Show WHERE ARE WE AT what is this old world coming to anyway A year ago we fondly believed that with the termination of the war we would have peace but it seems as if all the vices all of the mentally deformed all factions arrayed against law and order have been unchained and allowed to wander throughout the land like roaring lions and devouring beasts disrupting society defying all constituted authority and shedding blood and committing crimes almost without any effort of concealment before the war we were inflicted with the 1 I W W which made a sore spot on the body politic of the nation we neglected to cure the tender itch at the proper time and now it is a hideous putrid ulcer that time will be needed to heal before the war radicals were rather laughed at as being amusing and they were not seriously considered the profiteer known then under some other name was tolerated as a nuisance to be regulated by the law of trade and competition but now he has the whole nation by the throat and even organized labor supposed to exist for the benefit of mankind has allowed cut throats and anarchists to rule them to such an extent that the whole world is in danger of starvation if it does not freeze to death in the meanwhile we as an american people thought it was a serious condition when we were helping the allies to whip despised germany but what the people went through at that time was a picnic compared with the wave of crime violence and utter disregard of all law and conscience by which we are now almost if not completely engulfed and this condition well leads to the question where are we at in the introduction to a speech delivered before the association of life insurance presidents on december 5 hon houston thompson federal trade commissioner reciting present conditions throughout the united states said the human mind has lost its stabilizer sta balizer in its quest for another it is performing 1 some curious slide slips and nose dips when the curtain dropped on the war we fondly hoped the next act would represent peace instead it has revealed a near ap to chaos the stage is dark where we expected light speculation and waste are quarreling over who shall lead the orchestra amidst the babel of noises the voices of the historian and the psychologist are silenced and we the audience sit benumbed as we foolishly imagine this act a new one if the historian could advance down stage and reach our ears he would tell fell us that the sinister manager is plagiary izing an act as ancient as man he would say that the fitful fever of speculation and waste invariably springs from the womb of war and runs its blighting career out to the end |