Life — March 16, 1899 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

“ While there is Life there's Hope.” VOL. XXXII MARCH 16, 1899, No. 890. 19 Wesr Tanery-F New Yore. Published ov reday. 3.W0 a year in ad- yance. "Postage to foreign countries in the Postal ion, $1.04 a year extra, Single current, coples, cents. Back numbers, after three months from 0.of publication, 25 cents. No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed encelope. The ittustrations in Lave are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced without special arrangement with the publishers, Prompt notification should be sent by sub- scribers of any change of address. R.Croker ought to start an even- ing school of deport- = ment on 2 counec tion with his club on Fifth Avenue and gompel his Mayor to \\ be # regular attend- | \. ant at its sessions. 4 Van Wyck would be materially more useful to the organiza- tion if he bud decent manners. His treat- ment of Mr. Davies at the hearing in the Elevated Railroad matter was so intem- perate as to excite unnecessary sympathy both for Mr. Davies himself and for the corporation he represented. The Ele- vated is not being adroitly dealt with The scheme of discipline which Croker and bis merry men are operating is too bold and noisy to produce the best re- sults. Such methods would never Lave commended themselves to Mr. Platt. To hold a wayfarer up in broad daylight and put the thumbscrews on him in the public highway, where every passer-by can see him squirm and hear him yell, is barbarous, and unworthy of the dezree of civilization to which we are proud to think we have attained. When Mr. Croker took hold of the Elevated it bad no friends except those it had hired. By his crude methods he is making friends for it so fast, that by the time this issue of Lire gets out it promises to be re- garded asa bulwark of the people against oppression, There never was sucha kick- ing upstairs of such a greedy corporation. *LIPE- It is a doubtful policy of Croker to attack corporations, anyway, They are his mainstays, and bis business with them is to give them bran mashes and milk them frequently. He should not take sides in his dealings with them, No doubt the Metropolitan is nearer his heart than the Elevated, but it is mighty dangerous for him to give such conviue ing public evidence of it. If be cuts the ground out from under the Elevated, what will it drop on? What, indeed, but his own Metropolitan. There is enough of us to go round if only we can be properly parcelled out. Mr. Sage and Mr. Gould must be allowed some stand- ing at the public trough. With Mr. Sage, his presence there is t.e habit of a lifetime; with Mr, Gould it is an heredi- tary instinct. If Mr. Whitney must have his forefeet in the trough, well and good; but not his hindfeet, too. S EALOUSY is an awful thing. See J the Metropolitan and the Third Avenue roads, which have no dealings with the green monster, but dwell together harmoniously and let the oint- ment run down on their beards! Observe the sweet unanimity with which they carve up Amsterdam Avenue and ar- range their lucrative death-traps on that school margined thoroughfare! There is no jealousy there! None! Nothing but addition, division, and contempt for public opinion and public rights. That is the way todo it. But this feud of the allied interests of Croker and Whitney with the Elevated—oh, my! Honest men may yet come to their own if such things are permitted to happen. It isa grand row, though, and Heaven send that there may be such an infusion of temper into it that it may be fought through to a finish. A V HAT a greedy world it is, and what desperate eagerness we see in all quarters to be out early enough or up late enough to get the worm. The struggle between the Haves and the Have-nots is always going on, A thin file of Have-nots is ever climbing up into the level of the Haves, and a counter stream of Haves is trickling down into the great Have not ocean, There are seers who declare that neither of these streams is full enough or swift enough nowadays to do the work it should do; that the Haves are getting too strong, and what with trusts, and unbounded capital and money to buy legislation, they are getting too permanent. They wag their heads, these seers, and predict a day when the Haves and their holdings will become so great an offense to the hungry and despondent Have-nots tbat there will be a great upheaval, and the Have-nots will strip the skins off from the Haves and divide up their goods, Perhaps so. It is an odd time in the universe when there is not an evil day drawing nigh for somebody. But sofaras we learn anything from history, we leara that there must always be Haves in the world, and that the permanency of any particular lot of them is apt to continue as long, aye, a good deal longer, than it deserves to. °T HE Haves arcin the place of leaders, If they get too lazy to lead, or too feeble to lead, or too infernally greedy to spare time to lead, then they had better look out for squalls, If the lazy rich men in this country put in their time in having fun, and the able rich men con- centrate their vigor on getting richer, and if the money of rich corporations con- tinues to be poured out, not in fighting iniqui but io purchasing privileges from bosses and buying protection from demagogues. then we may conclude, with a good deal of confidénce, that there isa hot time on the way for the Haves, and though it may be unduly long coming, it is pretty sure to arrive. The Have- nots have a right to demand government so far in their interest that it shall pro- tect and preserve their franchises and other property, minimize their burden of taxation, give them the full worth of what taxes they pay and preserve, as far as may be, equality of opportunity among men, Ifthe Haves can produce leaders who care more for these public wants than they do for heaping up unnecessary millions they would better trot them out, If they don’t the Have-nots will, and when such leaders come they will havea following.