Life — December 19, 1912 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

“While there is Life there's Hope" Published by LIFE 17 West Thiny-frst Offices, Cannon House, HAT a. sin- gularly con- laminating — person Mr. Thomas Ryan seems to be! A Washington dispatch in the newspapers on the day of this writing explains that when Mr. Oscar Underwood dined with Mr. Ryan in New York three days before, along with Mr. Nel- son Aldrich of Rhode Island and Sen- ator Bailey, it was a “purely social affair,” and the story that a legislative programme was debated was ludicrous. Yes. No doubt they talked about horses and tight money and Mr. Mor- gan’s new objects of acquisition and the hobble-skirt fashion in women's clothes, and such innocent matters. Mr. Underwood would not make any explanation at all. Some political friends of his made it because they felt that the news that he had dined with Mr. Ryan needed a foot note. it is to be rather sorry for Mr. Ryan. Ladies and clergymen may dine with him without the slightest injury to their reputations, but politicians who accept his hospitalities have to go by the back way with their motor goggles on and their coat collars turned high up. And if they are caught at it, next one observes ihem walking towards the woods to bury their clothes, with a -driend along carrying an extra suit. ‘To chave Mr. Ryan's money traced to any one is like having that person's picture accepted for the rogue’s gal- lery. Mr. Jerome has never quite re- gained the place he had in public favor before it came out that he had matched fot drinks with-a coupl2 of Mr. Ryan's boys. It never transpired, that we know of, that he won, and thus got PUBLISHING COMPA: Street, New Vork reams Iildgs., London, F.. C. A. MILLER, Seey anit Treas, the usufruct of some of Mr. Ryan's gains, transmuted into alcohol and dis- tributed through a filial channel. The mere chance that he might have won was enough. The Roman Catholic Church can digest Mr. Ryan's money successfully, but that is a very robust organization and catholic in its acceptances as it should be, Mr. Ryan has built some beautiful and very costly churches, hoth in New York and Virginia. He does that mighty well, and we presume he gives very liberally to charities. That was a lovely act of charity he did when he put up three or four hun- dred thousand dollars of excellent money to provide decent obituary services and terminal facilities for the Democratic Parker campaign in 1904. It is to admire the large, unadvertised benevolence of that action. Mr. Ryan is a mighty good burier anyhow, and would have been grand in the under- taker business. Something like that must be the rea- son why the live politicians quake s at his shadow. They are not ready to be buried. They hear he is a planter _now, and they fear he plants folks. It can’t be that his money is so super- latively foul. Possibly he has been less tidious in self-help than he should have been. The Metropolitan Railroad stock profits are disapproved, to be sure, but there is lots of money about of quite as unfortunate a deri tion, and some worse, which does not carry with it the terrifying wraith of infection that Mr. Ryan’s money Coes. Maybe that’s because Mr. Ryan's hands are thought to be so strong and supple? He is credited with great abili- lies. a powerful mind, agreeable man- ners and ready benevolence as afore- said. No doubt he is very competent in many particulars, but in some im- portant particulars he must have been considerably to seek, else he would have managed to avoid, or dissipate, this sinister aura of popular distrust in which he lives enveloped. After all, the greatly successful men are those who work effectively and with leadership, in the same direction with the great forces which, first or last, must win. That seems not to have been Mr. Ryan's line. His suc- cess we take to have been no more than a diversion of a current from the main money stream into his private pond. That kind of achievement makes small eyes pop out, but in the long run it doesn’t come to so very much. The pond presently runs back into the main current, leaving mud behind, and on to the ocean,” HERE is plenty to talk about, but except for local agitations like that over the New Haven road, responsible and constructive discus- sion of public concerns has been post- poned until the new administration be- gins its labors. Meanwhile men won- der who will get the offices, and espe- cially who will be in. the cabinet. And especially they wonder about Mr. Bryan, and whether or not Mr. Wilson will have his assistance in running the job, and if so, whether or not, or how long, Mr. Wilson will be able to han- dle the assistance. Agreement is pretty general that Mr. Bryan is not really qualified by training or habit of mind for any of the great cabinet posts; that he could not properly do the work of any of them, and probably would not But that is not uncommonly true of cabinet officers, and need not stand in the way of his appointment to be. say, Sceretary of State, and a great many people think that Mr. Wilson would do wisely. on the whole, to offer him that office. Where people differ is in their esti- try. comicbookeorm