Life — June 21, 1900 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

Nocturno. (Suburban.) IN in the air, and sadness in my r, love, when we two must Jeeps, and everything is still , plaintive ery of whip-poor- Love, in despair I view the cheerless glome- The last street-car has gone—I must walk A, BE, Peters, The American Pantheon. home, HALL OF FAME is to be erected in New York into which all the great ones of America are to be gath- ered before they are forgotten. “Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, who believe that the promises of to-day will be fulfilled to-morrow,” should now go up against the Committee on Fame, if ye desire to go prancing down the avenues of the ages with a tag on your bosom. Fame, while not to be had for the mere asking, can doubtless be secured by judicious log-rolling ; and if you have any friends among the intellectual giants on the committee, your name and portrait may adorm the walls of the edifice in Riverside Park to pique the curiosity of unborn generations of rural visitors. . . . HE Hall of Fame is a great idea; if the architects’ plans are illiberal, however, there is apt to be some congestion on the walls if all the mez called great are to be used as mural decora- tions. America has long been waiting for this scheme, and the lack of such an edifice has caused some very great men to be forgotten in the rush of other and more contemporaneous great ones. The Hall marks an epoch in the march of American freedom. Hitherto »LIPE« the perpetuation of American greatness has been a grinding monopoly; and those seeking the privilege of making echoes in the corridors of Time have been at the mercy of modellers in wax, and the imperious proprietors of the Eden Musée. The hour of freedom has come at last ; America rejoices ; and the only fly in our butter is an anxiety concern- ing the names and notions of the com- mittee. This is a burning question. What standard of greatness will be set to which candidates for fame must line up? Will fame and greatness be graded into classes? Will civil service rules be applicable? Will the incuba- tion of an epic get more marks than the invention of a great tooth wash, or the discovery of an eminent blood purifier? Will Shafter and Jim Jeffries be differ- entiated? Will eloquence be judged by the endurance of the orator or the audience? Must a man be dead to get on the wall? Or can he be strung up while still alive? Will a president be weighed by a hay scales, or a political machine? Will the box-office or the audience be the test in drama and literature? Will the literary argosy be judged by its sales? . HESE ques- tions should be answered, for how is the average American to know positively that he is great until he learns the conditions of the game and can go into train- ing? Unless the Hall of Fame is on the level no self-respecting great man can be expected to blow himself off on a hand-painted picture of himself if he is going to be Dlackballed by the com- mittee, : The committee should bo firm, and they should understand that they will get themselves disliked if they allow their judgment to be warped by fame-voting con- tests in the yellow press. They should hold themselves aloof from gold-headed canes, railroad, theatre and circus passes, Chicago press agents, and all those forms of criminal suggestion now so com- mon in the community. Fame must not become oroide,or ten carat ; if it is tocommend itself to America, the Hall mark must be genuine. Joseph Smith. No Help for It. RS. HATTERSON: What! You AVL have breakfast at half - past seven? Isn't that very early? Mus. Carrersoy: Yes. But it is necessary now since my husband has given up business to play golf. DITOR LIFE: Why does not Lire back up Its very creditable opposition to imperialism by at least according fair play to the only man through whom, as at present appears, the bloody and un-American policy of the McKinley Admin- istration can be reversed, and the one who, more than any other, has aroused and crystallized public sentiment against {t—Wililam Jennings Br; Lire ts opposed to sixteen to one, I know. So am, Bat when the fundamental principles of the nation are at stake, what matter the relative advantages of dear and cheap money? 1 shalt vote for Bryan and against the empire, even If he shall advocate the free colnage of tin at two to one, and 1 hope Live will do ikewlse. ANTI. HEN lovely woman stoops to folly, man generally rises to consciousness of it. TWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILL.