Life — October 26, 1911 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

“While there is Life there's Hope.” VOL. LVITI, OCTOBER 2 1911 No. 1513 Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY JA, MITCHELL, Pree, A. MILLER, Sey and Treas, 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York. MURDER trial has be- gun at Los An- geles. Three men are accused of blowing up a newspaper building, the destruction of which cost twenty-one lives. They are also accused of blowing up about sixty other buildings in various parts of the country, all of which had been, or were being, erected otherwise than as ordered by the structural iron workers’ union. We hope very much that the proceed- ings and results of this trial will be sat- isfactory. It seems to us :: ought to end in a hanging, and not a mere hung jury, but the hanging by the neck either of the prisoners or their chief accusers. If it is demonstrated that the McNamara brothers have been killing folks with nitroglycerine, they ought to swing. If it turns out that they are innocent, and that Burns and the Erectors’ Association have wick- edly conspired against them and lied, and manufactured evidence, then string up Burns and the Erectors, and pos- sibly, for good measure, General Otis also. But if General Otis is to swing with Burns, then Gen. Sam Gompers ought to swing with James and John. Perhaps it will be better to stick to principals; but, oh friends, don’t let this trial flunk! Somebody is guilty; very, very guilty of a great crime. Get the gallows ready, and if Mordecai gets off, be logical and hang Haman. Me PINCHOT says that Taft is a dub. He says it more politely than that, and at much greater length, BIEN ie Je in the Saturday Evening Post, urging the conclusion that Mr, Taft cannot be re-elected and that it is a pity to 1enominate him. Mr. Pinchot's dis- course in the paper includes the letter of advice which he sent from home to meet Colonel Roosevelt emerging at Khartoum from his inspection of Af- rica and the Equatorials. In this let- ter Mr. Pinchot gives the colonel six- teen reasons for his conviction that Taft is not Roosevelt and has not been behaving as Roosevelt would have wished him to. Mr. Pinchot thinks so now as much as ever. This is all very well and we would rather Mr. Pinchot had thus expended his powder in speeding missiles than kept it cooking in his hold to blow him up, maybe, like that unfortunate French warship. But it is not what we expected to hear from him. There . was news that he had gone to Alaska and we had hoped that when he spoke it would be to tell us about that Alaska coal, like mother used to sell, that we fought and bled Mr. Ballinger to save, and whereof, after our imaginations had been so enormously excited about its rare qualities and prodigious abun- dance, Mr. Fisher came back with the story that contortions of strata had so crushed and powdered it that after all it was no great shakes as coal; good enough to be fuel in Alaska, but no very important asset for the enrich- ment of all posterity. What of that coal, Mr. Pinchot? It is for reassurance about that rescued fuel that we look to you, sir, rather than so to interrupt the continuity of advertising in the Post's back pages by distressing doubts about the quali- fications of President Taft. GOVERNOR WILSON is quoted as charging that Mr. Taft and Mr. Wickersham are playing fast and Icose with the enforcement of the Sherman law, declaring boldly for its enforcement one day, and modifying their declarations the day following. Business, he thinks, is suffering from their indecision. We don’t see how a man could be more positive or more continuous than Mr. Taft has been for weeks past in declaring not only that he will enforce the Sherman law, but that the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court is all right. The resulting uncertainty is an uncertainty as to the intentions of the law as lately interpreted, and not an uncertainty as to Mr. Taft’s or Mr. Wickersham’s intentions. The most urgent issue of the hour relates to the Sherman law. Will it do as it is, or must it be amended? Mr. Taft says let it alone; it will do as it is. Mr. Wickersham seems to agree with him. Platoons and regi- ments of excellent lawyers say it won't do as it is, but must be amended. What does Dr. Wilson think? Is he for enforcing the Sherman law or for amending it? Does he believe, as Mr. Taft does, that the interpreted Sherman law will and should restore competition in business? If not, what does be want done about the trusts, and what sort of a law does he want to do it with? Every candidate for the Presidency must be prepared to exhibit a sample Sherman law, drawn as he would have it. We believe Mr. La Follette has filed his sample. So has Mr. Taft. Now then, Dr. Wilson, what's yours? N the California election all the newest political fashions won—the Ladies’ Vote, the recall, the referen- dum and the jupe culotte. Bully for good old California! She knows her strong point; it is change. Folks who are tired of other places go to her for it. Now they will get it more than ever. Tt is fine that the suffragists have won there. It is like having the ad- joining township wet when your own is dry. California is the spontaneous State. There Burbank went to invent new fruits and flowers, for even plants de- velop imagination and new styles in California. When the joyous spirit of that State is fully incorporated into politics, every day will be Election Day and all the varieties of candidates will be elected. We think the ladies’ vote will speed California mightily on her natural course. comicbooks.com