Young America today no more resembles the young America of thirty years ago than a butterfly resembles a caterpillar. Young men and women are sixty per cent cosmopolitan and forty per cent rebel. During the next five years the number of young people who will insist on thinking for themselves will increase two-fold, because in that time many thousands of children born of foreign parents in America will have become mature enough to have fixed upon some sort of ideal. Congress will realize the situation when it is too late for regrets to be of any service. Which calls to mind a story apropos of this pressing subject: A landlady, having no means of obtaining meat for her boarders, made a stew out of a litter of kittens. The truth became known in a day or two. One of the boarders said the very thought made her sick, to which the landlady replied: "Feeling sick won't do no good; them kittens has all been digested." DON PIATT (Late Editor of "The Capital," Washington, D. C.) Where are the debaters whose rapier tongues ripped up the rag dolls of Congress and kept the floor of the House supplied with fresh saw-dust, whose fantastic fencing and heart-piercing thrusts were the delight of the gallery and the terror of fire eaters. Gone, gone where the woodbine twineth. What went they out for to see? A reed shaken by the wind? There is a difference in reeds. Tom Reed of Maine shook the House, but the House never shook him. What were his favorite drinks? There was plenty to choose from in the Washington of his day. But note the difference between the wit of the Maine Reed and that of the Missouri Reed. On the other hand, where did Bryan get the "cross of gold" inspiration in the old days? Did he do it on tannic acid released from tea leaves? Who will ever know? One thing is certain--he never again rose to the same level. Is our planet revolving toward a second edition of puritanism? Probably. The esprit de corps that animated the body politic begins to resemble a corpse with the esprit evaporated. The human mind needs moments of exaltation as well as relaxation. Brilliant results are not produced by lukewarm sentiments expressed in a voice that lacks enthusiasm. Washington is now a resort for celluloid cynics and a refuge for asbestos patriots whose marmorian snobbery makes me think of the ruins of temples abandoned by the gods and forgotten by man. The great blunder of the prohibitionists was made when they condemned beer and light wine. Nature abhors abruptness. Progress is not made by sudden jerks and violent laws passed in a hurry. If a few persons living in an obscure village in Ohio can bring about a movement like prohibition, the same influence can bring about a return of the old Connecticut blue laws. Violent actions are followed by violent reactions. From this there is no escape.