Life — July 21, 1910 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

“While there ts Life there's Hope” Ad] JULY 21, 1910 No, 1447 vo: Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPA DA MITCHRLL, Prete AL MILLEN, Se V7 West Thirty-first Street, New York, T scems safe enough to put it down that heavy- prize-fights have gone the way of the tour- nament and the duel. So it seems, as far as this country is concerned, at any rate. To Lire they look less objectionable than a good many other things that public opinion either tolerates or cannot dis- miss. There is plenty of popular in- terest in a fight that has been well worked up. The fight at Reno was not. particularly brutal; there wa neither malice nor hate in it; on John- son’s part, especially, it was a particu- larly skillful, good-natured and cheer- ful performance. Johnson made a very creditable showing, indeed, and Jeffries seems to have done the best he could, and to have taken his beating decently, But in spite of the millions spent to see the show, and the vast amount of newspaper attention it re- ceived, and the crowds at the bulletin boards to get the news of it, what really counts as American public opin- ion seems to have condemned it. We have cutgrown prize-fights; that’s all there is of it. The next one—if there ever is another big one—will follow the lottery to Mexico or some other nearby country, where sentiment on this subject has not yet crystalized. As to the fight pictures: We shall be glad to see them, if convenient. We wish there had been a moving- picture apparatus to record the events of that lively tournament in “ Ivan- hoe,” when the Black Sluggard got into the game to so much purpose. A good many interesting things got by before the moving-picture machine be- gan to snap-shot history, weight “hh I * It is interesting that the colored brother should be so exultant at John- son’s victory as to: constrain some cities to the pictures out. It is a good thing, per se, that the colored brother should be pleased with himself, for surely we would not have him re- pine because he is not white. But that Johnson is black and Jeffries white is not really significant. We knew. be- fore that there were husky negroes, and that negroes could fight. calm, colored brother. This cur- rent world is not one in which fist-fighting or extra-huskiness carries a man, or a race, either, very far. Would you know what really counts— what is really powerful? Observe these folks that make the clamor about prize-fight Are they wise? Nothing extra, Are they particularly brawny? Not particularly; a fair proportion of them are women. And yet, take them by and large, they are the folks who in the long run have the say about what shall be the fashion in human deportment, and what shall be done about it. Their punch is good, colored brother, though they don’t always look it, and they can take lots of beating. That is a sreat quality, the capacity to take beat- ing Your race is strong in that, colored brother. But the great point about these folks is that they are the Friends of Virtue. They are apt to be water-drinkers, to be industrious above the average, to be thrifty, to be serapers-together of education, buyers of machinery, improvers of ¢ hing in sight, and especially of their neigh- bors. A large proportion of them are church-goers. Now Johnson, colored brother, is a very good man in a variety of particu. lars, but though you may have won some loose dollars betting on him, it is not by patterning after the like of him that you will really forge ahead in the world as it is, The folks to pattern after are these Friends of Virtue. They carry the elections and make the laws, and at the rate they are going now they will soon fill all the offices and own most of the property. Pat- tern after them, colored brother. They have Sport chased into a corner, and Alcohol and Graft and Privilege and other objectionables hiding behind trees. Barring some excess of aspira- tion to eradicate human nature from all the rest of mankind, they are great folks and very worthy of the at- tention and alliance of aspirimg bru-. nette people like you. AS simple a way as another to catch a sample Friend of Virtue would be to set a trap at the foot of Saga- re Hill and spring it on the first visitor who came out smiling. All the visitors seem to come out smiling. There are many of them; all kinds of Republicans and some Democrats; re- porters, editors, naturalists, officers of government and private politicians, but all of them Friends of Virtue. Be- sides his own equipment of these pil- lars of power, the Colonel seems now to have inherited most of those who rallied around Governor Hughes. When he sent the message to the Re- publicans in the New York Legisla- ture urging them to pass the direct nominations bill, the Colonel assumed responsibiliti Once we would’ have said, “he shied his castor into the ring,” but what would the Friends of Virtue think of such an expression He is settling down calmly and seems to be getting his bearings. It is a little like the dropping of’ a new planet into the solar system of our politics, and some of the other planets are on the lookout for collisions. But planets adjust. themselves to new forces of gravitation and cohesion, and after all there is a good deal of elbow room in our political system. The Friends of Virtue are much in- terested in the coming nominations for Governor of New York. It is a mat- ter of much concern for both parties. It ought to take a pretty strong Re- publican candidate to beat Mr. Thomas M. Osborne, if the Democrats, as seems possible, can agree upon him. comicbooks.com