. Our entire popula- tion may neglect other work, and all seek to wind the capstan bar. The revenue service might employ the staid half of the people to restrain the roving half from foaming perils. Tales are whispered of luggers crammed to the gunwales with—but this is a censorious world, and even the pure breeze of the stainless sea smells like the breath of scandal to some people. comicbooks.com