Life — March 15, 1906 — page 16: 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 MARCH 15, 1906. 17 West Tauety-Fiest Street, > Yous OLONEL HENRY mC WATTERSON, that greatest living orna- ment of philosophic jour- nalism, agrees with Lire that Colonel Roosevelt cannot and will not run again for President, but dissents with a ” whole battery of powerful reasons, y find in the Senate a suitable post-presidential field of action. The proper job for him as an ex-President, Colonel Watterson thinks, is to be President of Harvard College. “Lift him gently,” he “from the Presidency of the United States to the Presidency of the Uni- Harvard. preach ethics and write books on the from the suggestion that he m: says versity of where he can art of living till the cows come home!” In this engaging labor of transplanta- tion, Colonel Watterson begs Lire to help, “lending its gifts of poetry and humor, whilst we [the Courier Journal] supply the needful wisdom and phi- losophy.” Of course. Lire help Colonel Henry transplant’ Colonel Theodore into congenial soil, but first—the inter will ment being necessarily delayed by the incorrigible preliminary activity of the expected remains Colonel Henry about the soil he recommends. Is hi soil? 1 word with fully on to the qualities of that Addressing Colonel Theodore, he says: Harvard is the niche for you, dear boy, the very niche. It will fit you li a glove. You love books and book. making. Go in and enjoy yourself! You love — sermonizing—preaching— particularly to. literary societies and college boys. Lord, was ever such a chance! The strenuous life! What is the matter with football? Each year as long as you live five thousand as- Piring youngsters to look upon you as the greatest man on carth—the world to see you, undiminished in intellectual vigor, undimmed in prestige and fame. as you slope gently but grandly down the hill into the valley where the this- tles blow “to talk to ‘LIFE: You don’t know those five thousand youngsters, Colonel Henry. So far from accepting Colonel Theodore (if he came to them) as the greatest man on earth (which he bly is—of his kind), they sleep and sharpen their discussing, re- would lose ulties discussing and disputing whether or not he was a gold brick. That is one of the things that would tend to make ve to Colonel Theodore much = rather the job attra A vig man would climb imo the scales and be weighed than be set on the shelf and admired. Besides, Colonel Henry, you ad- remarks to the There is no use of extolling to Colonel Theodore the advantages of the presidency of Harvard College as a job for an cx-President. Colonel Theodore, whatever his inclinations are, knows all about that. The folks re the President, Treasurer and five Fellows who compose the Har It lies with them to choose, some time or other, a suc- cessor to the most college president of his generation. Every man of them will feel about it as though he was picking out a husband for his only daughter. They never will choose Colonel Theodore, because he feathers in his hat. They will weigh him againstall the likeliest young men in Massachusetts, remembering all the time t educator prous dress your wrong cars d corporation eminent has what they are after is an If they offer him the job they will jostle the precedent which has worked to confide the headship of Harvard to New Englanders of Puri- tan descent But may be they will do it, Consid- erations of affection and admira combined with » large-minded respect for Colonel Theodore's qualifications as a tional force. may work that wonder. And, for or part, Colonel Henry, we rather hope they will poLPY th R, JACK LONDON says he has tried living on the parlor floor of society and docs not like it, In- tellectually, he was bored; morally substantial moral and educa- and spiritually, he was sickened. He has gone back, he says, to the working classes, where he belongs, and will not climb any more, but will content him- self with prodding with a crowbar at the foundations of society, in hope— with due help and in due 10 bring down the whole edifice “with its rotten life and unburied dead, its monstrous selfishness and sodden ma- terialism.” Then, his idea is to build a new habitation for mankind, in which there will be no parlor floor, but in which all the rooms will be bright and airy, and where the air that is breathed will be clean, noble and alive If you built that habitation you speak of. Mr, Jack, it would develop a parlor floor, certainly within ten years, prob- ably within six months. You can never keep any considerable number of human creatures on the same level for any considerable length of time. The nearest you can come to it is by abol- ishing property and destroying all the records of knowledge. The crowbar is the right preliminary tool for the work you propose. Fetch the edifice down; level everything. That would be a beginning. But the moment you begin to build up again, the great level of humanity will begin to show heads that rise above the mass, and if you strike down these heads you check the whole upward movement. You are bound to have a parlor floor, Mr. Jack, in any habitation you succeed in creating on this earth. Why then turn your back on the parlor floor that now exists? Why not spend part of your abounding energy in mak- ing it a more wholesome and helpful part of the human structure? Don’t your parlor manners set easy on you, Mr. Jack? Are change and freedom from all ties and all responsibilities dearer to you than everything else? The trouble about the parlor floors is that too many of the people who live on them are not worth their keep. Some of them are worth it, and put in their time making the rest of the habitation as habitable as possible, and keeping the stairs clear, but many are lazy, many selfish, many indifferent, and quite a lot are unconscionable hogs. They offer you a great mission- ary field, Mr. Jack. You should not abandon it comicbooks.com