Life — May 10, 1906 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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‘© While there is Life there's Hope. VOL. XLVI 17 West Trery-First Steret, New York. MAY 10, 1906. No 1228 OME dangerous things sometimes get thrashed out between Presidential elections, so that their power for mischief is abated before the time comes when serious mischief can be done, There are those who think our President is of such an impetuous nature that he will get our country ach headway towards radicalism, socialism, centralization of power and all the other political bow- wows that it will be impossible to elect a successor to him who will get the brakes. on in time to avoid a hard bump. It may look a little that way at times, but another view can be taken which is not only pleasanter to take but quite as plausible. If we have got a dangerous head of steam on, this is an admirable time to let itoff. A vast deal has been, and is being, let off. The President himself has let off a good deal. All the muck-rakers have had their safety valves open and have screeched so that folks have begun put ting their fingers in their ears. Every one under talks about prevailing uneasiness in the minds of men, and some prophets fore- cast direful and momentous events that are going to happen. The President frees his mind; so does everybody else who has the use of tongue or pen, and now we have got toa stage when speake writers and exhorters are freeing their minds about one another. ‘To our mind there is much that is reassuring about this condition, There is no suppression of impetuous thought It all comes out, rages, spoils paper and accomplishes something. Nothing is de- nied utterance. Surely this is a state that presages not so much tumult as tran- quillity. The people have now in the -LIFE- White House about as progressive a spirit as is compatible with the respon: bilities of the Presidential job. When it comes time for a change we guess the next choice will be, not a man of more impetuous temperament than Colonel Roosevelt, but one of a calmer deport ment, and occupied perhaps with a some- what less crowded procession of ideas. Atany rate, the President does us a good tum by freeing his mind at this safe time of any fearsome thoughts or purposes that other minds are harboring and that have got to be considered. LMOST an embarrassment of riches has been poured out in aid of bumed San Francisco and shaken California Our country has never known so de- structive a calamity nor such a burst of brotherly help. The great fund that ha: been raised for our brothers in distress rated at this writing at more than twenty millions. That is a good deal of money to be bestowed without stealings or seri- ous waste, and there are some fears that it is too much, The distribution of it, however, seems,to be in excellent hand The reconstructed Red Cross is in good working order, the Citizens’ Committee in San Francisco seems very competent id trustworthy, and these two bodies nd others which cooperate with them seem to be working together harmoni- ously and with a good spirit. Moreover, the number of people who will nced help for some time to come is very great. Twenty million dollars does not last long in maintaining an army, and there has been and will be a big army to be main- tained in Califomia. The flow of wages to workers has begun already, but it will take some time for the apparatus of self- help to be reconstructed and readjusted so that the homeless folks can take care T HAS seemed like heartless negligence in nature to shake so hard a section of the Pacific Coast that was doing well as it was and utterly omit attentions to the Panama Canal strip. We knew before that the San Francisco district was sub- ject to seismical colic, and did not need actual demonstration of it, but just how bad a fit the canal zone may sometime throw nobody knows, and it would be worth millions to us as canal builders to find out. At this writing the duty of deciding what sort of canal to build rests with the Senate, and Secretary Taftis ina hurry for a decision. Everybody knows now what sort ofa San Francisco to build. The steel buildings that survived the carthquake and the fire determined that. If the conscript fathers could only see a picture of the big locks and dams pre- scribed for the lock canal the moming after the worst quake the isthmus will ever have, it would help them enormously to make up their minds. But so far not a tremor has been reported from Pan- ama. All the help the Senators have had in the nature of a forcible reminder that if an able-bodied carthquake ever does get an underhold on a lock canal at Panama it will transform that structure into a sudden and formidable piece of news. But the shake may never come, for the zone has a fairly good reputation for terrestrial stability. If we were the Senate we would pass the canal problem back to Seeretary Taft and say: “You and Theodore can go ahead and build this ditch to suit yourselves. Nobody knows how it ought to be done, and your as likely to be right as any- HE House of Representatives having voted 224 to 7 in favor of free alco- hol, the bill has gone to the Senate, where it has been referred to the Finance Com- mittee, of which Mr, Aldrich is chairman. Mr. Aldrich is one of the most conserva- tive of our legislators and is the father-in- law of the Standard Oil Company, with the most important products of which cheap alcohol is expected to compete. The Washington correspondents report that the bill will slumber through the rest of the present term in Mr. Aldrich’s com- mittee, but Senator Lodge is a member of the same committce and he professes to be heartily in favor of free alcohol. As for the wood alcohol makers they should be let down as easy as possible, but free alcohol ought not to be denied us on their account. comicbooks.com