Life — January 23, 1896 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

‘LIFE: “ OWhile ihere is Life there's Hope.” VOL. XXVIL. JANUARY 23, 1896. No. 682. 19 West Tiirty-First Street, New York. Published every Thursday. $5.000 year In advance. Postage to foretgn countries In the Postal Union, $1.04 @ year extra. Single coples, 10 ceata. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. The illustrations in LAve are copyrighted, and are not to be repro- ithout special permission from the publishers, Republican form of gov- ernment is not without its inconveniences. Itisinconvenient, forexample, to have two partics in power at once, and it is inconvenient to have a majority of silver men in the Senate. But diffi- cult as it is to manage the finances of the country with- out the help of Congress, it can for atime be done. Knowing the President and his advisers, LiFe has faith to believe that somehow the gold reserve will be kept up and the credit of the country maintained. Whether it will come about by a popular loan or must be done by the help of a syndicate we will soon find out. The cheapest way is doubtless the best, but the most effectual way is the cheapest. N common with the rest of the civilized world, LiFe has been closely watch- ing with profound interest the efforts of our cousins, the British, to remind the youthful Emperor of their cousins, the Germans, of the traditional inexpediency of trying to teach one’s grandmother to suck eggs. It may be that all good Americans ought to hope that Wil- liam may refuse to be impressed and may either fight England or come so near it as to make Lord Salisbury more disposed to arbitrate his dispute with Venezuela. If it is absolutely necessary that Great Britain be dis- ciplined Lire is selfish enough to prefer to see the job tackled by the Europeans. But, though it is a lively spectacle to see brethren together by the ears, and though sea fights make good reading in the newspapers, Lire is too kindly disposed toward both the British and the Germans not to hope and to believe that they will cool off without coming to blows. It seems safe to assert that the majority of Americans neither desire to whop England themselves nor to see anyone else whop her. They don't care to have her whopped at all. The worst they wish anent her is to have her constrained, if that is necessary, to restrict her imperial enterprises within proper bounds, and to be reasonable and polite. . T is held by very many intelligent persons, British es- pecially, that ‘the very best thing that can happen to any outlying country that has not shown itself competent to take good care of itself, is to fall into the hands of the English and be relieved of responsibility. The improvement of most coun- a tries to which this happens is very marked. Order is kept in them, railroads are built, natural resources are developed and travel becomes safe and agreeable. If England owned Cuba for instance, there is little doubt that that distracted island would find herself much better off than she ever has been, The blessings of English rule being so abundantly obvious it is natural enough that the British should ever wish to keep extending it, the more so because it is almost always largely remunerative to them to do so. To be bossed by the British being so profitable and wholesome, of course it indicates a lack of intel- ligence in any people to object to it, but our cousins really must remember that the world is full of folks who are just stupid enough to want to do their little share of the bossing, and particularly to boss their own destinies, whether it is truly profitable to them or not. Some of these more or less misguided people are pretty stout, and if enough of them make up their minds to about the same thing at about the same time, the chances are favorable to their having their own way about it. . . . ND yet, while a combination of nations to keep the world’s peace might be a great good, a combi- nation in which the United States was included against Great Britain would be such an entangling alliance as it has always been our policy and our earnest wish to keep out of. Only the most pressing necessity or the prospect of good to all the world could make it tolerable to Americans. To very many of usa row with England would be so much like a family quarrel, that though we might pursue it ever so earnestly ourselves, in all our heat we would have compunctions and_ reluctances about asking any of the neighbors in to help. Tt comicbooks.com