Life — November 21, 1912 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

NOVEMNER 21, 1912 “While there is Life there's Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1A, Maven 17 West Thi sh Offices, Cannon EPORT says Mr. Taft is happy. Colonel Roosevelt is re- ported reticent, but cheerful. Dr, Wilson is vearing up. Nobody seems disappointed, sur- jous or dispirited over the election. Never was an election in which so many people, on the whole, were satisfied, and so few repined. Even Debs doubled his vote, and the Socialists are exultant. So are the suffragists. Some contemporaries, the World for one, have pointed out to Mr. Roosevelt his callous iniquity in bust- ing the Republican party wide open where he might have gummed it to- gether with Hadley, but that is not a crime that a Democratic paper has much call to complain of, nor one, we sup- pose, that will keep the Colonel awake through many remorseful nights. May- be the Hadley glue wouldn't have held. Anyhow the Republican party is no worse off, and perhaps better, in two distinct pieces than it would have been with that fatal crack in it. As things are it knows where it is. A R. WILSON is the first highbrow to be elected President. To be sure he is the only highbrow in the history of our country who ever had the usufruct of the talents of Colonel George Harvey as his advertising man. He could not possibly have done for himself what Colonel Harvey was able to do for him. It was a perform- ance quite without parallel in our po- litical history. Six or cight years ago A. MILLER, Sec'y and Treas. Colonel Harvey picked out Dr. Wilson as a likely man to make a competent, radical, Democratic President. Stead- ily and ably he blew the Doctor’s horn, gradually making him a familiar topic cf discussion in the newspapers and bringing him to the knowledge of their readers. At the proper time; with the consent of Senator James Smith, he got him nominated for Governor of New Jersey, raised a campaign fund and got him his chance to win the clection. He won it finely. That made Governor Wilson a real candidate for President. After that he took care of himself, having such a start as his own abilities and character and the assistance of the supporters they won for him, were able, with great good luck, to handle. But it is an historical fact that it is to Harvey immeasurably more than to any other man except Dr. Wilson himself that we owe it that Governor Wilson is our President- elect. That was an unprecedented exploit in promotion, and if Colonel Harvey lives to have a tombstone it ought to go on it. Moreover it was a public service done chiefly because it seemed a public service. That Colonel Har- vey pitched upon Dr. Wilson as a man ely to be the serviceable tool of the interests” is the merest twaddle. Such a man would have had no chance. Dr. Wilson never gave the slightest premise of being the serviceable tool of anybody or anything. His row at Princeton had demonstrated that. Mr. Harvey is a congenital Democrat, deeply interested in Democratic suc- cess, He wanted a Democratic candi- date who would be fit to win and could be elected. Among all the advertised Democratic politicians there was none that looked available; none that seemed able to avoid destruction at the hands of Bryan, and still carry the State of New York. So he picked an entirely new man and set out to make him known to the country. And he did it: a wonderful feat UT, as we were saying, Governor Wilson is the first highbrow to be elected President. Heretofore we hav had generals, lawyers, tailors, cowboys and politicians, but never before a man who had devoted the greater part of his life to study and teaching. The neurest thing to it was Mr. Roosevelt, ho was a writer, but also cowboy politician, naturalist, office-holder and man of war. Mr. Roosevelt is no high brow. He is a man of affairs. But Governor Wilson is a new type: a very highly trained poor man, whose achievements and acquisitions had nearly all been mental, and whose ex. perience as un executive had been con. fined to administering the affairs of university, His election may well give encouragement to all men who are in- terested in the mental side of life, in acquiring and diffusing knowledge, and in life itself and the machinery that regulates it rather than in the acquisi- tion of things, and of power, especially the power to acquire more things. Election being now over we invite all the school teachers and professors, all the ministers, all the scientists and social workers and doctors, and even the editors, to quit the back bench and move up into the middle of the hall. Let the lawyers and the capitalists and the football players, and the high alti- tude tariff gentlemen go and sit a spell ou the hind bench. It is their turn And the back bench is a fine place to learn on. Folks who sit there long enough are sometimes called to go higher. OUR States, Oregon, Michigan, Arizona and Kansas, went for woman suffrage. We congratulate the comicbook $.COl