Life — October 31, 1907 — page 4: 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. L. OCTOBER 31, 1907 No. 1305 Published by PUBLISHING COMPANY A. Minune, Sec’y and Treas, New York. LIFE J. A. Mirrenmte, Pres't 17 West Thinty-first Street ROTHER LAFFAN’S war with Japan is doing fine. He is waging it, earnest ith nice black scare head-lines in the Sun, tell- \ ing how the Army and the Navy are sweating to get ready for it, and print- ing evidence of Mr. Roosevelt's disposition 7 \t0 strike before the “ijl A other fellow does, : FD when he thinks a fight is coming. Having taken strongly the position that the sending of the battleships to the Pacific would in- evitably raise hob and make war certain, Brother Laffan is supplying the hob as far and fast as he can, and doing his ap- parent best to make sure that the war shall follow. Inasmuch as he professes not to want a war, and probably doesn’t, this course may seem a bit queer. But no doubt he is actuated by patriotic motives, and possi- bly his idea is that it is better for the country to have as much war-scare as pos- sible now, when there isn’t much ground for it, than to have it tagging along piece- meal later on, and making folks uneasy, and disturbing the markets and delaying recovery. Such is the restless enterprise of our newspapers that every possible dis- turbing story is sure to be flashed out at us, first or last, while the battleship fleet is on it to the Pacific or wandering about in that ocean. If Brother Laffan can gather up and print all the inventable stories now so that we can get used to them, it is reasonable enough to argue that they will scare us so much the less later on. No story that we have heard be- fore has quite so palpitating an effect on the nerves as a fresh one. Meanwhile, the beamish Taft is radia- ting reassurance and good-will into the i “a ERSEY dark and doubtful corners of the Orient. He has been well received in Japan, and joyously and affectionately in the Philip- pines, which is no more than his due, for he had done what he could to the last stroke to make the Filipinos happy. Now hehasopened the Filipino Legislature, de- claring that he likes it, and denying all assertions that he was disappointed in the results of the first election. OME of the Presbyterian brethren who had learned that the soldiers of the United States Army play baseball on Sunday requested the President to make them stop it. The President referred the request to Secretary Taft, who consulted the Judge Advocate of the Army, who said that State laws do not apply to Federal reservations. So the Secretary declined to interfere, because, as he told the committee, Sunday baseball is a time-honored sport in the Army, and conducive to good. That is all as it should be, but it is likely that the Presbyterian brethren will not think so. They will doubtless con- sider that they have tried to do good, and have been thwarted for the time being, and they will probably return in due time to the attack. It is a pity that it should not be brought to their compre- hension that Sunday baseball in the Army may be really conducive to good, and that Sunday baseball in general is not wicked, nor necessarily irreligious, but is a wholesome Sunday diversion for those who like it, and fit to share the day with religious exercises or pious ob- servances of any kind. The Sunday keeping of strict Sab- batarians, whether of the Presbyterian breed or of some other, is a very amusing mixture of superstition and sense. So much of it as tends to make Sunday a day apart, to defend it from money: making and unnecessary work, and de vote it to rest, worship and recreation, accords with sense. So much of it as restricts joy, and unreasonably prohibits one form of recreation while it permits another, is mostly superstitious. Sunday is an adjustable institution; extremely valuable, but not readily adaptable to regulation by fixed rules. What is wise Sunday-keeping for one man in one place is not best for another man in another place. Because Sunday baseball is, on the whole, good for soldiers, it does not necessarily follow that it would be desirable for deacons—though it might Moreover, what would mar the Sunday peace of one locality would not disturb the Sunday peace of another. The Pres- byterian brethren will find good general ideas about Sunday-keeping in the early part of the New Testament. If they can once get the general idea right, they won’t be so apt to go wrong about particulars. CESSIVE jolts and collapses in the Wall Street district continue to depress the spirits of many more or less worthy persons in this part of the world. It is rather a sad autumn in the East, and the falling of the leaves and the ending of the serial stories in the magazines find many families facing the future with nervous apprehension, and considering what more they can do to reduce expenses and adjust themselves to depleted means. No doubt this experience of the discipline of life, bad as it tastes now, may be good for them in the end. To come down from one level of expenditure to a lower one is very troublesome in the doing, but once it is done the change sometimes increases contentment. It is worth noting that none of the latest jars which have disturbed Wall Street can be directly attributed to the maleficent activities of President Roose- velt. The Inter-Metropolitan mess can hardly be shouldered off onto him; nor yet the squash in Coppers; and the Ham- burg bank that failed seems to have owed its distresses to troubles of purely European origin. As a chief source of all held to a partial responsibility for every- thing that happens, including the blowing up of the Du Pont powder works in Indiana, and the Hearst-Republican amalgamation in New York. That, how- ever, is a different thing from being accounted the headstrong architect of ruin, A man may endure being regarded as a sunspot which is coincident with ir- regular doings, while he might deprecate being put down as a human earthquake. comicbooks.com