Life — March 15, 1900 — 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 Hop VOL. XXXV. MARCH 15, 1900, 19 West Tuixry-Finst St., New Yore. devery Thoredny, 8500 a year in nd ¢ to foreign countries in the Postal @ Year extra. Single current cop! Hack num bers, after three months fro Gnto of publication: Sseents. No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in Lrve are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced without special arrangement with the publishers, Prompt notification should be sent by sub- soribers of any change of address. IE Ohio Socicty in New York has held its annual dinner, considered the state of the country, and its progress under the guidance of con- temporary Ohio mn, and has reported that it is doing well. The Ohio men came in force to the dinner. The President and Sen- ator Hanna were there, and many men of re- nown from Cleveland, and other Ohioan centres, and from Washington, as well as from New York. The dinner was held on March 8d, Onthe eve of the last year of his administration the President conveyed in a public discourse sentiments which we may reasonably conclude will presently be incorporated in the platform udopted by the Republican convention which will renominate him for his present office. Observing that tl vclety had agreed not to call upon him for a speech, he spoke with care and precision. Rev ing briefly the incidents of his adminis- tration, the triumph of the gold standard, the open door for trade, the tranquillity of our foreign relations and the immense activity of American trade, he went on to enumerate the great moral and material benefits we derived from recent wars, The war with Spain he said, was unavoidable: the nation’s war. It had brought about ‘*a reunion of the people, around the holy altar consecrated to country newly sanctified by common There was talk of imperialism asa result of it, but there could be no imperialism. ‘Those who fear it are LIFE against it; those who have faith in the Republic are against it, so that, there is universal abhorrence for it and unani- mous opposition to it.” Where the dif. ference of opinion about our new responsibilities lay was that some folks had Jess confidence than others “in the capacity and good faith of this free people as a civilizing agency.” We will buckle to our job, the President said, “The liberators will never become op pressors. A self-governed people will never permit despotism in any govern- ment which they foster and defend.” ET us hope they won't, but if they should conclude on reflection and after due computations that a little timely despotism would do good in our outlying districts, the prospect is not so certain as we wish it was that the Major will put obstacles in their way, It is despotism in a small—a very small—way to build a mean little tariff around Porto Rico, The President knows it and disap- proves it, but @ majority of the liberators seem to want it, and it promises to be sct up. The gencral sentiments of the mass of the liberators are as creditable as the sentiments the President has ex- pressed, but many are inert, and the individuals who are interested in getting laws made and enforced, and offices distributed, are not only very active, but mighty selfish, The main chance is far more to them than high national duties or the vindication of the competence of a free people as a civilizing agency. The President's benevolence is not much questioned, but how effectual a bulwark is he going to prove against the im perialism which, he says, we all abhor and oppose? The opposition to the name of it is, in truth, pretty general. The opposition to the essence of it is by no means so universal as he says. The eagerness, lately seen, to legislate for Porto Rico in the interest of certain citi- zens of the United States was an eagerness for the essence of imperialism. Who can doubt that when there are laws to be passed for the regulation of the Philippines the same greedy spirit will show itself, and extreme pressure will be brought to administer those islands in the interest of their owncrs rather than of their inhabitants, That is imperialism. May we trust the Major to stand up against it? Can we trust him to stand firmly against anything his party mana- gers determine to be expedient? That is what the Democratic speakers and editors will ask next fall—not whether Mr. McKinley's intentions are virtuous, but whether they are stable. HIE eloquent Colonel Jim Hoyt, of Cleveland, followed the President in discourse at the Ohio dinner, He isa fine speaker. He said we had had a triumvirate of great Amcricans, Washing. ton, Lincoln and Grant, Father, Savior and Defender of the Republic, and that we needed to square it out with Mc- Kinley, the Pathfinder. He gloried in the President's imperishable language to Admiral Dewey: ‘‘ Admiral, there has been no flaw in your victory. There shall be no flaw in maintaining it.” It is pretty generally felt that there have been lamentable flaws in maintaining it, and untoward delays and sad expense, though there has been no doubt of an intention to hang on. But if, ia spite of all minor discrepancies, Colonel Hoyt is right, and the President is to be the great American Pathfinder, let him, with solicitude and even with obstinacy, find his own path and stick to it, and decline to be ecduced into convenient Janes and by-paths, opened for him by enthusiastic gentlemen from Ohio and elsewhere, and which may lead not at all where he aspires to go, but towards the very im- perialism which he denounces. HO looted the Third Avenue Rail- road? A number of hands have been in it, including those of Tammany heelers, contractors and bankers. We want to know the full particulars. Of value that wasn’t stolen but has disap- peared, part was imaginary, and the rest seems to have slipped through the fingers of the owners while they were transfer- ring it from one pocket to the other. The story is a tragedy of incompetence. comicbooks.com