Life — May 5, 1887 — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“While there's Life there's Hope.” VOL. IX. MAY s5, 1887. 1155 Broapway, New York. Published every Thursday, $5 a year in advance, postage free. Single ies, 10'cents, Back numbers can be had by applying to this office. Vol. I., $1.50 per number ; Vol. II., 25 cents per oumber; Vols, III., IV., V., VI., VII. and VIII. at regular rates. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. T is doubtful if the American mind is gifted with the capacity to believe that any man doesn’t want to be President, or that any President does not wish to continue in office indefinitely. The recent rumor that Mr. Cleveland had written out the expression of his desire to return to pri- vate life in 1889, was received in most quarters with smiling incredulity, and is probably regarded at this moment by many of our friends, the practical politicians, as a clever | feint. Notoriety and prominence must be curiously attrac- tive to human nature, or people would not be so incredulous about the allurements of ease and philosophic retirement in | comparison. HY shouldn't Mr. Cleveland think it would be pleasant to get out. If he should refuse to be a candidate for a second term, he would leave the White House immensely the gainer in personal reputation by his four years of official | Even our neighbor, the Sus, will hardly assert that the | life. nation’s two years of intimate acquaintance with him has not given him an enviable place in its regard. Even the most confirmed and mouldy moss-backs think a great deal more respectfully, at least, of him than they did when he began. They may not admire him as a democrat, but they have learned a new estimate of him as a man. If he should go out in 1889, he would go out with colors flying, to the enjoy- ment of a distinguished position among his fellow citizens. And he would have political prospects still left. He might rest for four, or eight, or twelve years, and still be a candi- date for re-election if the fit struck him or his fitness struck the public. He would not be laid on the shelf with so much emphasis, even presidentially speaking, as if he had served a double term, and Mr. Cleveland is a very young man to be | laid on the shelf in any respect. If he ‘should retire, or be retired, after a single term, LiFe, for one, would like to see him emulate the example of John Quincy Adams, and serve the people at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. HERE is one serious objection to quitting office that must have often occurred to Mr. Cleveland. He would be one ex-president, and the other would be Mr. Hayes. That consideration ought to keep his ambition fired, if nothing else could. . . . R. McGLYNN and Henry George, and some other men, have started an anti-poverty society. Now, we had an idea that George's idea of a society of that sort was for one member to be himself and the other Mr. VanAstorbilt, and then for both members to contribute their effects to a pool and live off the proceeds. The newly-formed society must be constructed on a different basis, for two of the “other men” who are in it are clergymen, and George keeps right on with his paper and Father McGlynn has planned to go lecturing. An anti-poverty society whose members work | is nothing. Society with the large S is that very thing now. Mr. George cannot patent his new institution; it was there before. . . . IFE hastens to felicitate the Hon. Sir George M. Pull- man on his celebrated vestibule train. Are all the reports true, Sir George? Can the whole process of Amer- ican life be carried on aboard your moving palace? Is it true that a millionaire can board this famous train in Jersey | City, and eat, smoke, drink, read. sleep and be shaved in such grateful succession for a fortnight as hardly to know that he has ever left home, while the train has been to San Francisco and returned? We haven't heard of anything so peculiarly elegant since that worthy retired merchant built the library so admirably quiet and secluded that “I might spend a week there and nobody be the wiser." Are you not afraid, Sir George, that you will enervate us through these luxuries | which you tempt us with? C** any true New Yorker witness without some trepida- tion the growth of the Ohio Society in Gotham? Lart year it had a dinner and its men talked. This year, about a fortnight ago, it had a great ball, at which General Ewing made the only speech. Ina single year, he said, the society had increased from 115 to 400 members. It had outgrown its habits, its rooms, everything! At this rate, how long will it take for Ohio, with her well-known talent for helping herself, to absorb New York? The prospect is sufficiently serious, aside from that it is in- | teresting. We are used to having the East send its picked men to the West to grow up with the country, but there is a | deal of novelty about the return of their sons in their strength | from a country that is grown up. comicbooks.com