Life — November 30, 1905 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

es “* While there is Life there's Hope.” VOL. XLVI. NOV. 39, 1905 No. 1205. 17 West Twiery-First Staget, New York ERE is the Puritan feast- day at the door again. Causes for thankful- ness this year abound and are unusually copi- ous and well distrib- uted. We have them of both kinds, ual and materi Crops ha been extraor dinarily good; business con- tinues to be exceptionally bri: Every- body is mal ing money who is entitled to make it, and some who are not. So we have plenty to be thank- ful for on the material side. On the spiritual side we have the elections a the general collapse of the bosses effect, the commenta al rousing of the and a raising of the sta We are undoubted! ting richer, which is an excellent thing in its wi If w at the s tate of things for which we can hardly be too thank- Moral regeneration is usually the of adversity and affliction. If we got ours at that cost we could still re- joice, and think it cheap at the price. That we should be able to record an apparent national growth in grace any falling of in national y Il the more reason tosing our hymns and eat our turkeys to the Lord with grateful hearts. ‘The Governors of the States used to issue the Thanksgiving proclamations. That function, for convenience sake, has been added to the duties of the President. President Roosevelt issued his proclamation this year five days before election, and was therefore un- abte to call attention to the very sub- dards “LIFE. stantial political mercies that have since come our way. He did wisely to be forehanded, for a proclamation issued after the election of Jerome would have had to include mention of that mercy, which, with the others that arrived in the same flight, comprise the best pecific reasons of solemn and humble thankfulness that we have. ASOTHER great and protracted mercy for which we ought to return hearty and humble thanks, is the insurance investigation. In a way it is a course of discipline, but however one considers it, it isa better experience than wedeserve, The election merci were closely allied with it, and there is good hope that before it is done, it will afford other ethical benefits of a sub- stantial sort. Its latest yield, as we write, is the testimony of Mr. Hyde about the transactions of Governor Odell with the Mercantile Trust Com- pany. Mr. Hyde deposed that the Trust Company paid Governor Odell $70,000 to settle a lawsuit, for fear that unless the suit settled, Governor Odell would cause his leg repeal the Trust Company A bill to that end had been introduced in the State paid. Governor Odell, xt friend, Mr. Harriman, took the stand after Mr. Hyde, and denied his allegations, but to very little avail. It s clearly established that the Gov- ernorof the State and Republican Boss controlling the State Legis was speculating in Wall Street, and it is impossible not to conclude from the facts admitted by all that his political powers and his pecuni- ary aspirations were mingled in a manner altogether scandalous. Squirm is he may, Mr. Odell is a dead duck in politics. That is not in itself a thing to be thankful for, for he is an able man who should have turned out better. What ts a great mercy is that a man who used such powers as he had attoined to such ends the witnesses, as he did, should be exposed, and turnea out of control of the Republican party in New York. Mr. David Hill, who, with all his defects as a boss, never tried to combine money-making with politics as Mr. Odell bas done, realized last year that his political bolt was shot, and re- tired, thereby setting an example which Mr. Odell cannot be too prompt to follow, SENATOR PLATT has offered to undertake the duties which Mr. Odell must lay down, but there is not the slightest prospect that a discredited boss will be succeeded by a ridiculous one. There are great and cheering possibilities ahead. Maybe the system is going to be changed, and we are going to be quit of bosses altogether, and revert to democratic representa- tive government, and to real conven- tions or none, and to nominations as well as elections by the people. / spirit altogether unusual seems to b astir ; pirit of revolt against the k: of dunghill despotism we have been used to. It is not an inconceivable thing that the State Legislatures may regulate their creatures, the corpora- creatures regulat- ing their maker Neither is it wholly le that Legislatures may be chosen in such States as New York that for the duties that, under the Constitution, should fall to them, If bosses are going out, Legislatures must be different; that is certain. Or else Governors of great States must be big- ger men than of late years they have tended to be. And Senators, too—if there is to be a revival of patriotic re- sponsibility, there must be some better method of choosing United States Sena- tors than the stor in last week's insurance testimony, by the terms of which Mr. Black stayed at home and Mr. Depew retained his job. The voters must have a voice in these matters somehow, If our State legisla- tors are to be boss-driven puppets, the Senators had better be chosen by popu- lar vote. comicbooks.com