Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1914 — Tom Marshall Gives Vent to Rather Astonishing Opinion. [ARTICLE]

Tom Marshall Gives Vent to Rather Astonishing Opinion.

Every once in a while that grand little statesman, Thomas B. Marshall, startles the world with something so very new that we ordinary people back in Hoosierdom don’t know hardly what to think about it. His latest pronouncement is to the effect that four-fifths of our high school graduates are failures. Tom, it may be remembered, is the man who quit the practice of law and entered polities in order to give his conscience breathing room, and the expansion seems to have affected his reasoning. Wj rather suspect that President Wilson and Secretary Bryan must 'have some quiet moments of embarrassment when they read what this little Hoosier statesman is pulling off in his efforts to put the people wise to their misfortunes. Thomas spoke before the council of church boards of education in Washington Tuesday night 'and spoke thus: ‘Five hundred thousand young people who hope to achieve success in life are being sent forth from the schools of this country annually and 400,000 of the mare failures. The young people must be taught to understand what the republic is intended to be. It is generally* believed that the distress and cause of unrest in this country is due to the preachment of the flan-nel-mouthed anarchist from the street corner, but it must be remembered that four but of five of the young people who come from the high schools and colleges are failures. This condition exists partially because it is impossible to teach the Bible in the - public schools.” Mr. Marshall’s chief work as governor of Indiana toward having the Bible taught in the public schools was to give his aid and endorsement to the establihsment of saloons in many counties where they had been Chased out by previous legislation. While our opinion of the vice-president’s philosophy is not very favorable, we attribute the blame party to the practice of rushing a practically untried man into a position of trust, thus suddenly causing an expansion of bis head and a desire to say something to make it appear that his preferment was actually merited. 7 Thomas is not very much for Ipoks, but at that, we believe he is one of those kind of vice-presidents who Should be seen but not heard.