Life — August 24, 1911 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

Reforms Are Due to Individuals “J. JOST political reforms,” said Pres- ident Schurman in his com- mencement address at Cornell, “turn cut in the end to be merely new varie- ties of taxation. * * * Poverty will not be abolished, nor mankind advanced in civilization by the action of govern- ments. All great reforms are the work of individuals.” Broadly speaking, that is truc, and timely in these days when the effort is So urgent to produce a millennium by legislation. Whatever makes good peo- ple and arms them with knowledge does most for the world. For it is wonder- ful what reforms individuals can bring about when the spirit within them is great enough, and they follow its lead- ings. Read in the July number of Everybody's Magazine the story of what Andrew Furuseth has done for ilors. We never heard of Andrew fore, and only know the facts of his career as now set forth in Everybody's, ROBBING THE BLIND but Mr. Matthews’s story is told with re- straint, and reads true, and a wonderful story it is, of patient, sagacious devo- tion to men of a calling whose members are still denied adequate protection un- der the law. There comes great power to true re- formers whose leading is unselfish. Furuseth, a Norwegian, is the organizer and president of the International Sca- men’s Union, His idea hos been that seamen, being engaged in an indispensa ble employment, ought to live in some- thing like the same plane as other workers, and be protected in their just rights and paid adequate wages. It is wonderful what he has done to make that idea come truc. But read the story. All the commencement orators this year seemed to agree that the great need of the country is good people. It is a good deal like saying that what a man needs to make him well is health, but still at times it is worth saying. Legis- lation won't do very much for us; num- bers of the best of the commencement orators were agreed as to that; but if we can manage somehow to turn out enough first-class human goods from our great factory here, we shall get along We do need new statutes from time to time—a good many of them, but it is the man behind the law that really counts, Our law-making bodies, though some of them are doing better, still ex- cite about as much apprehension as hope Terrible Dream ER face is drawn, her eyes are hag- rd and sunken, and her expres- sion is that of a woman on the verge of nervous prostration. “What in the world is wrong?” the astonished friend anyone look so terribl “It is all because of an awful night mare I had last night,” explains the suf- ferer. “It simply shattered my nerves, and although I know it was merely a dream, still T cannot rid myself of its effects, I dreamed T was called upon un- expectedly to plan a dinner for Dr. Wiley, Dr. Woods Hutchison and Upton Sinclair.” asks 1 never saw comicbooks.com