Life — May 29, 1902 — 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. XXXIX. MAY 29, 1902. 19 Waar Tarkty-Finst $1 Fobliahed every ‘Thurs . $5.00 a year in ad. ance. lostage to foreign countries io the Postal u oion, $1.04 a year extra. Single current copies, Weents. Back numbers, after three months from date of publication, % cents. contribution will “be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in LI¥E are copyrighted, and are not {0 be reproduced without special arrangement with the publishers, Prompt notification should be sent by sub- soribers of any change of address. 4 Sun praises the Mi nois Republicans for condemning ‘ the malignant attacks now being made upon our soldiers and sailors.” “The country,’’ says our contemporary, “will back up the army ery time. Its gorge rises at + the performances of the little company of epileptic mountebanks in Washing- ton.” Our army is a very deserving body. It is popular with the country, and ought to be. There are some abusive citizens in the Senate, like Dubois whom the Sux mentions, who seem to hate it, and like to say foul and abusive things about it. But they can’t do it much harm. The country will back the army as against them. What is really hurting the army and putting its friends on the defen- sive are the atrocity stories from the Philippines. There are many of them; they are well attested, and read in cold blood they are very revolting. Where cruelties are done by soldiers under the direction of officers the reputation of the army suffers, It can’t help it. What is more, the reputation of the whole people suffers, and that is more nearly just, for by rights the army not so much responsible for what goes on in the Philippines as the American people, who sent the army there and set it to work. It is an injustice to think of the army as a free agent in the Philippines. It is not there from LIFE choice, but because it is ordered there. It is nothing more than a tool, to be used or laid aside, aceording as its work is profitable or otherwise. If we are disgraced, it is not the army that has disgraced us but the job. Where the army has done wrong—as it has, in many individual cases—it has been demoralized by the job. If we pat the bulk of the blame for disgrace- fal occurrences in the Philippines on the army, we do an injustice, shirk re- sponsibility and lose our lesson. It is not the army but our whole Philippine policy that ison trial. We have got to back up the army as long as it does our bidding, and we must make the best of the defects in its performance. But what our bidding shall be is a different matter. No duty of support that we owe the army precludes us from modifying our policy in the Philippines at any moment that we determine that it is defective and can THE Cuban flag waves over Morro Castle. The American flag has come down, the Cuban flag has gone up, to the honor of both flags and the people who love them. Gentlemen who permit themselves to say that the American flag once raised must stay up, do not speak very wisely, and probably do not often mean all that their words imply. Some time our flag may be raised again in Cuba. So be it, if when that time comes the flag shall mean to the Cubans what it means to us. jt is an interesting story that has come out that Mr. Andrew Car- negie was so earnestly opposed to the subjugation of the Philippines that when the Spanish treaty was pending he asked President McKinley to send him to Manila as a commissioner to say that we meant well by the Philip- pines and would soon recognize their independence. It is added that he offered, if his desire was granted, to pay, himself, the twenty million dol- lars that the treaty gave to Spain. No doubt the offer was impracticable, but, if really made, it is interesting as evi- dence of the depth of Mr. Carnegie’s convictions, and the earnestness of his desire to arrest what seemed to him a national calamity. There are very many sensible men in the country who now consider that our course in the Philippines has been calamitous. The real question is not whether it is bad, but how and when it can be changed without making it worse. MBE: NIXON is no longer boss of Tammany. He has abdicated. Croker put him in. He put himself out, chiefly, it would seem, because he discovered that after all he was only a sub-boss, and Croker was still Tam- many’s real leader. The termination of this connection is to Mr. Nixon’s credit and doubtless very much to his advantage. He is an able man and one of the best ship de- signers in the world. Why he should neglect an honorable profession in which he is very eminent for a post of doubtful dignity and questionable emoluments has never been clear. An ambition, not unworthy, doubtless led him to take a place for which neither his qualities nor his training seem to be suited. To be a successful pirate king it is necessary that one should be a real pirate, and feared by all the other pirates. Mr. Nixon is not very much of a pirate, and the other pirates were not very much afraid of him, THE Sunday after the Ford tragedy Dr. Hillis, of Brooklyn, prayed that young men might be saved from an undue interest in athletic exercises, and might cultivate instead an interest in books and pictures and a life of lit- erary pleasure. The general sentiment seems to be that Dr. Hillis did not im- prove the occasion, which called for prayer, not so much in restriction of athletic enthusiasm, as. in behalf of parents, that they may love their chil- dren and deal with them with sanity and justice. comicbooks.com