Old Young America

...second, to acquire a sufficient experience of life to test out his equipment...

...He is too young...

...Yet this astounding lack of evidence to support the scandalous charges made against a great public servant does not appear to have troubled the publishers in the slightest degree...

...When Wright himself took the stand and began to support his "opin- ion" by telling what he had "always understood" and what someone had told him had been told by someone else, the judge was moved to remark: "I always under- stood that a man educated at the bar knew something of the laws of evidence, but I am beginning to doubt it...

...and, fourth, to translate this recognition into actual preferment...

...In any event, it is dear that unless we become so standardized as a people that we are mere machines, the total duration of these processes will vary widely...

...February16, 1927 THE COMMONWEAL 399 ter to the London Times, has had his reputation smirched and is completely deprived of all means of redress...

...He is too old...

...Thus one who was beginning to get old at forty when he had exceeded the average span by seven years, cannot be said to begin to get old now until he is sixty- two or more...

...They released the book and it was with difficulty that Viscount Gladstone and his brother were able to bring the author into court to dis- close the utter lack of confirmation for the abominable charges...

...The imperious master who was issuing these decrees was past sixty at the time...

...When the average duration of human life was thirty-three years not so long ago, a man engaged in a productive occu-pation might have been said to be old at forty...

...That a verdict against Captain Wright speedily followed was, of course, to be expected, but it can hardly have brought real solace to the Gladstone family, the innocent victims of mercenary publishing...

...It is significant that in opening the case in court for Cap- tain Peter Wright, the author of Portraits and Criti- cisms, his counsel admitted that in the judgment of his biographers and those with whom he was brought into closest relationship, William Ewart Gladstone was a man of the highest moral character...

...The problems of everyone who aspires to climb the steep hill of promotion in any vocation are, first, to obtain a fundamental equipment, educational or other- wise...

...Indeed, no further than a few generations back, men were considered to be at least elderly when they reached that age...

...But Captain Wright thought otherwise," he continued, "and I am sure the jury will feel that Captain Wright at least was convinced his opinion was correct...

...The results of the survey, announced recently, indicate that sixty years is about the average age of those who guide the largest enterprises in the fields of construc- tive effort which are most distinctive of America, and which therefore make the most exacting demands upon the wisdom, initiative, and general powers of those who direct them...

...Some will require a dispropor- tionately long or short time for one stage of this process, some for another...

...One may close the eyes and imagine a picture of an American industrial captain a half-century hence, who has a fancy for imposing arbitrary age distinc- tions, saying to his principal sub-captain: "John, we are allowing useless timber to accumulate in our estab- lishment...

...third, to achieve recognition of his powers...

...If a man is not relatively older now at sixty than he used to be at forty, it may be that in a few generations more the limit will be pushed up to seventy, eighty or beyond...

...A little later another man attracted his attention and, after the same inquiry as to identity, he ordered: "Discharge him...

...But it is fair to ask in this connection who is old now and whether the time has not come for a realignment of the popular view on the question of the border-land between maximum and declining efficiency...

...OLD YOUNG AMERICA T HE youngest of the great nations, and the most progressive, according to curent material stand-ards, is "run" by old men...

...It is related that a newspaper owner, now dead, once entered with his general manager the office of a paper which he had just acquired and, pointing to one of the staff, asked: "Who is that man...

...Besides, there is every sign that the average duration of life will keep on advancing, since science appears to be only on the threshold of the greater discoveries which will hold the principal bodily diseases at bay...

...By the beginning of the present century, the aver- age age of the people who died had ascended to forty- nine years and the average for those who died in 1925 was fifty-five years...

...Upon receiv- ing an answer, he commanded: "Discharge him...

...As it must be conceded that the judg- ment and poise which ripe experience brings are of great value when conjoined with a continuation of the vital powers, as in a normally healthy person, those whose angle of observation has predisposed them to consider men becoming useless at forty must not con- sider them becoming useless until sixty-two in this year of grace...

...This is the conclusion to be drawn from a survey of the executive control of leading business and industrial organizations in the United States, made in the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania...

...I want you to go down the line and quietly advise some of our numerous centenarians that they are nearing the retirement age...

...But if the case of Sir Rennell Rodd is to be deplored, what shall be said of the situation of the Gladstone family, brought about by the readiness of a publishing house to produce for money-making purposes a volume in which the vilest accusations are made against the character of one of the greatest of British prime min- isters because somebody had told somebody else who had told the author that such charges were true...