Life — October 6, 1921 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

OCTOBER 6, 1921 “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY VOL. 78. No. > London Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. T is still the open , season for everything that figured i in the world that led up to the war. - For example, the Victorians have been cursed out as formulators of a civilization that would not wash. And for another ex- ample, there is organization. Only lately it was well thought of. Now its faults begin to be dwelt upon, and someone has been saying that organi- zation is the natural enemy of truth. Maybe so, and especially of new truths, For accepted truth, organiza- tion is doubtless useful, and even neces- sary, as it seems to be for the produc- tion and distribution of all things, though its hand is pretty heavy on spiritual things. New truth is not really new; it was always there. It is new only in the sense of being lately discovered. The Continent of Amer- ica was there before Columbus and the other gentlemen discovered it, but to them and to the world of their time, it was a new Continent. So new truth is coming along all the time. Day by day, and month by month, the human mind is wrenching loose new particles of truth from the big lump and of each of these new particles as it comes along, organization, as said, is the natural enemy. And why? Because when once you get anything organized, the first law of nature—self-preservation—begins im- mediately to operate, and the purpose of the organization, which may be to diffuse truth, gets mixed up with the maintenance and preservation of the organization, and the support of its op- erators. That seems to be true of all organization—of governments, of churches, of corporations, of trade- unions, of universities, of the various 598 Madison Avenue, New York societies of scientists and professional men. Our whole world is organized, or was only Jately, and new truth has hard work to butt into it, That is why when the clock has struck for a con- siderable new truth to come through there has to be more or less prelim- inary smash. The more organized a country, the harder work it is for new truths to penetrate into it. Ten years ago the most organized country in the world was Germany and in that coun- try the suppression of necessary truths was most complete. TAT is going on now in the world is the smashing of organi- zation to the degree necessary for in- dispensable new truths to become op- erative in human life. That is what happens when there is a new era. There is one now just beginning. The ideas that it must run on are breaking into the world. The resistance is strong, but little by little it yields. The great preliminary smash was affected by the war, which weakened more or less the organization of every country in Europe. Europe at the close of the war was ready for new ideas and the rear- rangement of life. Right on the heels of the armistice came the struggles of all the principal political organizations for self-preservation. That produced a relapse, and the new ideas about the relations of men and countries went to grass. But they have got to come back and whoever watches attentively may see them coming. One can detect the prog- ress of new ideas—can see new truth battering against old organizations. The countries to which truth has had easiest access, and which have given the best distribution have the best of now. The countries in which its pere lations were most restricted have ti worst of it. Russia, for example, went to smash preliminary to the evolutio: and acceptance of enough new trutlis to put her on her feet. Germany is staggering and may fall. France is stronger, but clings for the time being to the past and its processes, and leans upon force to ensure her safety. g¢ NUMBER of interesting corre- spondences are proceeding in the newspapers, the chief one being be- tween De Valera and Lloyd George about the basis proper to the discussion | between the Sinn Feiners and the Brit- ish Government anent the future of Ireland. A conference was arranged to be at Inverness on September 2oth, but De Valera rather suddenly found it necessary to disclose to Lloyd Georg that it was only as representatives of sovereign state that he and his colleagues had power to confer. Lloyd George replied that that condition made the conference impossible—that to accept a conference with the Irish emissarics “on the formal statement that they came as representing an independen! sovereign state would constitute an of ficial recognition by His Majesty’s Gov-} ernment of the severance of Ireland) from the Empire.” So, as he could not\ do that, he broke off the conference. But in another twenty-four hours an other telegram came from De Valera expressing surprise and so on, and so it has gone on up to this time of writing without reaching a- conclusion as to what kind of an Ireland the Irish dele- gates stand for, and without the naming q ' \ comicbooks.com