Life — July 31, 1913 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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JULY 31, 1913 “While there is Life there’s Hope” No: 1605 Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY J. A. Mircuent, Pres’t. 17 West TI English Offices, Cannon [" offends a good deal of the survi g sense of /pro- priety in these States for the Secretary of State to go out lecturing for money on the Chautauqua circuit. But Mr Bryan thinks it’s all right. He says his salary doesn’t pay his expenses; that he has had to give up a good deal of private income to take office, and that he needs this money that he can pick up in lecturing to pay the Secre- tary of State’s bills. Well! There is complaint, but what of it? Who is the standard of taste in this country if not Mr. Bryan? If what he thinks is proper is proper, he has nothing to fear. If what he thinks is proper is not proper, it may be worth some trouble for him to discover it. Mr, Bryan is a good and gifted man, but not very teachable. It takes something in the nature of a road roller to connect a new impression with his mind. It cannot be a grief to him to run counter to the sense of propriety in most educated and con- ventional people, because he thinks, or supposes, that the ideas of such people on most subjects are wrong, and that his own ideas on those subjects are right, and that to substitute his own correct ideas on all subjects for pre- vailing erroneous and conventional ideas is just one way to cause righteousness to abound. One of Mr. Bryan's aims would naturally be to facilitate by his example the substi- tution of his own standards of deport- ment and behavior for the con- A. Miturs, Sec’y and Treas. ty-first Street, New York House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. ventional standards to which most orderly men submit. He seems to love to do that, and, for our part, we love to see him do it. He is a sublime man, and if his smooth top moving in the firmament pushes some of the old constellations about, what matter? Maybe they are not where they should be, anyhow. fe NYTHING that Mr. Bryan can pull off is all right for Mr. Bryan. And he is right about his salary not being sufficient for his proper expenses. Even though he saves a little money putting out grape juice when he ought to pour cham- pagne, twelve thousand dollars will not pay the expenses he ought by cus- tom to incur as Secretary of State. He should have a better house than he now has and one much nearer the White House. The Government should provide it, and should provide not less than twenty thousand dollars a r for Mrs. Bryan to spend in it. As it is, the Secretary of State, if he is poor, is in almost as bad a predica- ment as our ambassadors. Congress won't vote to pay his expenses. For that reason Mr. Bryan's reappearance on the lecture circuit has considerable value as an advertisement of the nig- gardliness of Congress in providing for proper expenditures, as contrasted with its lavishness in very improper expenditures. It is the shame of Con- gress that the Secretary of State should be sweating in July and August on the lecture platform. Mr. Bryan has not overmuch delicacy, but he has excellent business sense. He is right in thinking that no one will thank him for blowing in his own money on the expenses of his office, and he is just the man to induce Congress to protect the dignity of the Government by voting the Secretary of State a sub- stantial increase of pay. We have faith to believe that the diplomatic service, especially at the top, will be more comfortable for its inmates when Mr. Bryan gets through mussing it up. 9 Bt meanwhile he may have to miss some good houses and fees be- cause of the need of being in Wash- ington and going through the motions of attending to official business. Mexico is in a very bad way, and her condition gets worse and worse. Some of the experts consider that President Wilson should have recognized Huerta’s government, as most other important countries did. The fact that he did not recognize it has made it harder for Huerta to borrow enough money to keep his government going. Mexico now threatens to split into three parts. Her railroads have stopped running; her business stands still; her various rebels live by loot and _ prosper. Huerta cannot pay his troops and cannot put down rebellion. Various foreign powers have appealed to our Government to do something or else fold up the Monroe Doctrine and stand aside and let other interested parties do something to protect their interests. Our Government in March declined to recognize the Huerta gov- ernment until the Mexican people had ratified it by popular vote. That looked right, but the prospect of a popular vote big enough to count on any sub- ject in Mexico grows more and more slim. It is awkward. It looks as though we should have to do some- thing. For anything we do we will be pretty sure to be sorry, but we may comicbooks.com