BACK TO NORMALCY

Editors' Note

In honor of Joe Biden's inauguration as the 46th President of the United States, we are republishing an editorial from the second issue of "The Double Dealer." The editorial below was published almost exactly 100 years ago in response to the swearing in of then-President Warren G. Harding, who campaigned on the malapropism of a "return to normalcy."

On the event of this year’s inauguration, NBC News described the occasion as "radically normal." Swap a name, here or there, and it becomes clear both how much and how little can change in a century's time.

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Since the voters of this country have almost by acclamation elected Tweedledee in default of Tweedledum, we may look forward with assurance to a rule of normalcy. Everyone says so; the very billboards which announce the shrinking cost of vestments admit, "We are getting back to normal."

Back to normal—or better, forward to normal, to a time when the bear will lie down with the bull; when farmer, laborer, scalper, jobber, distributor, and retailer will be content to snatch only a modest share from each other; when the Rolls-Royce will again retail at a reasonable price; and the agriculturist will no longer have to sell his wheat at such a pitiful figure that Geraldyne must stop attendance of a fancy eastern finishing school. In these nearby golden days we shall all be rich, all serenely content, free to turn our minds away from sordid details to the enjoyment of Babe Ruth and Constance Talmadge.

We do not want to appear irrelevant, but have you ever played golf? Then you must know that every golf player is chronically "off his game." All the other golfers will tell you that one day Q. went out and miraculously beat his record fifteen strokes. Now, he is absurdly attempting to repeat the performance. Or, as he would express it, he is trying to get "back to normal."

Fellow mal de mer-maids and men, on this economic ocean, which tosses us high, rolls us under, or leaves us petulantly becalmed, reflect—is normalcy a possible condition; or is it but a delusion?

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Photo of Harding Inauguration: Keystone View Co., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons