Life — April 4, 1912 — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

*~LIFE- 703 The Easter Parade IRST came a pansy—gold and purple dressed, Happy faced—gay—with sparkling glints of light; Proudly it marched ahead of all the rest, Glittering and glancing in the sunshine bright. Followed the sentry lines of mignonette, Brown helmeted and slim and straight and tall, Their swaying stalks glistened with dew all wet, A gallant army from the garden wall. Then onward like a living field of flame The poppy regiment with banners gay, Swagxering, cantering to loud acclaim, wunting their searlet cloaks along the Halt! Soft and steady down the avenve Heaves a great column—silver green and white, The dashing Easter lilies burst in view And. stately—bowing—pass on out of sight. The sturdy hyacinths—a thousand strong, In brilliant rainbow uniforms advance, hen comes an army—golden eyed, alon; The primrose legion—famous in romance. Make way! The rose’s perfume fills the air, Trembling with beauty—blushing—on they come, The briars, the moss buds, slim-stemmed blossoms rare, Needing no music nor the beat of drum Again a pansy—gold and purple dressed Leading the violets—woodland born and sweet, And now a daisy with a yellow vest Cheers on its comrades’ million marching feet. Army of bloom timc—blessed, pure and bright, ‘aith and rejoicing to our hearts they br gladness and to light, message of the Spring Kate Masterson. Cheer Up! It Had to Be Waking the world Nature's etern. WWE shall soon have to get to work in serious earnest to offer consolations to old friends and admirers of There are a great many Some of them feel Colonel Roosevelt who feel bad. of them and they feel pretty bad. that the Colonel has blurred the whole line between right and wrong, so that they no longer know on which side of it he stands and hardly on which side of it they stand themselves. They don’t greatly mind his suggestions about the recall of decisions. Those they feel are not even dangerous and will probably be dropped, and, any- how, will take care of themselves. What troubles them is an uneasy feeling that the Colonel has lost his ethical balance; that he has not dealt as he should by President Taft; has bluffed out of his declaration not to run again instead of formally withdrawing it, and has misconceived his duty because he has let his ego intrude upon his line of vision. We feel very sorry for these good peop!e—for first rate people many of them are. In default of any wiser proposal to make them, we invite them to cheer up. We guess it had to be, this flip-flap of the Colonel's. For our own part we excuse considerably the intrusion of his ego which, as we see it, is to blame for his recent deviations from what seems the path of true wisdom. His started as an unusually intrusive factor, and let us all re- member that it has been fed up, and inflated, and coaxed other ego that has been in If the Colonel thinks he is a more indispensable citizen, especially at these pres- ents, than he really is, he is not without abundant rea- sons, of a sort, for thinking so. Not only his own valoi ous heart must be continually prompting him to that con- clusion, but any number of zealous and enthusiastic sym- pathisers and admirers have been egging him on, night and day, by mail, by printed line, and by spoken word, to the conviction that he is The Only One and belongs and tempted on beyond ar commission in this generation. not to himself, but to Destiny. Nobody can help it, Let Destiny deal with him. In her absent-minded way she is efficient with tasks that other folks shirk or give up. She is the final compenion of the unrestrainable. She wept with Alexander-out-of- held Caesar’s head when he fell at the foot of Pompey’s statue was prisoner with Charles XU. in Tur- key, and bedfellow to Napoleon at St. Helena, She is mighty distinguished company; not always comfortable, but distinguished. And she will find the Colonel an en- gaging person, to be sure; so engaging that we dare say nd hope—that she will use with him her gentler meth- and bring him ‘round by such means that the alun- dant good in him may still get in its work M, Hail, Ragtime! AGTIME, has come to its own and American con- noisseurs no longer need shake their heads dispar- agingly at this peculiarly American Westony, Hungarian pianist, described as the ing pupil of Wagner,” says he loves our “ American rag- time because of the opportunity it affords the real ar- tists.” How's that? Vilmos only liv- product. And it is those who pose as “real artists” who have been pooh-poohing it. “The dash and vim of it ‘ony, “is in the American blood and no European composer can ever hope to compose such music.” We confess that we have felt this way ourselves for a long time, but never before have we dared to express it publicly. Candor Rewarded MENDICANT applied to a Director General of Pub- lic Charity for relief. “On what do you base your claim?” asked the Direc tor General. “On the fact that Iam an unworthy object,” said the other. “Can you imagine a sharper affliction?” “You win,” said the official almoner, and gave him the entire fund that had been set apart for relief of three- legged steeple-climbers. comicbooks.com