Life — May 16, 1912 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

San eae JUSTICE MAY BE BLIND, BUT- had everything about them in huge type, screeching every last item about them as though they represented the salvation of mankind. And what of Astor; an unfortunate man, ill born, with an uneven mind, and an enor- mous, distorting inheritance of prop- erty. He never had half a chance, but with what he had, mind and money, he worked along according to his lights, making such a job of it as he could. Out of common human kindness peo- ple were glad he died like a man, but no paper had quite so many headlines about him as yours. But we didn’t notice anything in your paper about the 532 who were locked below the decks. You had not heard of it then. Neither had we. Were they really locked below? We don’t believe it. Certainly we don’t believe they were so cut off by inten- tion of anyone to debar them from the chance to escape. There con- fusion on that ship, and great misap- was *-LIFE- prehension of what had happened to her. Orders may have been given on that basis of misapprehension that were wrong. But when you say “mur- dered” you charge in effect that the 532 were locked down to give the rest a better chance. Who believes that? We don't, nor do you. Then why do you give this false impression? Is it not part of the job you and Hearst are perpetually at, to set one great group of people against another ; to exaggerate the inequalities of con- dition; to misrepresent the minds of men, and sow active hatreds between human creatures? Out of that you seem to expect to get some kind of new politics in which you and Hearst will be leaders. Well, Brisbane, it is impossible that a person as intelligent as you are should be working from motives that he knows to be wrong. We are not 1013 ready to say anything so brutal about you fellows as that you are “well meaning,” but we do feel strongly that a very large part of your energies are misdirected. We detest some of your methods, and distrust most of your remedies, and yet, after all, you are among the forces that make the world move, and no doubt you offset some other forces that need offsetting. Conscious of our own defects and limitations, we like, for our part, to see all the forces working full time, and love to think we see Truth run- ning from bag to bag between them. Truth will score in the end. Don’t you worry, Brisbane. The Political Mixup R ALLY, it is hard to say as to cur- rent politics, how much of it is politics, and how much is a sort of religion, Behind Roosevelt there is a lot of generous ardor, and eagerness for the improvement of all sorts of social conditions, and the betterment of mankind individually or bunched. There is very little personal dislike of Mr. Taft, but there is a great deal of impatience with him, and a desperate longing among folks whose eyes are alight with a celestial vision to have a candidate who seems a bit handier with his wings. Mighty queer company, these aspir- ing people find themselves in, and a great many of them realize it, and realize also the extraordinary pe- numbra which adorns their cometary leader in his astonishing flight. They don’t like the penumbra much, but still their wagon continues to be hitched to the only star in sight whose velocities seem available. And behind Mr. Taft are a lot of saddened old school Republicans, who cling to law and order to the last ditch, and see the ditch only too plainly ahead of them. Not Unsinkable HE political Titanic sinkable, but isn’t. It settled down perceptibly in Mas- sachusetts. Even its Southern turn out to be leaky. You can’t build them so as not to feel it when they hit a meteor. seems un- bulkheads may comicbooks.com