Life — February 27, 1908 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

VOL. LI. FEBRUARY Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY J.A. Mireur, Pres't. A, Mrieee, Sec'y ond Treas, 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York. 'HERE is a vast deal of truth loose and raging in our world these days, but it seems to need sorting. It is mixed up with the queer- = est things, and the flow of the mixed product is enormous. The plugs are regularly out of all the word-spouts that spout politics, or any- thing that bears thereon. It is less than four months now before the Republican nominating convention, and the candi- dates are telling how they feel about everything. Bryan goes up and down in the land confiding views to the faithful and the incredulous, contradicting what has been said and purveying matter for others to contradict, polishing up or cast- ing away policies that have got shop- worn, and spreading on the counter the fresh spring novelties that are bound to please any reasonable delegate. Really, Dr. Bryan is in great form this year! And Big Bill has been touring in the West and talking freely; and Governor Hughes has opened his heart to us from time to time; and there has been more than the usual supply of important speeches on im- portant topics in Congress. And the good President has kept the crank of his Gat- ling gun turning pretty steadily; and, altogether, there has been too much in the newspapers besides what continues to be in the reformatory magazines. Itis a fine, full current, sweeping along with power. There are many things in it that ought to be fished out, but it isn’t a handy time. There are folks who stand on the banks and swear, and others who stand and holler, but there is no reliable sign yet of turning it, or damming it ex- cept by expletives. Effectual reaction *LIFE- there is none, either in hand or in sight. The people are still more afraid of the reactionaries than of the reformers. Sec- retary Taft goes about telling how in the enormous industrial development of the country, stimulated by the combination in corporate form of the country’s wealth, the intense desire for gain produced .a spirit of recklessness as to methods, and “we were passing into a region of an irresponsible plutocracy.” Along came, during the last four years, “a great moral awakening,” and ‘‘under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt the Republican party has not faltered” to put things to rights. Already by the Rate law it has “put every railroad man in the country on his good behavior,” and made him yearn to obey the statutes of his country.” One grins when the big Secretary speaks of the unfaltering Republican party and remembers the kind of discipline that was dealt out to falterers, and speculates as to the number of Republicans who would like to falter if they could see a chance. The Republican party, having got the bear by the tail, found it wiser to hang on. But in the main, the Secretary states things as the country secs them. For in both parties a large majority of the voters approve, by and large, of what has been done, and have no mind to take the back track toward the region of the irresponsible plutocracy. N= THER party would havea c to win with a reactionary candidate, but any candidate whom the Republicans can nominate will seem comparatively conservative after Roosevelt, and so, practically, will any Democratic candi- date, even Bryan, because Congress, and the people themselves, will be compara- tively conservative. ‘There is no worst- still-to-come, no more-than-ever-drastic remedies to be given the patient, but convalescence, whoever is President, with continuance of the treatment, and doubtless a strong effort to revise the tariff in such fashion as shall not bring on fits, And we shall see much sorting out of truth from the stock of novelties on hand, much trying out of policies, and rejection of some and amendment of others that do not work well. For busi- ness has got to be done, somehow; and unless it can be done again pretty soon at a profit, nobody will be happy. No party that comes into power at the next election, or no administration, is in the least likely to be careless of the needs of legitimate business. Secretary Taft has at the present moment the best chance to be Mr. Roosevelt’s successor, and it promises to be very hard to persuade any considerable body of citizens that his tenure of the Presidential office would be prejudicial to the prospects of any honest man to make an honest living. The con- servatives make some show of reviling Taft because he stands for too much centralization of power, too much Fed- eral government, too many untested, novel and hazardous Roosevelt policies. But even the conservatives are not awful- ly afraid of him. They know that once he became President, the policies that he would press would first be filtered through a dispassionate mind, trained in the law, practised in judicial de- cisions, and ripened by a very broad experience. The greatest danger that Taft as a nominee would have to face would be, not that the conservative vote would think him too dangerous, but that too large a section of the radicals would think him too safe. And yet he is Roosevelt’s candidate and stands on the platform that the costly efforts of the last four years to elevate and purify business methods, and give all comers a fair deal, should go for nothing. iG 1S to--accord with justice, as well as with expediency, that em- ployers should undertake the insurance of their workmen against accident. Some do it as it is. We should be glad to see the Employers’ Liability plan tried by the Government, and especially in con- nection with the canal work. But all manufacturers and all railroads that are to be constrained by law to undertake this work may reasonably insist that the law that so constrains them shall back them up in insisting that the labor unions shall leave them sufficient power over their employees to enforce rules and discipline constituted to conserve the safety both of the employees and the public. At present the railroads seem to lack the power to compel their em- ployees to obey rules and to be careful. comicbooks.com