Life — January 17, 1907 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

familiarly known as Bill, is the burden-bearer of the Administra- tion, the sin-eater of the President and the Brooding Buddha on top of all the lids on all the political vol- canoes within our juris- diction. He has brains, patience, tac and tissue; he has the gift of tongues and the genius which is a compound of common sense and humor; he has placated Panama, pacified the Philip- pines and calmed Cuba; and he has a bee in his bonnet. A bee has a honey sack and a sting ;"but the bee which would steer a bonnet and a statesman into the White House must distribute sweetness lavishly and stings stingily; and if Bill could only control the buzzings, gyrations and stings of the bronco bee now bossing the hive he might land 347 pounds of Taft in 1908. Declining to be marooned in the Supreme Court, Bill entered the War Department and went to sit on the Cuban lid. While his back was turned the colored troops fought nobly in Browns- ville and the Boss fired the coons heard round the world ever since. Had the Storm Center consulted Bill instead of his parlor Napoleons, peace might still be reigning and Taft be on velvet. As it is Moody has the Supreme Court, Foraker has a mortgage on the wood-pile and the colored person therein, Theodore has a case of temper, and Our Bill has an option on the lemon crop. Sic transit gloria mundi; also the bee, the bonnet and Bill. Ultra Vires Of course, everybody knows President spoke in a personal capacity, only.—Public Print Na President of the United ys to speak in a personal capacity, he runs a very considerable risk of being misunderstood. There are a few offices of such dimen- sions that even the greatest of men can- not fill them and have much of any per- sonal capacity left over. William cannot open his head bui the voice of the Kaiser is heard. If Pius speaks Rome speaks, and the chair of Peter. And the Presi- dent who has nothing to say as Presi- dent, is safest to keep still. Dead, Whether or No IDER HAG- GARD, the au- thor of “She,” is telling a good story apropos of that novel. Not long ago, he heard that a ballet, based on his romance, was to be produced at Budapest, and he wrote, asking for pro- grammes and photographs. He received a letter in reply from the manager, saying that he had believed that the illustrious author was dead, as obituaries had ap- peared in the Hungarian newspapers. Mr. Haggard wrote again, and asked that the report of his death might be con- tradicted, but the manager replied that the editors refused to publish the contra- diction, as they believed it to be a mere dodge to advertise the ballet. Possibly . Barnum was at the head “great moral show” it was his rule to send complimentary tickets to clergymen, and the custom is con- tinued to this day. Not long ago, after Rev. Dr. Walker succeeded to the pas- torate of the Rev. Dr. Hawks in Hart- ford, there came to the parsonage, ad- dressed to Dr. Hawks, tickets for the circus, with the compliments of the famous showman. Dr. Walker studied the tickets for a moment and then re- marked: “Dr. Hawks is dead and Mr. Bar- num is dead; evidently they haven’t met.”” Tillman Z_ ALLMAN is the hero of = the New South, the enjant S terrible of the Senate, a compound of gore, wind, papier- maché and cotton batting. He is the champion of race homicide, the idol of the Carolina Wove Hats, the windiest warrior of the Cotton Belt, the apostle of assault and battery, and the greatest of gasoline patriots. He travels with pot-valiance and ten-sheet posters, laden with violence and vituperation, a reservoir of adjective, a fountain of fierce vulgarity, a distributer of dispensary jags, a negrophobe cannon-cracker exploding for the delight of Southern ferocity and Northern fatuity. South Carolina has had slavery, se- cession, devastation, reconstruction and carpetbags, and now, as the capstone of her miseries, she has Tillman. Every time Ben bellows, “Fee, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a negro man,” the South trembles as in the throes of an earthquake; but it is only Clay, Calhoun and the Southern great turning in their tombs. Tillman is the advance agent of that great reform which has stood the South upon its head, kicked culture and education out of politics, installed the corner grocery and cotton field in office, put a premium on brass and a ban on brains, made law a laughing stock and JANUARY 27, 1907 WILLIAM IT CELEBRATTS THE FORTY-EIGHTIE ANNIVERSARY OF TIS BIRTH comicbooks.com