Life — January 12, 1911 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

VOL. LVIL, JANUARY 12, 1911 No, 1472 Poblished by LIFE PUBLISH COMPANY JA. MivonRtt, Pree, AL MILLER, Sec'y and Treas, 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York. I T is getting nearer to the election of Democratic Senators in New York, New Jersey and Ohio. Mr. William Sheehan is an able man and of good repute as a practic- ing lawyer. Why not he for Senator from New York? Because he stands for nothing polit- ical except machinery, He is the pupil and political heir of David B. Hill. If he is the true and proper represent- ative of Democratic aspirations in the State of New York the party has no future. If the main result of the late election is to send Mr. Sheehan to the Senate, the Republicans who stayed away from the polls to let the Demo- crats win will go to the polls next election day and vote Republican. Judge Parker is a very nice man, and was a good Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals. Why not send him to the Senate? Because there is no leadership in him and no vision, He has some merit on the stump as a prosecuting speaker, but very meager ability as a winner. The Judge and Mr. Sheehan both owe a large part of their political eminence to the fact that twenty years ago they were men of a size and type that David B. Hill could understand. Mr. Shepard is much the most at- tractive Democrat suggested so far for Senator from New York. He is a live, modern person. When the cur- rent is turned into his lamp the little wire glows and you can see ahead by it. In New Jersey it seems as yet to be a choice between not enough and too much, Mr. Smith is too much of the LIFE wrong sort and Mr. Martine is not enough of the right sort. But Mr. Martine seems a great deal truer rep- resentative of the new brand of Demo- cratic hopes than Mr. James Smith can ever be. In Ohio Mr. John McLean has money and a newspaper and a strong pull, but he is a very old-fashioned politician, and the fashion is not a good one, and is out of style, as it should be. He would bring no strength to the Democratic side in the Senate. There ought to be a new Democrat in Ohio worth bringing out, and so there should be in New Jersey. PEAKING of the retirement of Mr. William Whitman from the presi- dency of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, Lire said the other day (December 22) : You have laid the wool schedule on the Aeeriae back, Mr, Whitman, but from how fare American backs have you stripped the ?” Now that nine-tenths of our “woolen Tabrics are made in American mills, are you ready to say, sit, what percentage of them is made of cotton? The Pequea Mills of Philadelphia writes us to say that these are “ false and sensational” words, and sends us samples of their cloths, sold at from $1.16 to $1.72 for a yard, 56 inches wide, and, except for decorative silk threads, “ composed solely of pure new wool,” without cotton, shoddy or adulterant of any kind. Enough cloth like these samples for a suit of clothes would cost from $3.87 to $5.74. The average net profit on the cloths to the mill is 5 cents a yard, or about 16 cents on each suit of clothes. Very well, gentlemen, but you do not tell us what prices such cloths as these bring in England. We read that an American serge at $1.3714 can be matched at Bradford, England, for 67 cents; another American fabric at $1.50 for 78 cents; another at $1.80 here can be matched there for 81 cents. We know that the best men’s clothes cost just about twice as much in New York as clothes of like qual- ity (but not so well made) cost in England. Apparently the cloth for cheaper clothes costs twice as much also. If that is true of these all wool cloths of which you send us samples— that they can be matched in England for half what they cost here—it is also true that the wool tariff is stripping the wool off American backs, for price determines what shall cover some mil- lions of American backs. It is true that in writing we had undershirts more in mind than coats, but what we said applies to both. It seems to be well understood that cotton is gaining on wool as material for clothing. We read that between 1890 and 1904 the per capita consumption of wool in the United States decreased from &75 pounds to 6.22 pounds—more than 25 per cent. That was not all due to the wool tariff, but the wool tariff had very much to do with it. If you had free wool, gentlemen, how much could you cut your prices on cloth and still run your mills and make your profit and pay your work people as you pay them now? SCVE TOUT CV GAIT 0 fo 6 EPRESENTATIVE RAINEY, of Illinois, who calls for an investi- gation by Congress of obligations in- curred by Mr. Roosevelt while Presi- dent to various railroads for free transportation, is barking up a pretty tall tree. President Roosevelt’s rela- tions with the railroads differed, we presume, only in degree from those of many Presidents who preceded him. He traveled more than most of his predecessors, but we presume that up to the time Congress voted an allow- ance for Presidential transportation he traveled on very much the same basis as they did. An inquiry which concerned him should also concern them and cover the whole subject and all the Presidents implicated. A par- tial inquiry would not be fair to Mr. Roosevelt. There are only a few visible signs of enthusiasm over this proposed in- vestigation. The World, the Evening Post and the Springfield Republican applaud it, as might be expected. The House Committee on Rules to which Mr. Rainey’s resolution has been re- ferred balks at it. It has a flavor of malice about it, and will doubtless come to nothing. The only person whose activities stand much chance of putting Colonel Roosevelt in a hole is still Colonel Roosevelt. comicbooks.com