In a Blue Funk
THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The...
...these private preferences could never be very im- Fortunately enough-for both parties and all citiportant because they were never very hostile...
...The mere asking of the force, is confronted with the new energy that has been question is sufficient answer...
...They are significant for the rea- cling to it like barnacles, but it nevertheless forges son that they are symptomatic...
...for they knew little of the difficulties which sur- strutting scoundrel who is in favor of economy or the round a complex society...
...And so it is really quite true gans might well roll up their sleeves...
...Stephenson are, after all, spite of vote-buying and fraud...
...Charles S. Baldwin 611 The Quiet Corner 621 IN A BLUE FUNK T HE cautious pessimism of Henry Adams arrived state and nation...
...in the realm of Hoosierdom, a proving that Mr...
...The Democratic national program, for instance, what looked like the big and actually bustling civic has never been reconstructed since the era of the Wilwheel-the ideas and methods proper to industrial sonian crusade...
...When the "new freedom" and the capitalism...
...Thus there occurs a crystallization of one of stature, they do indicate that something is wrong American ideal-and it is magnificent enough...
...THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The Arts, and Public Affairs...
...but you canhave gone in for it, has become a truism demonstrated not buy a public office and still claim to be politically by innumerable humdrum facts...
...and democratic sentiment which, in times when Fascism, for instance, is supposed to be vastly more human nature is generous, accompany the ascendency theoretic, dictatorial, and mechanical than American of an individual from the level throng-then it really democracy...
...This simple possibility is often overlooked says Major Douglas, the English economist, "that we in the tumult of election time...
...It incorporates a trend of and the running will be steadier and smoother...
...Surely the first task are in possession of sufficient data to be able to say of citizenry must always be, not a distrustful scrutiny that no scheme which depends for its success on the of individual candidates for office, but a reasoned conpersonal qualifications of those administering it, is sideration of political goals...
...Even if the to get into in other spheres of activity...
...conscious sense of direction, the result is disappointInto this were gathered and cemented the parts of ing...
...A ance...
...this time become a routine proverb insisted upon by You can-if you are a person like the embattled Reall manner of worthy folk...
...But tive confusion...
...when it is as resolute to with which are almost entirely given over to a great achieve for the many what it normally wishes to do for and sometimes a decidedly misleading debate about itself ; when it conserves the qualities of honor, honesty persons...
...Without Mr...
...The result has cities has made inevitable a close grapple with "the been natural and immediate...
...you may change your mind and cunning possessed by a number of fellows who about what can be done for the farmer...
...When one looks for inner individuality, for a modern Republican party...
...That is why, in a somewhat testimony...
...One must courageously believe that out way...
...the whole system of primary elections is spent his life doing the apparently impossible feat of under suspicion...
...It is civic because appearance of Mussolini might greatly modify, if not it has been of the city...
...That democratic government is a job which in more than a dozen forms of devastating wedlock, requires all the nerve and muscle of a people, has by seems like a plumber's visit when the house is on fire...
...Democrats and other opponents, is why Americans have trusted the primary and the however, almost necessarily rest their cases on personal reformed civil service...
...When this element truly incorporates momentum-but the political campaigns associated the experience of the crowd...
...If corn or the failure of a chain of banks...
...that Republicanism, as a principle, can carry on in But gentlemen like Mr...
...For all their brevity ahead...
...The rapid growth of same prosperity, the same methods...
...That democratic govern- publican Senator from New York-hedge on the subment is, in practice, a business that absorbs all the risk ject of liquor enforcement...
...At this moment, a honest...
...Even rect observation...
...And Republicanism has, worth pursuing...
...and the edifying catalogue might at the following historical deduction: "The mass be enlarged...
...the Yankee fondness for economical pro- "coming internationalism" were spurned by the eleccedure and a "main office" ; the use of prosperity as a torate, the heritors of the President disbanded like an concomitant of government...
...It is relatively trustworthy even the issue of prohibition, which is conjoined with graft today...
...It was, in the main, a cor- World Court remains none the less a scoundrel...
...Now there happens to be a mechan- Of course, the ideal itself may be imperfect or ical theory of government...
...That is why the political thought now in every citizen was consciously or unconsciously trying action is so undramatic and devitalized...
...Yet we nearly all concede that the dis- has a political meaning and destiny...
...two nominees for the Senate are pal- "guardians of the public trust" waxed fat through pably engineers of vote buying corporations as skil- paroling desperate criminals, one may agree that it is fully conducted as the tennis tour of Mademoiselle perfectly proper for the citizenry to forget to enquire Lenglen : the courts are supposed to be weighing the whether a candidate has read Adam Smith's Wealth collusion of prominent federal officials with energetic of Nations...
...A good many Republican machine were vastly more dissolute, the people may not like the name or may choose, for in- Democratic doctrine would still be in a state of relatimate reasons, to call themselves by another...
...Volume IV New York, Wednesday, October 27, 1926 CONTENTS In a Blue Funk 595 Mimnermos of Colophon (verse) Week by Week 597 Translation of John Sherry Mangan 611 What Is a Gang...
...There the disappearance of any Republican leader cause more Republicanism, a nationally dominant and traditional than a sentimental stir...
...And that is why so much incompletely alter, the character of Fascism...
...In the being a form of government which actually does not seething amalgam of crowds, one element is destined depend upon the persons who administer it, which fol- to succeed in isolating itself and assuming the role lows a definite direction with the force of its own of government...
...Republicanism is estab- audience that has been rebuked by the police, and aplished-beyond the abiding reach of any rival-be- parently were unable to agree upon another place of cause it adopted in the political world the stride almost meeting...
...When the commercialization of government jury has disagreed about the guiltiness of a former reaches a point where, as in metropolitan Chicago, the cabinet-member...
...A completely new series of human attaches of this conflict will come a better realization of the would affect it less than does a drop in the price of dignity and potentiality of political government...
...Cheap charlatans relatively incidental...
...Their popular personages are their strong different way, they have created and supported the suit...
...Theodore Dreiser's portraits of former generalissimo of Klanism is making up his American conduct are not exaggerated, has cracked a mind about the value of news "that may rock the whip over people who looked rather pompous on a S96 THE COMMONWEAL October 27, 1926 stump, it seems as if all Hoosiers who are not hooli- for its functioning...
...There has come into difficulties that surround a complex society...
...Coolidge created out of popular need and ambition and which the machine would rumble right along the same old is still primitive enough to preserve the flavor of the road and carry out its natural purpose in the orthodox personal...
...When a Hoosier hooligan, who has oil interests...
...That life and thinking...
...Any zens-there are indications that virile leaders of the number of Democrats, for instance, really feel Re- opposition to Republicanism are gradually developing publican-that is, they want the same economy, the a new code of political practice...
...It will be agreed, I think," wrong...
...Eliminate the personal element from at least, a goal and a character...
...Henry L. Stuart 6o6 Books Frederick H. Martens, Hemlocks (verse) John Hanlon 6o8 George D. Meadows, T. C., Bertram A Society for Science H. Dopp 609 C. A. Windle, George N. Shuster, Paul October Stars (verse) Regina Walsh 61o Crowley, George Mariano 615 A Parable of Romance...
...These things one did not have this confidence, the present scene are the only elements upon which the machine depends would leave one in nothing short of a blue funk...
...It is something apart any form of administrated enterprise, he would say, from its representatives...
...with the system...
...of Americans were sanguine and self-confident, partly At such a time, it seems almost absurd to discuss by temperament, but partly also by reason of ignor- political principles or concrete political methods...
...6oo Communications 612 The Five-Day Week 6oo Poems R. M. Patterson, Jr., Daniel J. Triumphs of Our Higher Schools McKenna, Marie de L. Welch, Alfred James Burns 602 Battle Bealle, Mary Carolyn Davies, The Course of Conversion, II Kathryn White Ryan 613 G. K. Chesterton 604 The Play R. Dana Skinner 614 The Devil at Noonday...
...Would terest now attaches to the New York elections...
Vol. 4 • October 1926 • No. 25
