Coplay High School - Coplayite Yearbook (Coplay, PA)

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If the people at large, the women voters, the millions of church members, really want morality and efficiency in official life; if they really wish peace instead of war; if they actually prefer the reign of good will and fair-dealing in national affairs, they can get them. How? By demanding them and by letting those servants to whom they have entrusted their public interests know constantly that the individual and collective consciences of the nation are not dormant but alert and ready for action. The present situation demands patriotic not partisan action. If we are to preserve democratic institutions and maintain the confidence of the people in the Republic, their disclosures are in vain if they do not stir us to a realization of the absolute necessity to rid our political parties and this government, OF tin people FOR the people and BY the people, of these sinister influences. TIIE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1924. J. W. Peters THE time is rapidly approaching for another Presidential election. Political bosses are forming the platform of their party and preparing their candidates for the field. Various would-be Presidents are addressing assemblies stating their ideas and urging citizens to vote for them. The Presidential election is of the utmost importance, for by it we choose our executive for Ihe coming four years. The election to be held this year is of more than ordinary importance, for the next President will go into office confronted with such problems whose solution will depend, to a certain extent, on our prosperity in the coming years. It is necessary that we improve conditions for the farmer if agriculture, our fundamental industry, is to be maintained. Also a relief from the severe tax burden will be required. The next President is likely to be confronted with a coal strike and let us hope the settlement of it will prove the first severe test of bis administration. The main issue on which the candidates shall fight is an issue between government as a means of securing the welfare of the public, or the government as a means of promoting private interest. Both political parties have been seriously injured by the Teapot Dome disclosures and both need a thorough cleaning. It is the duty

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Invisible government, tin curse of American politics for nearly half a century, has baffled the progress of our free institutions; it has, repeatedly, nullified the verdict of the American people at the ballot box. Surreptitiously, it purchases the talents of men of great influence in all political parties to promote its greedy and selfish ends. It supports corrupt, not party, politics. It knows neither Democrat nor Republican. It writes meaningless phrases in political platforms to cajole the writers and it knows but one party—the party in power. It has oftentimes been said, also, that organized wealth has for many years, under Republican and Democratic administrations, alike, controlled the government of the United States through precisely the same methods. The deplorable thing is that this instance of bribery and corruption at the cost of the people and the government is not alone nor singular. Bribery is everywhere at work. The virus has infected every part of the body politics. It poisons the courts, the legislatures, the Congress and the Cabinet ministry. This political immorality which has forecast the ruin of nations throughout all history is beginning to rear its head in our own United States. The vast wealth produced annually by the people is an inexhaustible source of plunder which never ceases day or night. This constant plundering is based on the bribery of accessible politicians. For it could not exist without the control of some of the people’s representatives in the National, State, County and Municipal governments. These corruptionists, as they are commonly called, exercise such a control that they finance electio?) expenses of candidates and make contributions to political bosses who hand out nominations. With these corruptionists, these public plunderers, these political bosses, politics is a business in which corruption and “pull” are capitalized at millions upon millions. But how can this corruption in all offices be cured? First of all. the truth, the whole truth, must be brought out and when that truth is revealed the American people will be confident that corruption will be very rare, in fact, practically blotted out of the channels of government. In the meantime, however, every level-headed citizen can do a public service by upholding the hands of the chief-magistrate of the United States, by setting his will and word against unsupported rumor and by facing every corruptionist with a calm refusal to be stamped into forgetting the rules of common decency to one’s fellow-man.

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of tlx next President to establish confidence in his party. He must free it from those forces whose conception of the administration is to rob the public and to secure the aims of their party. These are some of the tasks which confront the new President. A person in order to vote properly should know something of the character of the candidates who are in the field. Let us then take into consideration the most important men and compare them, giving their ideas on political matters and their fitness for the Presidential chair. Among the most important and best fitted men we might class our present President. Coolidge is the most fortunate and most unfortunate of our public men. lie is fortunate that his past can not be attacked, that lie has reached his office through hard work and not through any discreditable means. His reputation as a president will depend entirely upon the way he handles the Teapot Oil scandal, lie may fail and lose the election or win and be nominated. He may use the Republican party as a tool to accomplish public ends. If the public does not find such leadership in the White House now, they will seek for it elsewhere. Coolidge then above other candidates stands in the best position to be elected. As another important Republican candidate we might place Senator Hiram Johnson of California who has established a good record for himself even though lie is not well known by the public. He has served six years as governor of California, as well as Senator for two terms. If he is nominated he can fight the election on his own personal record no matter what the platform of the party might be. This, however, does not mean that he is a man without a platform. He fully understands that a man without principles can make no effective public appeal. He is marked as a man who stays on the job. Golf has no attractions for him. He is a man of decision, not impulsive, but decisive. Such a record should give him a fair chance in the nomination. The Democratic party has come into power several times in the last fifty years due to the fact that the public suspected the private interest of the Republican party. No radical Democrat has ever been elected since the Civil War, but a sound liberal could restore the Democratic party. Among the names who suggest themselves we have Oscar Underwood and William McAdoo. Mr. Underwood has been before the public for the Presidency in 1912, but perhaps he was stronger at that time than he is now for he