Life — July 12, 1906 — 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 VOL. XLVI JULY 12, 1906 17 West Tinery-Frest Srarer. there's Hope.” No. 1237. New Yor SOPLE like to talk upon subjects which they under- stand, and as there are not many subjects of discussion which very many people do understand, when such a subject does come up and is of a =) consuming interest, the )“ volume of discourse which 4 ensues is cnormous. Pret- ty nearly every come to mature years has felt competent to discuss the killing of Stanford White by Harry Thaw and Not for years has a bomb burst with such reverberation in the world of, morals and of gossip. The shock was so stunning, the subject-mat- mple, that no tongue has been restrained from wagging for ls of thoughts to divulge or opinions to pro- Every country newspaper pub lisher knows that scarcely anything will scll so many papers as an interesting mur- der near home. Here was a murder of interest, involving two men whom newspaper readers everywhere have learned to know. Hence more talk that anybody has heard upon a single one who has has done so. ter so pound surpassir topic for a very long time We guess everything has been said that has been necessary up to this time, and we have no mind to add much to the sum total of discourse. Stanford White was in various particulars a useful man who was of value to the public. In other par- ticulars he seems to have been by no means useful, but decidedly the contrary If Harry Thaw performed a useful se vice in killing Stanford White it was the first one he ever did so far as is popularly known. That he had himself suffere from White any injury that s cient to excuse his crime in the eyes of a jury has not been disclosed up to the time of this writing, but there will be a story told to a jury, and of course, nobody knows how it will strike them “LIFE # me admirable people were friends of Stanford White and loved the good side of him. Some decent people are relatives of Thaw and care for him ‘These are the mourners in this case and the people towhom we owe oursympathy 1% Ee NIN, Pee er adh NOU! y, 4 thst Sh NEWSPAPER paragrapher lately A divided the current American plu- tocracy into millionaires, multimillion- aires and Pittsburg millionaires. To the latter class Harry Thaw’s astounding action will draw renewed attention, As a group, the Pittsburg millionaires offer unrivaled illustrations of the damage that can be done to character and de- portment by a rapid imposition of large masses of money upon persons not gradu- ally inured to the temptations of wealth. The average of morals among our very rich people is not exceptionally high at best. Long practice in Luring money has not enabled all members of our older rich families to keep out of the divorce courts or to conduct themselves with that decent discretion and restraint which is indispensable to domestic peace But no group of rich Americans of this generation are exhibiting quite so con- spicuousan incapacity to reconcile money with domestic morals as the remarkable band that has emerged within the last de from Pittsburg. There are decent folk in that group, of course; probably a majority of them are decent; but there is among them so considerable a number that have let their money swamp and submerge their morals that the group as a group has come to be regarded with derision. It is not so much that they are so bad as that they are so untrammeled; so prone to make the mistake of thinking that they can do what they will and live as they will and with whom they will so jong as they have money to pay for it. That is a very serious mistake. Take such conventions of our society as that a man shall not have more than one wife nor change wives without duc reason and notice, it seems perfectly easy for a rich man to break them, and it is ea: But it is mighty hard to avoid paying the penalty which society imposes. Even on account of mundane considerations alone it is a serious disability to be disreputable. No thoroughly disreputa- ble rich person can hope to have his money’s worth of fun. As soon as he has tried all the disreputable kinds of fun, and found them rather nasty, and had the grace, maybe, to get tired of them, he will want to have fun reputably. ‘Then he will find himself up a tree, because the reputable people won’t want to play with him nor let him into their game. Really, it is true, even if all the higher motives are ignored, that a decent consideration for the opinions of mankind is necessary to ordinary happiness. ' IS comforting to reflect that the vaca- tion season has come for Congress and the President. Between them they have accomplished very considerable labors during the last six months, and there have been signs that they both need rest. Especially is there reassurance in the thought that the President is back at Oyster Bay, chopping trees, swimming in the adjacent brine, riding horses and walking and doing not more than two or three men’s work a day with his head. The President is a handy man, but the strains of the last six months in Washing- ton have been exceptionally severe. A man may like a fight and still find that six months of scrapping leaves him worn Pretty constant scrapping has the Presi- dent had since last New Year's, but he has scrapped to considerable purpose. To all the important legislation that Congress has achieved in the session just over he has contributed, and much ef it would not have been accomplished with- out his interposition. Congress passed a railway rate law, a meat inspection law, a lock canal Dill, a Statehood Dill, a pure food bill and divers other bills, and spent eight hundred and twenty In all this work the It is time million dollars, President shared vehemently that he rested. And many members of Congress will be glad to rest, too, and to get out of Washington. Congress has had to work hard to keep up with the President and modify his zeal. It has succeeded pretty well ih both particulars and has added about as much to its reputation as he has to his,