BIRMINGHAM BOMBSHELLS

President Harding evidently dropped a bombshell at Birmingham. Communications have swamped the metropolitan dailies, and the notorious race problem is the topic of the hour. Not that everyone has not always known of its existence, but that no one has dared to speak of it as such. For this the President is to be congratulated: he is apparently not afraid to speak out when be thinks it necessary. He is the first Chief Executive since the beginning of the century who has cared to speak definitely on a subject which is as liable to prove a boomerang as a bomb.

It is interesting, too, to see all the furor which the speech has caused. Nothing especially new or starting was advanced--nothing, that is which has not been generally accepted as true for several decades. It was only a revoicing, with certain necessary modifications, of Lincoln's thesis is some sixty years ago. The days of Roosevelt must be slipping into oblivion if a frank statement of facts can throw most of our population off its mental balance. A few more such surprises might serve as healthful stimulation.