Life — November 7, 1912 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

NOVEMBER 7, 1912 “While there is Life there's lope Published by LIFE PU J. AS Mirena. Pres't, ISHING COMPANY A. Mien, Seoty and Tre 17 West Thirte-first Street, English Offices, Cannon House, [* gives one the creeps to have a surgeon say that we owe it to the length of Colonel Roose- yelt’s spectacle case that he is here with us to read the election returns, The de- flection of that bullet was the crowning — mercy of the campaign now closed. Read- ers of this issue of Lire will know by just what proc- esses the country has again been saved, unless indeed no Presidential candidate gets a majority of the electoral votes and it is neces- sary for Congress to finish the work. So far as appears, no qualified ob- server expects the election to fail of a completed result, or looks for any other result than the election of Gov- ernor Wilson. So be it; but let us be thankful that whoever is elected or fails to be elected government will go right along, the laws will be consulted and re- spected, and folks will go about their business just the same. Here we have been hard at work for eight months on the question who shall be Presi- dent for four years beginning next March, and what he shall try to do for us. We are entitled to congratu- late ourselves on the comparatively pacific course of all these agitating labors that no life has been imperilled by them except by a sort of accident Colonel Roosevelt’s, and that busi- ness has steadily prospered and gained all the time, thanks largely to bounti- ful crops, which the voters did not neglect to plant and harvest. Most of all we should be thankful that it makes Breams so little difference, comparatively, who is elected. Since, though, some desir- able changes would be differently more slowly effected under one Presi- dent than under another, in the end the will of the people will achieve its purpose under the law no matter who lodges in the White House. en under President Taft the tariff, we suppose, would get some medicine; even under President Roosevelt the country would not at once be Mexican- In spite of all the emotions that ized. have been fed out to our population since last February, its mind continues, in the main, fairly stable. In spite of all recent denunciations of our laws and the application of them, we shall still live under them pretty comfort- ably and without sweeping or abrupt changes, no matter how the returns foot up in the daily papers which will share the news-stands with this issue of Lire. That is the advantage of being a civilized country, and having a popu- lation used to continuity in govern- ment, and sufficiently schooled and in- telligent to judge of comparative values, and to appreciate order and the difficulties of perfection, and to be pa- tient of imperfections until there shall be time for their cure. We are lucky that all our problems are in our own hands; that we have no hard master, no overlord to compel us against our interests and convictions, no powerful rival threatening our independence or territorial integrity, not even any great sectional difference with roots running back into history. All we have to deal with are the problems of current politi- cal and social life, and though, to be sure, they are very complex and diffi- cult, we bring enormous resources, mental and material, to the solution of them, and can deal with them, united and unhampered, with the best light our generation affords, and to. suit ourselves. “6 8%, ESR AA B JT what a churning of ideas there has been in the last eight months, with the man of Oyster Bay foremost at the churn handle! New thoughts have to hecome familiar before they can be generally accepted. We have all become familiar since February with the idea that political must not boss. We know much more than we did about direct primaries, and something more about direct nom- inations of Presidents. We do not shy as violently as we did at the sug- gestion that judges are not infallible, and that if immovable constitutional provisions meet irresistible social lex- islation on the same track there will he work for wreckers. We know more than we did about the campaign con- tributions of corporations. We think we know the difference between the regulation of business and the regu- lation of competition, and if we have learned nothing new about the tariff it is because we still remembered the discussion preceding the Payne-Al- drich bill, and felt pretty well in- formed. So the political school has kept to some purpose this year. We may have a little intermission now till Congress meets again next month and a lull, perhaps, till the new administration is organized and gets to work, but there is a lot more schooling ahead for us, and if expectation is realized, and Dr. Wilson is to be schoolmaster, we arc safe in anticipating studious and in- structive times. bosses (@, wat with the shooting of Mr. Roosevelt, and election matters, and the Becker trial (with its very satisfactory verdict), it has been harder than usual to pay to Europe comicbook $.co