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Show "A KILLING FROST" H THERE was once a chestnut tree. In the spring it gave forth leaves that lent beauty to ifcs trunk and branches and concealed from view the unsightly fruit at the top. In November came a heavy JM frost. The leaves fell to the ground, leaving alone and exposed the H burrs whose spines warned all to keep their distance. All summer the H children had looked forward to the time when they could gather the H ripe nuts, but when they were picked from the ground they were H found to contain worms. Instead of a quantity of nutritious fruit only H a mass of detestable vermin was the harvest for the season. In spite H of their loathsome product and the fact that their protecting foliage M had left them, the burrs remained defiantly upon the tree until a later H and severer frost brought them also to the ground. M Consider the Democratic party, headed dt Washington by Wil- M son and a hand-picked cabinet. The frost of November 5th stripped M from the president many 'of the friends who put him in the White M House, and who continued to present to the people plausible explana- M tions of many of the acts of his political career. Under their pro- H tection he throve and grew big like the chestnut burr. With the No- M vember frost many left and others are leaving him by scores. The H frost has also exposed to public scrutiny the fruits of his administra- M tion. Instead of a harvest of beneficial legislation and economical and H efficient executive management, which the public had been told it H would get, there is revealed a mass of unnecessary and detestable M taxation, a record of billions expended for results valued in millions, M and a heterogeneous collection of "parts" that should have been as- M sembled long since into airplanes and cannon. fl With his friends deserting him, and with the fruits of his rule M open to the public gaze the discredited Wilsonian burr remains at the top of the Democratic tree, its spines still indicative of self-sufficiency M and still repelling advice from all sources. Empty it will cling there M for a time, but the big frost scheduled for November, 1920, will bring M it down forever. M |