Judge — January 23, 1926 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

for, Norman Anthony. According to Governor Pinchot, his administration “is standing upon its two hind legs for enforcement of the law.” Pawing the air? Strike Three! FTER the elections last fall we were happy to ré A that Detroit, Buffalo, Louisville and Virginia licked the Ku Klux Klan, and licked it in open fights with the issue frankly drawn. Now we are pleased to note a few more significant drubbings, quite as decisive in their way, though of a different nature. The American Standard, organ of the Klan, is dead. As the New York World puts it, “driving the dirk into its bosom, it dies on its own motion and goes out like a fading whisper.” What ho! patriots of the cow pasture; not to say, wherefore? In New Haven some six hundred Klansmen have re- signed from the order after appealing to the people to “stamp out this serpent that threatens the very life of our Nation.” This, we think, is unduly flattering the Klan’s importance. Some of the other expressions credited to Arthur S. Mann, former Kligrapp and leader of the exodus, suit us better. For example: “No American worthy of the name can longer affiliate with an organization such as. the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Georgia, Inc., now is (or ever was—Ed. note) and maintain his self-respect.” “The Klan has degenerated into nothing less than an organization of greed.” “It has become a travesty on patriotism and blas- phemous caricature professing Protestantism. It is not only anti-Catholic and antiJew, but absolutely anti- American and anti-Protestant.” Amen! Only, it always was! te ae A™ finally, Judge Ben B. Lindsey, of the Juvenile and Family Court, Denver, Colo., has emerged triumphant over his Klan foes. The Colorado Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal of the Klan against his re-election. We need hardly remind our readers who Judge Ben Lindsey is. For more than a generation he has personi fied for this country the sympathetic, common: attitude toward erring parents and wayward children. When Roosevelt reigned and the solution of social riddles seemed as romantic an undertaking as the seven labors of Hercules, Judge Lindsey was a national hero. Unlike most of the other national heroes of that far-off time he has been sawing wood ever since, and, by the grace of God and a few grateful and intelligent voters of Colorado, aan e Editors, William Morris Houghton, William Edgur Fisher, Phil Ro: Dramatic Editor, George Jean Nathan. he is still judge of the Court he made nationally famous. Only by their grace, however, for in the months just pre- ceding his last election, he denounced the Klan; he de- precated the spirit of racial and religious intolerance which gave it birth; he pleaded for a rational liberalism in American life which would give the citizen, young or old, a chance to exercise his own moral force unhampered by legislative and extra-legislative taboos. It is interesting to recall that in spite of the record of this man and the unusual esteem in which he was held nationally, the Klan almost “got” him. He won his re-election only by a narrow margin over his Klan opponent and has had to fight for it since through to the highest Court of the State. It is also interesting to recall that in the meantime proceedings for disbarment upon charges of unethical conduct, made by former clients, were presented to the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association against his Klan opponent, and that the night of the day they were to be finally heard the latter was found dead in his kitchen with all the gas jets turned on. te aH Ws we were young the rule used to be “three strikes and out.” But, of course, those days are dead and gone and we must expect to see the Klan continue at bat. Only in a much weakened condition and looking less like Babe Ruth and more like Casey at every swing. Locksmiths HE Lord’s Day Alliance has decided to introduce into the New York Legislature at Albany a bill to padlock places of business or amusement that violate the Sabbath law. Why not? Is there anything sacred about the Volstead law that its violators alone should be subject to this species of confiscation? By all means let us padlock the premises of those who displease the Lord’s Day Alliance, and, to be consistent, all places that violate the fire rules or the sanitary code or the smoke ordinances or the labor laws, not to mention those that obstruct the sidewalk with packing cases, that abuse their truck ho that misrepresent their goods, that cheat their customers. And having thus barricaded more or less permanently every place of business everywhere, let us retire to our homes and take in each other’s washing and praise God and the Anti-Saloon League and the Lord’s Day Alliance that we live in a free country—free, that is, of sin and all constitutional restrictions. W.M. H. comicbooks.com