Life — July 14, 1904 — 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.” JULY 14, 1904, No. 1185, -Fiest Street, New Yorx. lished every Thursday. $5.00 a year in nd: ance. Poniage to toreigs ‘countries is the Portal “LIFE: voters. If the call comes to him it will be highly interesting to see him do it. No one ventures to disparage him. He is thoroughly respected in so far as he is known. vance. Union, $1.01 a year extra Slagle current copies, |__ 10 centa Back numbers. after three months from date of publication, 2 cents, No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in LAFF, are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced. Prompt notification should be sent by sub- scribers of any change of address. the time this number of Lire comes out our Democratic friends will have finished their labors at St. Louis. To com- ment in advance on what may not happen is an exercise that is valuable only for its hazards, and therefore is fit to be avoided, But whatever the Democrats may do—and we believe they will do well—itisa pleasure, speaking with the convention still in prospect, to notice how strongly the current of public confidence and esteem has set towards Mr. Cleveland. ‘That he, at this writing, and in spite of a desire that is obviously sincere to keep out of office for the rest of his-days, should still be wanted so heartily by so many of his fellow Democrats is the sign of an encouraging condition of public sentiment, For to want Mr. Cleveland for President is to want a good man. Judge Parker has been put forward as the antithesis of Colonel Roosevelt ; a man without rash impulses or. indiscre- tions of any sort, respectful of legalities, calm, restrained, constitutional. In- deed, his tranquillity of temperament has been so much dwelt upon, that if he is nominated his first need will be to take his coat off, roll up his sleeves, and demonstrate that he is a real man and not a wax figure. His friends say he can do it; that he has first-rate works inside of him, and can go on the stump and make friends with the UT Mr. Cleveland, while different in ever so many particulars from the Rough Rider candidate, is not his antithesis. While, so far as we know, he never got upon a horse, and is physically inapt for cowboy exer- cises, in spirit he is something of a Rough Rider himself. He, like Roose- velt, is ready to take counsel of his own convictions, and act, and abide the issue, There never was any timidity in Grover Cleveland that anyone knows of. As President, once satisfied as to the course he should take, he took that course and shouldered easily all the responsibilities that belonged to it. He is an obstinate man, a resolute patriot, readier to serve his country than to serve either his party or his friends. ‘There are lots of reasons, such as they are, why he should not be the Demo- cratic nominee this year, but it is a wel- come sign of political regeneration that so many Democrats want him. What the Democratic party stands for this year is much debated, but what Mr. Cleveland stands for has never been hard to find out, and whenever he and the Democratic party are seen to stand together again it will make for reassur- ance in observers, whether he is the party's candidate or not. O E of the remarkable phenomena of American life is the June pro- vision of Commencement oratory. So far as we know, there is nothing like it in volume and variety anywhere else in the world, All over the land there are colleges and universities whose exer- cises culminate in June, and each of them tries to have at least one nota- ble discourse from some one who is j discuss education. worth listening to. The result is such a prodigious diffusion of oratory as leaves no timely subject unexpounded. Baccalaureate preachers review the morals of the day; Phi Beta Kappa orators discuss everything; statesmen talk politics and statecraft ; educators There are a great many good addresses. All of them are reported in some newspaper, and some of them are reported and discussed in all the papers, so that the newspaper reader who improves his opportunities emerges from June distended with the fruits of wisdom, and sometimes with a pain consequent on hisefforts to assimi- late conflicting fruits. Along with the mass of the Commencement addresses, we have had this year the speeches at the political conventions. We havea great deal to think over this summer and none too much time to do it, for the political spellbinders will resume in September the great work of instruc- tion that the June orators have now laid down. The great business of Presidential years is education, and in this particular Presidential year the educational opportunities are enlarged by the existence of the biggest of all big fairs at St. Louis. If we improve our chances as we should — read the papers, hear the orators, see the Fair— Election Day will find us loaded with well-digested information on all sub- jects, and ready for the polls. ryt Me pyre PONY 0 bye X StS pee a dh is hard to break the Yale and Har- vard people from going to the Yale- Harvard boat race. The Yale people go to sce their crews win, and the Har- vard folk to make sure once more that their young men have not yet regained the trick of rowing. It seems odd that they can't learn They can play baseball. To teach eight strong men to row together with scientific efficiency seems superlatively difficult. But, after all, the best thing on exhibition at college races is not the races, but the girls. No matter how a race comes out, one side grieves, but the girls make for joy to all beholders, and no postponing regatta committee—nor even rain and mud— can spoil their charm.