Life — October 31, 1912 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

OCTOBER 91, 1912 “While there is Life there's Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 17 West Thirty-first Street, New Vork English Offices, Cannon House, Breams’ Hides. London, F. C. J. AS Mrteurnn, Pres. RIMES of violence abound. The papers report that in New York, between October 12 and October 15, seven persons were murdered and seven others fatally injured by mur- derous assaults. In the Becker trial witnesses have told extraordinary tales of a trade in murder, flourishing and reduced to a system. A young friend of a young friend of ours, walking in Thirty-second street in the evening, was sandbagged and woke up in a hospital, and now here's our friend, Colonel Roosevelt, plugged in the chest in Milwaukee with a large bullet by a demented fellow citizen, who lately lived here in Tenth street! These abominable assaults are dis- gusting, especially this on the Colonel, which, we gratefully record, seems to have done him no serious physical harm and possibly some political benefit. But wasn’t it a nasty scare, upsetting the whole campaign, monopolizing the newspapers, distracting the attention of earnest men from the baseball series and playing hob for three or four days with the whole museum of political issues! It was enough to turn anybody away from politics altogether, but since the candidate came out of it so fortunate- ly, it is not gracious to complain. We did not care for his stricken-on-the- fieid Milwaukee speech, of course. It was very imprudent as an exploit, might have done him a grave physical damage, may have won him a few new votes, which is not to be desired. It A. MILLER, See'y and Treas, was the same old story, vastly dra- matic, of course, under the circum- stances; courgaeous, of course, and, of course, intensely Rooseveltian. But everything must be forgiven to a speaker who speaks with newly ac- quired bullet punctures in him, even when he speaks an hour and a half. And after all, the Milwaukee speech was the most useful he has made this year, and by far the most beneficial to our feelings and the country, since, in manuscript in his pocket, it helped to check that madman’s bullet. We hope the Outlook will publish at least the holes in it. HE Colonel said in this speech that he had been abused so outrag- cously in the campaign that it was no wonder that some weak-minded per- son had finally been stirred up to take a pop at him. There is not much in that. He undertook to destroy his own party, and also to do away with a polit- ical tradition which has lasted a cen- tury, and for which a good many peo- ple have very deep regard. Of course, such drastic things, whether good or bad, carsot be attempted without a roiling of the waters. He started his campaign with a cry of Stop Thief! We believe he has lately been warning the country against Wilson as a man who would destroy prosperity, and that night in Milwaukee he held him up as an opponent of child labor laws. The Colonel has scolded as much as any one has. It was nobody's fault that a lunatic shot at him instead of at Mr. Taft or Mr. Wilson. There was just as much reason to shoot at one of the other candidates as at Mr. Roosevelt. The only difference is that Mr. Roosevelt is by a good deal the most disturbing and exciting figure of the three, and the one mos: lik upset an unbalanced mind. That is not because of anything that has been said about him, but because of his personal qualities, and his constant appeals to emotionalism, and constant use of agi- tations in his campaign. If anyone has made him a target, he is himself the man. He has gone after the emotional vote, and doubtless has gathered it all in. It was altogether too Bull Moose of him to talk in public an hour and a half, having first explained that he had a bullet in him. He ought not to be applauded for such an exploit; he should be spanked. But if there was any remnant of the emotional vote that he had not got in already, he probably got it in Milwaukee, and if not, Mr. Beveridge or Mr. Thomas Lawson, got it for him later. We beg the Colonel to try not to be shot any more. In h's candidacy as it , there is some comedy, but to have him effectually shot would turn it all to horrid gloom. And, of course, the betting odds on election being what they are, shooting at him is an absolutely wanton crime, which no sane criminal would con- sider. I" was sad that Snodgrass should have muffed a fly in the tenth in- ning, but someone had to win the series. With the weather inclining frostward and election coming on, it was getting late for baseball. And even aside from the shooting of the Colonel, it was an overstrain on pub- lic attention to have politics and sport running simultaneously to finishes. The old-fashioned one-ring circus was the best, and never would have been superseded if the country had not got so populous. By rights we should now return to serious things, such as the price of comicbooks.com