Life — March 10, 1898 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

“ OWVhile there io Life there's Hope.” VOL. XXXII, MARCH 10, 1898, No, 75. 19 West Tuinty-Finst w YORK, Published every Thursday. $5 00a yearin advance, Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $104 yearextra. Single copies, 10 cents Rejected contributions will be destroved un- tess accompanied bya stamped and directed envelope. The illustrations in Live are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced without special arrangement with the publishers. em aan RCHBISHOP IRELAND think there will be any war with Spain, and doesn’t want any, The Spanish people are not fools, he say: and therefore they didn't blow the Maine doesn’t up on purpose. Truc, they are not all fools, but a sood many of them are, In that par- ticular they are like other peoples. Even among the Americans there are weak brothers. We read from day to day that sundry Spaniards rejoice in the disaster to the Maine. Nasty speeches are reported from Madrid, from Havana, from Matanzas, from places. Probably such speeches were made, No doubt a good many Spaniards were de- lighted to learn of the disaster. But when we see reports of this sort, let us compare them with what our own un- wise are saying at home. In offerin a resolution reproving Minister Wood- ford for giving a dinner in Madrid, Mr. Lewis, of Washington (State), said in Congress on February 26th: “1 opposed to our people burying th dead while our official representat abroad is feasting their murderers.” There has been very little of that sort of talk in Congress, but there has been some. So, outof Congress, the great mass of the American people have kept their heads, various * LIFE: but there have been thousands of excep- tions, and some few of them, like Senator Mason, have been men in high places. When we read of Spanish monstrosities of speech we must remember that we have our violent talkers too, Happil they don’t carry much weight, even in times of excitement like the present. The ‘yellow” penny papers, which represent American foolishness, are all so hoarse with screeching that their voices no longer penetrate, and their vocal contortions merely excite smil If we have war with Spain, which doesn’t scem at all likely, it will be a necessary disturbance. The fools are not running the country. V HILE there is profound dissatis- faction in the United States with the result of Zola’s trial, it is very gen- erally recognized that we ought to be able to stand itif France can. We have our ideas of what constitutes a fair trial and legal justice. They are the ideas that we inherited from England, and include a public trial and a Law of Evidence. One of the incidental results of our way of doing things is that so many murderers go unhung, and so many rascals escape punishment, that there is a serious amount of informal kill- ing done annually in this country by un- authorized personsand by mobs. Accord- ing to our notions, and to the information we have received, Dreyfus was convicted on improper evidence, Zola’s fight has been a righteous one, and his conviction and the punishment of his friends and allies has been outrageous. We like our way of holding court much better, and recommend it to the French, X-PRESIDENT HARRISON, ina Washington's Birthday address before the Union League Club of Chi- cago, divulged his conviction that rich ci ns in this country do not p their share of the taxes. The New York Evening Post, which has no prejudice against wealth or its possessors, agrees with this opinion and says it is an old story, and that all experts in taxation have testified that it is true, Realestate lly pays to government all that it owes, and more, but all existing Ameri- can contrivances for taxing personal property are found by the Post to have proved to be hopelessly inadequate, ‘This is a sad state of things, and shows how far away the miliennium still is, It also teaches us that the Populists, who want bad money and repudiation, and the Socialists, who want government ownership of everything, and the other agitators, who want to filch away the havings of him who has, are not monop olists of selfishness, but that the tas have their share of greed as well as the outs. It seems odd, though, that conservative persons 1 General Harrison and the Post should reach such conclusions as they have. The more common expeti- ence with the owners of personal property $ that they are invariably able to demon- strate that every variety of personal property represents something that is in plain sight somewhere, and whic somewhere in taxes the penalty of its conspi pays. ZT us rejoice in the great multipli- cation of genealogical orders in this country. The more Sons of the Revolution, Daughters of the same, Sons and Daughters of the American ditto, Cousins of Jehoshaphat, Colonial Dames, Holland Dames, Barons of Runnymede, Orders of the Crown, Descendants of Soldiers of the War of 1812 and Sons of Veterans we have the better. In such concerns there is safety in numbers. All these organizations afford amusement to the participators in them as well as to the lookers-on. In so far as is known, none of the organi- zations mentioned ha: yet attempted to constrain Congress to pension its mem though possibly the record of the Sons of Veterans may bear investigation in that particular. The most powerful body of the gene- ‘al sort in the country, the order Kinsmen of the Almighty Dol- avoids formal organization. Its , if it bas any, are not known; its badge is not worn in public; and its membership is still, in most cases, matter of conjecture.