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MODERN PROFESSIONAL REFORMERS A not yearning to rowel and punish someone preferably a sinner, but failing that. any. tie handy is one of the distinguishing remarks of the American. The energies which the Germana pal lata bacchanalian and military enterprises, atiil the English Into idle sport and vapid charity, arc chiefly devoted, in ihis fair land, to moral endeavor, and particularly to punitive moral endeavor. The nation is forever ill the throes of loud, barbaric campaigns against this sin or that. It is difficult lo think of a human act that has not been denounced and - in bated at sometime or other. Thousands of oelf- coiiseerateil a rcha libels ;,, nsariag from one end of the country to the other, raising the posse romltatus against the rum demon, or cocaine, or the hobble skirt, or Mormon htm, r the cigarette, or horse racing, or biioketshops. or vivisection or divorce, or the army canteen, or profanity, or race suicide, or moving picture shows, r graft, or the negro, or the trusts, or Sunday recreations. ,,r dance halls, or child labor. The management of such crusades is a well organized and highly reinuiierat ive business; ii enlisis a great multitude of "snide" iir.a.liei , and unsuccessful lawyers, and roarerti them into public characters of the first eminence. Candidates lor public office arc farced to join in the bellowing: objectors are crashed with accusations of personal guilt: inquisitorial and unconstitutional laws ar. put upon tin- statute books the courts, ahva.v- s,, tl.ihby under a democracy, are 4mllied into complai same. In the large cities, of course, there is con siderabh opposition to iIm- Puritanical frenzies, if only on the ground that they hurt trade, but Unlaws of most American cities, it must be remembered, an- nut made by their citizens, but by pe.-isani legislators from the country dlrtriets, and ii" protest can ever peail against the rural madness for chemical parity. H. L. Mencken in Smart Met.
