Life — April 2, 1908 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

While there is Lite there's Hope Vow Lt APRIL 2. 1908 Ne am Publishe LIPE PUBLISHING COMPANY JA Minow, Pra’ A Mivcne, See’y and Drea 7 West Thirty first Street, New York UR neighbor, the Wall Street Journal, quotes Sen ator Lodge as saying in allusion to Senator Aldrich “Tt requires a mind peculiarly sane and balanced like his pursue the subject of finance for any length of time without falling into fanaticism.” The Journal thinks so, too, for it finds it “a singular fact that there is no other subject except that of religion which is more likely to lead to fanaticism than the subject of currency.” Quoting a remark attributed to Gladstone, that a long-continued study of the currency question was likely to lead to insanity, it declares that the question of money, lil the mysteries of religion, is a subject of such vast proportions that it is no wonder that the human brain is incapable of ta king it all in, and that in the effort to do so some minds are led to strange extremes. There may be consolation for more minds than ours in this agreement of respectable authorities that the currency question is a hard nut to crack, and finance a subject especially prone to pro- duce delusions in human faculties. It helps to excuse the common observer for realizing that he is no judge of the merits or defects of Mr. Fowler’s currency plan, and will never know, exceptas he is told, whether Mr. Aldrich’s panic-preventive is the best obtainable mixture for the purpose and squares with what is blown in the glass; nor yet whether railroad bonds were an ingredient proper to be left in it, or better out. We hope the pre- ventive will be accepted, because there seems to be due basis for the opinion that Mr. Aldrich knows his business. We hope Mr. Fowler's measure, or some modification of it, or some measure that he can approve, will become a law some day, because Mr. Fowler also is credited as knowing as much about the currency -LIFE: question as a sane man can, and because Mr. Gage and the arts of monetary circulation scheme is a good one. Others say that thers who have practised ay his there must beacentral hank, ©) I helps to reconcile one to having In 1 We Trust k sins. Pat iton the paper money, too, y the new gokd for it is in respect of that more than of the metal money that confidence in mere Jous human wisdom seems extraha, INCE, however, it must be with some body's mere human sagacity that we must take our chances in the regulation of the concerns of finance, there is much, and not too diflicult, choice of a sagacity to tie to. Possibly it is true, as the papers say, that Senator La Follette is the favorite for candidate of the Hearst party for President. The Hearst convention, as will be recalled, is to meet after both of the others have done their work. The assertion has been made that Senator La Follette demonstrated his qualifica- tions to be the candidate of that party in the speech he made in the Senate on March 17 in the debate on the Aldrich bill. The gist of his speech was his ex- planation of the causes and intentions of the panic of last October. There were no commercial reasons for it, he said, but only speculative, legislative and political reasons. He proceeded to relate in detail how it was carefully prepared, timed to the hour, and administered by Mr. Morgan and the Standard Oil people. Evidently finance is too big a subject for Mr. La Follette, and perhaps he has un- settled his judgment in the effort to com- prehend it. But there are a good many voters who lean to the opinion of persons in his predicament, and it may be that he will seem to Mr. Hearst a proper leader for his legions. ‘That will depend, no doubt, on whether, after inspecting the work of the other conventions, Mr. Hearst concludes to make his ticket the refuge of disappointed conservatives or bafiled radicals. He is an open-minded man, the slave of no prejudices, and will probably adjust his course to the direction and velocity of the wind prevailing when his convention meets. But if he should need a thoroughgoing radical, duly equipped with all the necessary creduli- ties and inflammations, Mr. La Follette ought to suit him. OLONEL GEORGE HARVEY, of Harper's Weekly, gave this year the Rromley lectures at Yale on journal ism. He gave them last month, tw « them, and they were very interesting dis courses and profitable to hear. Among oth nuded the sentiment u acter is one of the essentials to being r things he exy the possession of first-class char first-rate newspaper man. He asserted, with a » that great editor must have something inside of him that can tell right from wrong, and must behave as though he listened to it Ie said many excellent things, and better to discuss his subject he invented and printed one issue of a model paper, which was near enough what he thought a news- paper ought to be to serve as a text and illustration for his commentaries. He thinks that the universities ought to do much more than they do now to give stu dents who want it special training in jour nalism. He thinks they could give it suc cessfully, if they chose, for he does not think that the actual newspaper office is the only place where the job can be learned. What he said was admirable, but if he cared to make a complete exposition of his subject another lecture could easily be filled with consideration of the draw- backs of the job. One great one is that at the present time so few newspapers make a decent living. Considered as a manu- facturing business, newspaper making is enormously hazardous and absurdly un- remuncrative. With other manufacturing concerns the rule is that if they don’t make profits they quit, but that is not the rule with newspapers. ‘They always have moral and_ political reasons for clinging to life long, long after there has ceased to be any pecuniary warrant for it. A newspaper in these days is about as likely to declare a dividend as a church is. Competition between papers is i tense, the price of nearly all of them too low, the cost of white paper and manufacture too high, and they give a great deal too much for the one meager cent that most of them now sell for: We hope our Great Regulator will make a law soon that no newspaper shall be more than four pages long on week days and six pages on Sunday, nor sell for le: than two cents. Imost indelicate insistence comicbooks.com