Judge — January 12, 1924 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

William Edgar Fisher In order to prevent wars we should first disarm suspicion. Don Quixote de la Dearborn Men in OLUNTEERS have sprung forward like Minute Me V the last three weeks to explain Henry Ford's indorse- ment of Calvin Coolidge. Many have interpreted it in terms of a sordid quid pro quo involving Muscle Shoals. We are strongly inclined to disagree with them for these reasons: 1. Because Hiram Johnson is the chief among them. 2. Because Henry has no respect for history. Because the Peace Ship was not a myth. Let us elucidate. In the first place, to withdraw volun- tarily and without compensation from what William Hard has called the greatest poker game in the world—that for the Presideney—while still there are cards to draw to and chips to ante is utterly inconceivable to our second most persistent candidate. Hiram wouldn't; so, he says, neither would Henry. But Hiram is not judging Henry entirely by himself. He can challenge the history of the country to show a precedent for such renunciation. There is none. The only trouble is that Henry doesn’t know this. He is blissfully ignorant of history, and untrammeled by precedent, as he himself has amply demonstrated. And, finally, there is something hopelessly quixotic about the man. That Peace Ship epic can never be explained on any other ground. Anyone capable of so gorgeously idealistic and ridiculous a gesture is quite capable also of bowing a rival into the Presidency with no thought of a fee. It is useless, however, to try to explain all this to Hiram Sarcho Panza Johnson. Bloc Parties 'ASHINGTON reports the organi: Urban Bloc to defend and ad dwellers as against the agr. the older Farm Bloc, tion in Congress of ¢ ice the interests of city ans. The new bloc, like cuts across party lines, of course, and renders more meaningless than ever the terms, Democrat and Republican. This is i We are such sentimenta well as morally that Democrats from Arkansas and those from New York still talk of the Party of Jefferson as if this academic bond were the reality, and the gulf that divides them econom- ically and socially a figment of the imagination. Similarly the Republicans of Philadelphia and those of North Dakota per- petuate the absurd fiction of political brotherhood. Undoubtedly the City Bloc will be as wet as—well, the ci! block; it will be definitely anti-Ku Klux. It will fight tl farmer’s efforts to recoup his losses from the United States Treasury, and will probably cater to organized labor. Never- theless it will represent real issues as against the bogus mush country politically as that now befuddles the voters and delivers them into the hands of the politicians and organized minorities. What we need in our politics to- else is an honest fight. ay -more Go to it, bloc-heads! than anything An Heroic Remedy HEER up, Edward Young Clarke, the Ku Klux Klan may not be an unmixed evil. The mob spirit is . a monster of such frightful mien As to be hated needs but to be seen, and the to see. Ku Klux Klan has successfully dramatized it for all Henceforth we shall all of us in our minds clothe mob tule in concrete habiliments and recognize it for the capricious and grotesque thing it 2 Another contribution of the Klan to our social education has been its application of lynch law to whites as well as blacks. Our distaste for this sort of medicine has received a marvelous impetus with the realization that 10 Adam's apple, no matter how fair, can be guaranteed against the covetous embrace of the mob’s noose. cruel, How otherwise can we explain the apparent para during 1923, which will go down in American histor year of the Klan craze, there were fewer lynchings than in any year since records have been adequately kept? ‘There only half as many as during 14 or something less than thirty as compared with fifty-seven. No doubt the exodus of negroes from the South has had something to do with this. Some will say, of course, that the Klan has cowed the negro into good behavior and brought it about. But we prefer to believe that acle of the Klan has cured the majority of us of the e the law into our own hands,” better by making us sick. dox that as the were has made us An Everyday Treat T Is NoT customary to think of a train ride an esthetic experience, and yet we know of no sensation more seduc- tive under the proper conditions. ‘The clude a long ride. dark, with th express, of course, ex- For the rest it should be in winter, just after snow on the ground. The train should be an roaring smoothly through thickly sown semi-urban hamlets, and the car a substantial day coach, brightly lighted, pleasantly warm and well fille Pullmans, like long ride: oppressed by the upholstery id depressed by the sight of soft, smug, middle-aged persons swinging at eccentric angles to the direction of the train, as if sourly indifferent to its progress. The atmosphere of a da on the other hand, has something of the eagerness of a coasting party. One's neighbors are closer, their average age is lower, the buzz of conversation carries more insistence and excitement, and all, or practically all, face forward as if conscious of the purpose of their trip and its adventure. The speed of the train should be carefully regulated. We recommend fifty miles an hour, fast enough to give one that faint feeling of superiority as it glides importantly past busy stations, but not so fast that one becomes conscious of wheels and springs and other sordid mechanistic details. The illusion of the projectile in dignified flight should be preserved. This illusion is greatly enhanced after dark when all sight of the roadbed is obliterated, when the red and green switch lamps stream by like colored stars and the squares of light from passing windows seem suspended in the velvet curtain of night. say about the cocktail hour—one may sense the animation and expectancy behind that curtain, and if the snow is on'the ground to reflect the lights and muffle the sounds and emphasize the comfort of the car’s interior—well, then even a commuter ought to get a kick from it. are out. and. silenc In a Pullman one is coach, comicbooks.com