Judge — August 2, 1924 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

Editors Norman Anthony William Morris Houghton William Edgar Fisher W. J. B.: “I regret that I have but one brother to give to my country.” Cheerio! ‘, NG “Officer, kindly ask Mr. Edward Bok to come forward. How do you 0 > do Mr. Bok?” “Very well, your Honor, for one who would like to love his fellowmen. And you? “Well enough, except that I'm a little low in my mind. Do you realize that this week marks the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the World War?” “So it does—the wooden anniversary.” “Yes, indeed. Notable for the wooden legs of ex- service men... .” “And the wooden heads in the Senate.” “That reminds me, Mr. Bok. Have you ever paid that chap who won the peace prize his second $50,000?” “Not yet, sir.” “You haven’t spent it, have you?” “T’d hardly do that, your Honor.” “What’s the trouble, then?” “No trouble, except that the Senate never even con- sidered the prize winner's plan and the country was so taken up with the oil scandal it forgot all about it. You remember the conditions of award?” “Yes, yes. Do you think the country will recall the plan later?” “Oh, possibly. starts.” “Why, Mr. Bok! You, the creator of the Ladies’ Home Journal, actually seem depressed. How is that possible? Aren’t you aware that wars promote the cause of prohibition and keep a lot of boys off the streets? Cheer up!” The Party’s Reward The Democratic convention is not the least of the circuses that have played long engagements at Madison Square Garden. Nor is William J. Bryan the least of the clowns that have won plaudits from the multitude there. But it is seldom that the Garden has seen such a sideshow of irony as that embodied in the chairmanship of Senator Walsh. Senator Walsh, as the chief oil investigator, per- sonally presented the Democratic party with the best chance of a national victory since 1912. To reward him, they picked him to preside for weeks, in heat that About the time another war alone tried the soul, over a turbulent and at times almost unmanageable convention that perversely insisted upon throwing to the winds the certainty of victory he had been at such pains to develop. He of all men must supervise the farce that made hash of his handiwork. K.K.K. 2 A minister of the Gospel in the = enligutened State of Michigan, in these presumably civilized United States (the Ladies’ Home Journal says ours is the only “first-class” civilization in the world), preaches a sermon derogatory of the Ku Klux Klan. Some days thereafter he starts from home for a religious conference, to be gone twenty-four hours. And he turns up after eleven days with “K. K. K.” (maybe they left the periods out) branded on his back, his hair white and his memory gone. There is no proof as this is written that the Klan is responsible for this atrocity. But the fact that such things are done in the name of the Klan gives that organization a unique distinction among benevolent orders. Try as we will we can’t seem to remember any- thing of the sort ever being perpetrated in the name of the Knights of Columbus, with whom the Knights of the Klan like to compare themselves; or in the name of the Knights of Pythias, or of the Redmen or Elks or Owls or Eagles or Buffaloes or Lions or any other of the brotherhoods that typify the wild free life of the Ameri- can male. Just how benevolent must a benevolent order become before its name lends itself to such uses? A Chance for a Decoration The incident of the Michigan dominie suggests that ministers now, if they wish, can fill a much more adventurous réle than that of merely starving for the glory.of God. They can stand up in their pulpits and thunder a challenge to any order that stirs up racial or religious animosity in the name of Christ, and incidentally court a “K. K. K.” between the shoulder blades as if it were the Victoria Cross of their profession. But how many will? What we need most sorely in this country of ours to-day is a courageous and en- lightened clergy. In the last fifty years of utter ma- terialism we have allowed the profession of the ministry to go a-begging for recruits, with the result that too many ignorant, narrow, fanatical men have usurped its posts of responsibility. Under the lash of these mad mullahs of morality the people as a whole have said good-by to temperance and tolerance, and the few who still cling to these ancient virtues feel cowed.” It is silly, as some do, to blame this condition on the war. England suffered from the war ten times as much as we. But in England, where most clergymen are still drawn from the ranks of scholars, the people remain temperate and tolerant, and for that very reason. Curious, isn’t it, the power of the pulpit in a so- called irreligious age? We didn’t-know we were so rotten righteous. W. M. H. comicbooks.com