WHAT HAS COME OVER THE PEOPLE'S SPIRIT?
Otto, Max Carl
What Has Come Over the People's Spirit? William Alien White, Noted Editor, Wants to Know Why People Are Deaf to Reforms, By BASIL MANLY (Director, People's Legislative Service) William Allen...
...In 1912 the progressive tide was at its height...
...Manly answers the question in the June issue of The People's Business, issued for the members of the People's Legislative Service...
...The newspapers print dispatches from Washington, which they may read and interpret for themselves, but there is no authoritative organization, no recognized leader to say to them, "This act is destructive of liberty...
...A new party is not necessary because that particularly American institution, the direct primary, makes it possible to secure large results in Congressional and State elections without encountering the serious obstacles that lie in the path of every new party...
...IDON'T think it is prosperity, except as an overfed body tends always to cramp the spirit...
...thi-s tremendous timidity toward change...
...a^o now pass almost unnoticed, the old slogans fall on deaf ears and, since the ¦ ¦•¦¦3th of La Follette, no liberal leader has been able to get a real response from the masses of the ; ..••• : '. At least that ia the way it looks to me and to the hundred or more statesmen, near-statesmen and ordinary folks with whom I have discussed the situation during the past year...
...Mr...
...says Mr...
...But England also had a war...
...Progressive sentiment and "He kept us out of war" re-elected Wilson in November, 1916...
...Certainly the farmers of the Corn and Wheat States have not been surfeited witli prosperity since the big deflation of 1920-21, And yet I see few signs to indicate that these farmers, bankrupt and impoverished as the majority of them arc, are moved by any broader idealism, by any deeper spirit of national reform than the relatively prosperous people of the industrial East...
...What is the use of feeling deeply if you cannot do anything worth-while, if you cannot surely identify and communicate with those souls which are moved as yours is...
...That policy leads straight to war...
...What has come over the spirit of the people to cause this worship of stability...
...Five months later, bewildered and dazed by the swiftness of the change, we plunged into war with Wilson at our head...
...It must have courageous and inspiring leadership...
...NOR does the war alone seem a sufficient cause for political indifference and spiritual paralysis...
...this tremendous timidity toward change...
...Think it over and write him...
...The reforms which wo propose do not seem to me as drastic as those which we proposed a dozen or twenty years ago—reforms which attracted public notice and which in many States and sometimes in the Nation assembled legislative majorities...
...Palmer and Burleson became the visible government...
...That is what has happened to great masses of the American people...
...The war exalted violence...
...That was the tyne when the Progressives should have been ready with a strong ticket and a sound program of economic and social reconstruction...
...Is it the disillusion that follows every war...
...M. I,., Jr...
...T(k- address of the People's Legislative service is 212 First Street Southeast, Washington...
...It must be a permanent organization, concerned not with the results of any single campaign, hut with a long-time program that will make this a Nation which all the world will respect and admire...
...William Alien White, Noted Editor, Wants to Know Why People Are Deaf to Reforms, By BASIL MANLY (Director, People's Legislative Service) William Allen White, welt-known editor of The Emporia Gazette, wrote Basil Manly, able director of the People's Legislative Service, and asked this question: "Why is it that the people are deal to the cause of reform...
...I don't know, I'm till unsettled and confused...
...Is it the disillusion that follows every war...
...Carried away by the illusion of "making the world safe for democracy," we prayed for victory and offered no effective resistance to espionage acts and other instruments of autocracy...
...Above all it must have a well-edited weekly newspaper, which will carry truth and inspiration into every State...
...The war created a propaganda machine and an intolerance that is not yet abated...
...It is tine that the textile workers voted for Walsh in preference to Butler, but the building trades went strongly for Wagner instead of Wadsworth, " Remember also that the Non-Partisan League, the rao»t spontaneous political upheaval that fchia generation, has seen, started and grew during the period of war-time prosperity and withered when, adversity came...
...It must be a permanent organization, concerned not with the results of any single campaign, but with a long-time program that will make this a Nation which all the world will respect and admire...
...I'm all unsettled and confused...
...workers and fanners, was a demonstration that great masses of the people were not indifferent to the debauchery of government...
...1 don't know...
...Nor do the workers in the textile industry, long prostrated under the highest tariff ever known, seem to be more actively interested in reform than the building trades workers who have been enjoying unexampled prosperity...
...When it comes the liberal forces of the country should be organized to give the great masses of the people inspiration, direction and leadership...
...It was his plan to use the summer of 1925 and subsequent recesses of Congress in a Nation-wide tour with public meetings and local conferences, building up State by State a sound political organization...
...The Nation was pacifist and proud of it...
...Sooner or later they will turn aside from their present absorption in money, movies, radio, automobiles and sports and respond wholeheartedly to a magnetic leader who will call them to the service of high ideals...
...movement that would promise relief...
...Russia and Italy are set apart by dictatorships that stiffle the democratic processes...
...Above all they would have laid a foundation upon which with the help of the deflation of 1920, the great "open shop" drive and the scandals of the Harding administration, they could have built a strong organisation in preparation for the campaign of 1924...
...1 don't know...
...It is easier to indict a nation than to diagnose its ills...
...Marooned here in Washington, I have no means of knowing the thojghfs and feelings of the millions of men and women who are by right the true save ereigns of this Nation...
...So far as economic and political questions ;ire concerned they appear to be in a state of coma...
...FURTHERMORE, the old leaders to whom the people looked to voice their protests and aspirations are gone...
...drastic as those which we proposed a dozen or twenty years ago—reforms which attracted public notice and which in many States and sometimes in the Nation assembled . legislative majorities...
...The magnificent outburst of spontaneous enthusiasm for Lindbergh as an ambassador of good-will demonstrates the popular desire for international accord...
...You name war and prosperity, both ©f which have destroyed the souls ot countless nations and empires whose names are embalmed in history...
...BILL" WHITE, you are right The American people seem to be afflicted with a strange species of spiritual sleeping sickness...
...But war alone is not, in my opinion, a sufficient explanation of the strange spiritual and mental condition that new exists in the United States...
...It must have a sound program, centering perhaps around those great projects of hydro-electric and waterway development— Boulder Dam, Great Lakes-to-the-Atlantic, and Mississippi Flood Control—which are so vital to large sections of the country and which will to large sections of thecountry and which will appeal to the constructive imagination of all intelligent people...
...The American people are sound at heart...
...Maybe we are ill wrong—you and I and other observers Maybe they do care, but lack any adequate means of expressing- themselves, Maybe they are ready to move hue are without aggressive leaders to show them the way...
...the loss of faith and hope and love which comes from a debacle of slaughter and lying and larceny...
...and Mississippi Flood Control—which are so vital to large sections of the country and which will appeal to the constructive imagination of all intelligent people...
...This movement, however, had no solid foundation of local organization...
...European liberalism is dead, but the lines have reformed and the contest between reaction and progress goes on under new leaders and with new slogans...
...If La Follette had lived he would have preserved this frame-work and built it into a solid structure...
...War has left behind its ugly scars on body and soul in every country...
...The campaign of 1920 gave the people the poor choice between Harding and Cox...
...The reforms which we propose do not seem to me as...
...It has bred hatred and intolerance, exalted force and militarism, and undermined the most fundamental human rights of free speech, free press and freedom of assemblage...
...Events and issues which would have aroused the Nation Siteen year...
...the loss of faith and hope and love which conies from a debacle of slaughter and lying and larceny...
...Is it prosperity...
...Then came- the armistice...
...He says: "I present my personal answer for what it is worth...
...His illness and death ended this plan and left the Progressive movement leaderless...
...Manly, and he invites Progressives scattered throughout the country, in close touch with all classes of people, to write hira and tell him what they think about it...
...ANEW liberal, progressive organization is the need of the hour...
...Above all it must have a well-edited weekly newspaper, which will carry truth and inspiration into every State...
...But they are naturally far more interested in getting themselves out of the hole by the McNary-Haugen Toute than in going off on an "equal rights for all, special privileges for none" rampage...
...Thus for three years there have been no organized channels through which public sentiment unfavorable to the administration's policies and acts could be expressed...
...BASIL MANLY ANSWERS NEW liberal, progressive or-''Aganizatioti is...
...They are not imperialists glorying in bending Some weaker people to their will...
...The war destroyed illusions...
...They could not have won in that campaign, but they would certainly have carried a number of Northwestern States where Non-Partisan sentiment was running high...
...Prosperous Wisconsin coatinues to vote the La Follette ticket wbile other formerly progressive States, stricken by agricultural depression, have in large measure given up the fight...
...No Solid Foundations THE La Follette-Wheeler campaign, polling 4,822,000 counted votes in spite of lack of organization and outrageous coercion of ''WHY is it that the people are deaf to the cause of reform...
...Roosevelt, Wilson, Bryan and La Follette, who in their prime could arouse the Nation against injustice or for an ideal, are gone...
...The doctrines of the "New Freedom" were enthusiastically received by all liberals without regard to party...
...I don't mean to imply that the Western farmers are not sore, and ready to back almost any...
...VVoodrow Wilson had reaped the harvest from the seed which Roosevelt, La Follette, Bryan and a number of others had sown...
...the need of the hour...
...Canada, just across our border, was far more deeply affected by the war than we were, and yet in Canada there appears tc be a lively political contest and a large popular interest in the working out of her gr«afc experiments in publicly owned "Hydro" and the Canadian National Railways...
...Is it prosperity...
...What has come over the spirit ol the people to cause this worship of stability...
...Is It War...
...No one has taken their place...
...They have no means in which they have confidence of knowing what is really happening or what is the meaning of events and policies...
...That law confers special privileges at the expense of the people...
...Wilson virtually abdicated the domestic government and sailed away on his great adventure in world government, leaving the processes of reconstruction, as he said, to the able and enlightened business men of the United States...
...A new party is not necessary because that particularly American institution, the direct primary, makes it possible to secure large results in Congressional and State elections, without encountering the serious obstacles that lie in the path of every new party...
...But the Progressive leaders marked time and permitted the great wave of post-war unrest to be dissipated...
...Assuming that we are right, however, in our observation of the symptoms, it is far more important, as you suggest, to search out the causes...
...In the meantime the Democratic party, torn by feuds over religion and prohibition, has practically ceased to function as an organized opposition...
...Fifteen Years Ago IDO NOT believe we can fully understand the present political situation unless we examine the political and economic history of the last fifteen years...
...And yet, as far as I can see, there is no noticeable political indifference in those countries...
...They are not content to worship the golden calf and bow down before the shrines of wealth...
...So likewise did France and Germany...
...When human beings have no means for expression they inevitably become inarticulate and indifferent to those things which formerly moved them deeply...
...It must have courageous and inspiring leadership...
...Many of its leaders with their eyes on the flesh-pots of Wall Street and the mirages of overflowing campaign barrels, have sought to gain favor with the powers-that-be by outbidding the Republican reactionaries...
...Are the American people afflicted with spiritual sleeping sickness If so, what will cure them...
...That time may not be far distant...
...Most of us switched...
...It must have a sound program, centering perhaps around these great projects of hydro-electric and waterway development—Boulder Dam, Great Lakes-to-the-Atlantic...
...With the breakdown of organization and the departure from the scene of the old leaders has come an almost complete destruction of all means of communication with the great masses of the people...
...Is It Prosperity...
...Without such leadership the people cannot or will not act...
...When the inevitable depression with widespread unemployment and low prices succeeds the present industrial boom, the people may in desperation seek to express their resentment, but they cannot act intelligently unless they have responsible leadership...
...The flimsy frame-work, hastily improvised during the campaign, collapsed...
...Liberty was crushed under foot and the liberalism of the Wilson administration was submerged in an orgy of red witch burning...
...Men like Borah and Norris, who might now arouse them, shrink from the responsibilities of avowed leadership...
...He believes your collective opinion onght to hit the bull's eye...
Vol. 19 • July 1927 • No. 7
