Judge — December 3, 1921 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

EDITORIAL By WiiiiaM ALLEN WHITE S the Wilson as Joe Tu- multy knew him the real Wilson? If so, what a deadly monster he is. Listen: we are at the Wilson end of the tele- phone during the Baltimore convention which first made Woodrow Wilson the Democratic presidential nominee. At the other end of the line is McCombs— the Wilson floor manager at the convention. Clark is leading with a majority, but not the required two-thirds majority of the votes. Beside the candidate in the Wilson home sit Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Tumulty, who gives us this report in his forthcoming book now running through the newspapers. “So you think it is hopeless” [it is Wilson speaking]. Great tears were in the eyes of Mrs. Wilson and as the governor put down the telephone she walked over to him and in a most tender way put her arms around his neck, saying: “My dear Woodrow, I am sorry indeed that you have failed.” Looking at her with a smile that carried no evidence of the disappointment or chagrin he felt, he said: “My dear, of course I am disappointed, but we must not com- plain. We must be sportsmen. It is God’s will and I feel that a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.” With a smile he remarked that this failure would make it possible for him to visit the English Lake country —a region loved by them both. Oh, for a custard pie to smear over that blissful scene! Is the real Woodrow Wilson like that? Is he always a statue in the park? A hero in the Rollo books? A painted angel on a blushing rose jar? “A perfect gentleman in every sense of the word?” Imagine a domestic scene actually like this! Two hours of it would drive a man to drink and a day of it would incite him to abysmal infidelities. Fancy a boredom so tragic in a great moment like that which Tumulty describes—a boredom in which no hyperbole of persiflage, no gaiety of frivolous conduct would relieve the slimy gloom! One can all but hear the orchestral obbligato, “So this is the End of a Perfect Day!” Even reading it one yearns to scream, longs piously for profanity! And the awful thing about it all, the thing that brings tears to the eyes, is that maybe the story is true! Mr. Wilson was eight years in the White House and never committed an impropriety. Could it be possible that we have been ruled by a paragon? Is democracy as dull as that? Are the Homely Virtues just plain homely and virtuous—“and after that the dark”? Then lead us back to the tyrants. Surely we are better in the hands of Rabelais than the Rover Boys. PLUG-HATTERS GROAN YLAN again, and groans from the plug hat section. To those who believe that the moral government of the universe is in the hand of the group in the community known as the best people, Hylan’s reflection with Tammany rampant spells “the worm, the canker and the grief” in politics. But those who prefer good and respectable gov- ernment in New York are at best only a minority. The majority is generally for comfortable govern- ment. Hylan promised five cent fares. His oppo- nent promised good schools and justice in the matter of tramway fares. Never having enjoyed good schools, New York had small interest in tramway justice. And having enjoyed five cent fares, New York was cold and passionless in the matter of schools. All of which means that New Yorkers are acting as the justly celebrated and universally popular human race always acts. It wants what it understands and takes it in spite of the immaterial allurements in the baskets of the rainbow vendors. Hylan won because he offered something sub- stantial. His opponents lost because they were selling high—but to the electorate insubstantial— ideals, and the higher they went the harder it was to grab them. So Hylan and Tammany won and the best people grumble at the folly of democracy, which is abso- lute. NO LARGE SWEET GUM-DROP HE new tax bill seems about to save American people three-quarters of a billion dollars. But they are still inflated dollars. And the saving in taxes to the people is not so tremendous as it seems. Yet it is some- thing. It is as much as the entire appropriation of the Government thirty years ago. What a sensation was created by the expression of the billion-dollar Congress, two decades ago, when the appropriations reached the billion mark! comicbooks.com