Part 42 (1/2)
I aent about this latest of the Wilsonian hobbies Frank Irving Cobb, the editor of the World, is, as I have often said, the strongest writer on the New York press since Horace Greeley But he can hardly be called a senti but sentiue of Nations
It land There are certainly no flies on it for France But we don't need it Its effects can only be to tie our hands, not keep the dogs away, and even at the worst, in stress of weather, we are strong enough to keep the dogs away ourselves
We should say to Europe: ”shi+nny on your own side of the water and ill shi+nny on our side” It may be that Napoleon's opinion will come true that ultimately Europe will be ”all Cossack or all republican”
Part of it has coh the United States, having exhausted the reasonable possibilities of dee by Federal edict; look at prohibition by act of Congress and constitutional amendment; tobacco next to walk on the plank; and then!--Lord, how glad I feel that I am nearly a hundred years old and shall not live to see it!
Chapter the Thirty-First
The Age of Miracles--A Story of Franklin Pierce--Sis Billy Sunday--Jefferson Davis and Aaron Burr--Certain Constitutional Shortco between 1865 and 1919 may be accounted the es The bells that so forth to welcoled out of tune and harsh with the sounding of war's alarms in every other part of the world We flatter ourselves with the thought that our tragedy lies behind us Whether this be true or not, the tragedy of Europe is at hand and ahead Thethose of old, have one backward, not forward Rulers, intoxicated by the lust of power and conquest, have lost their reason, and nations, following after, like cattle led to slaughter, seem as the bereft of Heaven ”that knew not God”
We read the story of our yesterdays as it unfolds itself in the current chronicle; the ascent to the bank-house, the descent to theparaphernalia that follows to the toress; the dizzy height, the dazzling array, the craze for more and one, honor gone, reason gone--the innocent and the gentle, with the guilty, dragged through the hast Yet, if we speak of these things we are called pessimists
I have always counted hts ratitude either ofbackward, I have sincere compassion for Webster and for Clay! What boots it to them, now that they lie beneath the s of nearly seventy years of the world's strifes and follies and sordid ahter, and tears, have passed over their graves, what boots it to theet all they wanted?
There is indeed snug lying in the churchyard; but the flowers s asupon the God-hallowed mounds of the lowly and the poor, as upon the s of reatest, let us hope and believe shall attain immortal life at last What was there for Webster, as there for Clay to quibble about? I read with a kind of wonder, and a sickening sense of the littleness of great things, those passages in the story of their lives where it is told how they stors reached them that they had been balked of their desires
Yet they ht have been so happy; so happy in their daily toil, with its lofty ais; so happy in the sense of duty done; so happy, above all, in their own Heaven-sent genius, with its noble opportunities and splendid achievements They should have emulated the satisfaction told of Franklin Pierce It is related that an eneed friend spoke up and said: ”You should not talk so about the President, I assure you that he is not at all the man you describe hiifts and virtues He has long been regarded as the greatest orator in New England, and the greatest lawyer in New England, and surely no one of his predecessors ever sent such state papers to Congress”
”How are you going to prove it,” angrily retorted the first speaker
”I don't need to prove it,” coolly replied the second ”He admits it”
I cannot tell just how I should feel if I were President, though, on the whole, I fancy fairly coe places with any of the men who have been President, and I have known quite a number of the a ”pessimist” assuredly I am no optimist of the Billy Sunday sort, who fancies the adoption of the prohibition a of ”de jubilo” Early in life, while yet a recognized baseball authority, Mr Sunday discovered ”pay dirt” in what Col Mulberry Sellers called ”piousness” He an to issue celestial notes, countersigned by himself and made redee the lead of the renowned Si style acquired ”the grace of God,” turned loose as an exhorter shouting ”Step up to the , step up lively, and be saved!
I coion's the only game whar you can't lose Him that trusts the Lord holds fo' aces!”
The Billy Sunday ga exhausted hell-fire-and-briel turns to the Demon Rum Satan, with hide and horns, has had his day Prohibition is now the trick card
The fanatic is never either very discri ”ism” will suffice To-day, it happens to be ”whisky” To- established the spy systee a rule of conventicle, it will become a misdemeanor for a man to kiss his wife
From fakers who have cards up their sleeves, not to reat deal about ”the people,” pronounced by the recourse of the professional politician in quest of place Yet scarcely any reference, or referee, were faultier
The people en masse constitute e call the ht--never except when capably led It was theJesus of Nazareth to death It was the n of Terror Mobs have seldo, that they have not gone wrong
The ”people” is a fetish It was the people, misled, who precipitated the South into the madness of secession and the ruin of a hopelessly unequal war of sections It was the people backing if not co the Kaiser, who committed hari-kari for themselves and their e havoc in Russia
Throughout the length and breadth of Christendoes, the people, when turned loose, have raised every inch of hell to the square foot they were able to raise, often upon the slightest pretext, or no pretext at all