Life — June 16, 1904 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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VOL. XLt 0 a year in 9d. yal nin the Postal Union, $1.00 year extra uurrent copies 10 ceote. | Rack nurmber after three mouths trom date ot publication. 29 cents No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped aud addressed envelope. The illustrations im Live. are copyrighted and are not to be reproduced. Prompt notification should be sent by sub- seribers of any change of address : a luncheon given in BR, London to ex-Mayor Seth i Low by the Pilgrims Club, that judicious Briton, Mr James Bryce, M. P., in proposing the health of President Roosevelt, named him as the greatest man who bad occupied the chair Presidential since A me = Washington. Sothe papers reported, and at this writing Mr. Bryce has not denied it. It is an inter- esting opinion. Coming from Jacob Riis. it would not ha moved us, for Mr, Riis is an indulger toothless admirer of Colonel Roosevelt. But Mr. Bryce has regularly set up to be a student and somewhat nd critic of American statesmen, and if he says Mr. Roosevelt is our greatest’ President must think he has thinking so, save one, be real reasons for Perbaps if be bad spoken before luncheon instead of afterwards, be would have hesitated to compare our living President with one so great and Comparisons of that sort are fit to daunt even the rash. We bave meditated for a hundred years on Washington, and we begin to think we know him, but Roosevelt no one tully knows as yet ; not Jacob Riis, nor M Bryce, nor the President himself shocking to that a American is greater than Lincoln, and se long dead. It is suggest living disturbing to many of us to place a contemporary higher than General Jackson or Jefferson, but that is only because such comparisons pinch us in our established prejudices. It may be true that Mr, Roosevelt's greatness -LIFE-« strains the joinership of the Presi- dential chair more than it has been strained for a hundred and eight years, but no one can safely say as yet that it #s true. The perspective must have time to form on the picture of ‘Theo- dore Roosevelt before comparisons can be made with any safety. T if Mr. Bryce’s estimate of our young President reflects in any considerable measure the feeling about him in London, what a time Colonel Roosevelt will have when he has leisure to travel abroad! A good thing his habits are abstemious! Whether or not he is a first-class great man, itis noticeable that he is almost incorrigibly addicted to actions that a man might do He is bold. He takes sibility easily. and as though he enjoyed it. No doubt at He reminds German William, mitted most efficient rulers Germany has ever had. He and our President are both men of extreme mental activity, Great £ them— it he were great. respo he does enjoy many observers of and it is widely ad- now that William is one of the men are of that class. Some Mahomet, € Napoleon, for example—have been credited with epi- leptic tendencies, by which, at times, the action of their minds was still further stimulated. Alienists tell us that Joan of Arc belongs in this same group. Other great men, like the younger Pitt and our own Webster, have stimulated a app: centrating its action into fewer years of life, You can’t be a great man unless you can keep your mind working to pretty good purpose all the time, and to very notable purpose in emergencies. Colonel Roosevelt's mind seems never to need rest, and he has the advantage ar and prodigious mental atus with alcobol, thereby con- of some of the great ones we have mentioned in that he does not need to resort cither to visions or to alcohol for his special inspirations, but finds sup- port for his eager intellectuals in a strong body disciplined by exercise. History may speak as handsomely of him as Mr. James Bryce does. Contem- porary opinion concedes that already at forty-five he is one of the most notable persons at present on earth, a eS I" is a daring undertaking for the Post Office Department to attempt to expurgate the advertising columns of the newspapers, but it has given out that it will make the effort. It pro- poses to pay more attention than ber tofore to the advertisements in all the periodicals, and especially to those that have to do with cure. When it finds one that is indecent or more flagrantly deceptive than the statute permits, the aper or periodical printing it is to be warned that it is violating the law, and unless it drops the objectionable advertisement it will be excluded from the hospitality of the mails. Thereare a good many patent remedies that are no worse than can reasonably be expected, and these will, doubtless, continue to enjoy the patronage of consumers, but the abatement of a larg: body of the advertising swindlers, medical and otherwise, is very much to be desired. They ought to be reached and pulled We hope they will be handled with the discretion which is so very necessary to the success of any effort to restrict them. forms of liberty are so dear to large groups of Americans as the liberty to fleece and swindle their confiding brethren. The Post Office will have to fight, but it deserves support Few ORT ARTHUR isa very hard rut to crack, but the Japanese bent on cracking it, and it looks now as if they would succeed. Whi Russian Government, anyway ? are tis the Is it acorrupt and crushing despotism that retards Russian civilization, or is it the best form of organized government that the Russians are fit as yet to maintain? Whichever it is, the Japs evidently feel, and feel intensely, that it is not good enough for Eastern Asia. comicbooks.com