Life — September 11, 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. Xt. SEPT. 11, 1902. No. 1037. 19 West Tuiery-Finst St., New York. Pablished every Taursday. $300 a year tn ad. vance. Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $10 a year extra single current copies, cents. Back numbers, after three months from date of publication, 25 cents. No contribution will be returned untess accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in Live are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced. Prompt notification should be sent by sub- scribers of any change of address % ‘THE doctors disa- gree about the coal strike. Winter is creeping towards us and—since the Sunday papers make indifferent fuel— everyone wants coal mining to go on and the price of anthracite to diminish, But while the press, as a rule, has been clamoring for arbitra- tion, so hard-headed a man as Mr, Morgan declines to meddle, so wise veteran as Mr, Hewitt declares that the operators are right and ought not to arbitrate, and a good many careful and dispassionate newspaper corre- spondents are constrained by knowl- edge acquired in years past, and by cur- rent observation to the same opinion. Railroad President Baer hurt his side of the case by an unwisely phrased letter, but that has little bearing on the merits of the situation. The real question at issue seems to be whether the Miners’ Union under Mitchell, or the operators, shall control the hard coal business. Mitchell is more solicitous for combi- nation than for arbitration, He broke up the agreement of the Markles with their miners which provided for the arbitration of all disputed points and which worked well until the men were induced or constrained by Mitchell to break away from it, Mitchell's pur- *LIF'E,* pose has been to make it impossible for any man to mine hard coal without joining the Miners’ Union. He has succeeded for the time being, for at this writing no coal worth mentioning has been taken out for months. But there are plenty of men who want to mine coal and would mine it if they dared. That is one of the weak points of Mitchell’s side. His Union has ter- rorized the whole anthracite district, and no man who lives there and has a family dares to go to work until the Union consents. But the operators’ position is by no means ideal, They seem to pay fair wages. They say they own their mines and propose to manage them. They ought to manage them, provided they do it decently. But after all, their property in the mines has limita- tions. It is effectual only so long as society will protect them in it, and society will not. protect them indefi- nitely in the ownership of idle mines. If there was asudden war scare and the Government wanted hard coal for war purposes, the coal would come with a rush, So it will come presently with- out any war scare. Our demand in time would become as urgent as the demand of the Government would be in case of war, and somehow we would get the coal, HE President has been having fun again. He is one of the most in- corrigible diversion-hunters living. He has been on a little pleasure trip through New England, and at several points he stopped and talked with the neighbors. At some places the neigh- bors turned out in considerable force— five, ten, twenty or forty thousand of them—and at the larger places he made visits of several hours and some- times stopped over night, and made long speeches. On the average he talked about forty thousand words a day and saw from one to two hundred thousand people. All the bands down East played to him, and cannon were fired when he was not speaking. Al- together he had a very restful and refreshing time, and came back to business in Oyster Bay very much in- vigorated by the change of air and scene and the enjoyment of a short interval of leisure. These little rests do the President a great deal of good. His mind gets overcharged with views, and talking forty thousand words a day for a week or two relieves it. He talked very well on his New England trip,on morals, on politics, on the drawbacks of wealth, on the whole duty of man, on trusts, war-ships, the Philippines, and anything else that came along. Some of the New Eng- land newspapers printed all his re- marks every day. It isa pretty hard test of oratory to talk all day to twenty different crowds and have all twenty speeches printed next morning. When that is done repetitions show. The President stands such a test wonder- fully well. Practice in speechmaking is perfecting his powers, Thecurrent of his ideas keeps well up to the pace of his language. A MONG reputable and competent _ men there is a-notable disincli- nation to run for Governor of New York on the Democratic ticket. Judge Parker, Colonel Lamont, Mr. John McCall, and others have been invited, and have asked urgently to be excused. The Scriptural way when the invited guests hang back is to rake the high- ways and the fences, but before Devery is summoned an effort should be made to bring out Mr. Shepard. He might not be elected, but at least he would give us some good talk. . Bk ~ aa V J. AKEISLAND is ours. That is a great comfort. It is some- where in the Pacific, and Japan has been looking at it with a covetous ex- pression. Now that onr title to it is proved to our satisfaction, let us fetch it home. Leaving too many islands out at night is one of the things that gets countries into trouble, comicbooks.com