Judge — December 31, 1921 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

EDITORIAL By Wiiuram ALLEN WHITE “RING IN THE NEW!” NE of the hardest tasks set for man is to find progress in change. Nomenclature fools us. “Modern Improvements” sometimes improve nothing. We go from cabs to trolleys, and from trolleys to automo- biles, and from taxis to wings, gaining speed—but what good does it do us? We change from cruse to candle, and from candle to lamp, and from lamp to gas jet, and from jet to bulb—and what do we see that was denied to our forebears? We pass from theocracy or despotism to im- perialism, back to feudalism, on to constitutional monarchy, beyond to republicanism and thence to democracy—to the primary, the initiative and ref- erendum and recall, and so to government of Hearst or his equivalent; and—well, what about it? Is there any great reason for calling out the Silver Cornet Band, the Militia, and the Fire Department, to celebrate the performance? We take the whiskers off the Deity, pull Him down from the police court bench, disrobe the priest, and in compensation we impersonalize God in the spirit that moves in our hearts working out the strange earthly destiny of the race. But what we have done in fact is to take fear out of the servile heart and to make it a ruthless anarchist, while the master mind has taken unto itself the duties of Omniscience which once were God’s; so our master minds try to play Providence in a muddled world—usually making a bad fist of it. Nothing is easier than to “Ring out the old, and ring in the new.” But we often fail to realize that mere bell-ringing avails nothing. We begin to make over a world with guns and gas and murderous steel devices of hate and greed and fear. We blow ten million souls unto Eternity, and crip- ple ten million bodies. Then at the end of the nightmare, we see the Goddess of Peace and Good Will about to abide with us. And suddenly, in what should be a new day in a new and lovely world, we wake up, saying, “Good Morning, Dearie,” only to find that the Goddess is a shriveled old hag, with hate in her features and lust on her lips, and the sorrows of the lost and damned in her dull eyes. And yet— Progress is the surest thing in the world! But one cannot sight across a calendar leaf, nor a year post, and see it. Even decades are deceptive as gauges of progress. Centuries are fairly depend- able as measuring posts in the fast moving currents of this new era. But the Hebrew poet was correct in his optimism when he declared that “A thou- sand years are but as a watch in the night!” It takes so long to get an invention or a discovery or an idea institutionalized! A man learns slowly; his neighbors tediously; and his generation only partially. Death moves faster than the teacher. Then it all has to be done over again! Humanity, just now, is suffering from a spiritual congestion, as the result of trying to institutional- ize steam—to distribute its blessing fairly among owners, laborers and consumers; to adjust it to IN WHICH WE politi¢s, religion, trade, and the fireside. Steam, and its by-product electricity, have given the world an ungodly headache. As fast as a class or country get steam fairly well democratized and assimilated, along comes another generation, or a submerged class, or a hegira from the homes of the backward peoples, or some social upheaval like the war, and untold millions have to take steam anew, and make it an institution in their hearts and minds. So the decades merge into generations, and the generations into centuries, and centuries begin to pile up into an epoch—and still steam comes hissing like* an untrapped dragon across a terrified world. The lever must have made some such madness as steam is making; also the wheel and the alphabet; and bronze and iron and gold, brought their anxious watches in the night! But as these machines of men passed into common use and into ownership based upon the common good, they ceased to trouble man. That is to say, when men quit using them for selfish purposes, and made them imple- ments of brotherhood, passing them into such a public service as must have taught wise men the Golden Rule, and made one Seer die for it—then that particular tool of man became humanity’s! In gaining use of any tool, man is made stronger, wiser, braver, kinder, and so progress comes. We are as brave as we need be now, and as strong; what we lack is kindly wisdom. That great gift that is man’s heart’s desire! About all we can do on this Happy New Year’s Day of 1922 is to learn to labor and to wait, and to know with all earnestness that the happiness of the year will depend upon what each of us does, with head, or heart, or hand, or vote, or voice, or fervent hope, to mitigate the pain that millions must feel, the injustice they must suffer, the travail they must endure, to realize the vision deep in the heart of this Era! After that, we may as well enjoy the dance! It’s a wonderful show! A NEW SOURCE OF MIRTH HE sad old earth must borrow its mirth, said Ella Wheeler forty years ago, and to-day no place is offering pure mirth and undefiled, at such advantageous rates, as the esteemed New York Times. Whenever our festive contem- porary considers the legislative branch of the American Govern- ment, the Times has conniptions. The so-called agrarian block, a group of senators and representatives from the West and South, have combined to take control of the Congress out of the hands of the leadership of the Republican party in the East and New Eng- land. This being theoretically a tree country, it would seem that the West and South have the same royal American right to combine and make a majority that the East and North have. But, no; listen to this from a recent Times dispatch: Militant progressivism is in control in Congress and the Republican party is without direction in its most important legislative policies, tax and tariff matters. President Harding even has lost prestige of holding in line the Re- publican majority in the House. comicbooks.com