Life — June 29, 1905 — page 6: 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, XLV, JUNE 29, 1905, No, 1183, Vi West Tu Ty-First Streer, New Yorx. spjesoy [T 15 profitable to have % VFN ste. Choate at home again. He the blessed gift of humor, and has having had a fairly protract- ed experience ver the vice of taking things too d. Not that had it in We hope Mr. Choate will be a very conspic- uous figure in our affairs for some time ‘The attention of the American public has been drawn so continuously he ever an acute form. for months past to crime, malfeasance, tainted money, statute breaking, brib. ery of legislators by rich corporations, lack of se dministra great trusts, and the like, that confi- le in the « dence in the respectability of our re- spectable classes is a good deal upset, need urgently and w to have some perfectly virtuous figure lifted up amongst us, like the brazen serpe among the snake-bitten Israelites, restore health and reassurance whose vision it regales. Mr. has been out of the country, It is providential tha Choate dun. ng on here since the close of the nineteenth Like as nd practiced discretion, he could concerned in what has been ge century skill have continued to practice law in New York during the past six years many y dicted—a perienced lawyers have not been able to achieve—but it is dollars to but th chad stayed at home, he w , with his great ars before, without being feat which, thanks to Mr. considerable number of ex have been a diree of the Equi or the recipient of a lot of tainted re- tainers, or a guest at Mr Hyde's party, or would have been seen with Mr. Harriman or Mr. Rogers, or done ¢ suffered something to make the spec- “LIFE: tators class him with all therest. But being out of the way, he kept there, and now comes back unspotted, undis- paraged, undiscouraged, a little more ample corporeally than when he left, and in other respects just as good. And he means to stay good, too. He told his brethren of the Bar Associa- tion that just before his return he had been offered a chance to take part in what he was told was ‘tone of the greatest controversies ever contested on this earth in all time,” but he had declined. That was right: very right, indeed. There are plenty of lawyers, unindicted as yet, to con- duct unparalleled controversies, but immaculate figures of shining virtue are scarce and in active demand for us to gaze upon. We hope that Mr. Choate, fortuitously preserved from speckles, will give a due share of his oh, yes; mind to keeping himself nice, so that we can have at least one good promi- nent man to point to and fall back on, W* had Mr. Cleveland, but he has been induced to put his shoulder much cannot wheel that has scattered mud. It was his duty. We regret that he tackled it. Moreover, his announcement of the whic © so implies ¢ spirit in very earnest disposition to keep that par- ticr he has dor r wheel—so far as lies in him—in clean, dry paths. There seems to be no necessary reason not to expect the Equitable to go on now to the satis- faction of the reasonable part of the community. Mr. Ryan, who has con- fessed that he bought the soz Hyde shares himself with and a half ilion dol money, has been convicted by the HWorld of be- ing an octopus. No doubt he is an octopus, but no octopus that had_ his wits about him would choose Grover Cleveland for a sucker. two irs of his ow Say what one will about Mr. Ryan’s feats of acqu sition in connection with the Metro- politan Railway, the Consolidated Gas Company, the Tobacco Trust, the Sea- board Air Line, the Bank of Com- merce and the State Trust Company, it is not a compulsory deduction th: he has intervened in the Equitable tangle with predacious intent. On the contrary, is it not a reasonable hypoth- esis, that having added other things unto himself ina degree far more than suficient, he has now risked two mil- lions and a half on the chance of win- ning esteem by the timely performance of an exceedingly important and valua- ble public service? Mr. Ryan behaves as though that were his plan, It would be a good plan even if he lost the money. But we guess he won't lose it. William Allen White scoffs in a recent discourse at the vast multitude of con- temporary reformers whoare reforming everything in sight at the expense of some one else. Give Mr. Ryan credit at least—that having selected a reform to be his, he has put up the money to buy it have had so much doing at home, and the ship news from the Far East was for a time so distract- ing, that it may be that some readers of Lire forgot for the moment to keep one eye on German William, — It is never safe not to keep one eye on William. He is precisely the sort that waits until you are not looking, and then throws the inkstand, It that in a quiet way he has hatching troubles in Europe. seems been With characteristic unobtrusiveness he went to Africa to do it. Morocco is in Africa (on the corner, opposite Gibral- tar). Tangier is in Morocco. Next door is Algiers, which belongs to Morocco is disorderly. It greed between Italy, Great Brit- ‘ance and Spain that better order nust be kept in Morocco, and that nce, being on the ground, was the proper cop to keep it. given to the Sultan of ingly. Hies then health’s sake to rance, fotice wi Morocco accord- William) for his Tangier, and being there, suggests to the Sultan that no European agreement to which Germany is not a party need cause any African any particu. Sothen ultan of Morocco declines for the r concern, present to be supervised by and there are s in the French binet, and much grinding of French teeth, and Europe takes note that what German William is not consulted about and does not agree to, doesn’t go. rance, comicbooks.com