Life, 1913-12-11 · page 19 of 40
Life — December 11, 1913 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This 1912 *Life* magazine page critiques former President Theodore Roosevelt's potential third-term candidacy. The cartoon depicts "The Grand Old Liberals" as a caricatured Mexican figure (invoking Roosevelt's imperialist interventions), sarcastically titled "Sweet Land of Liberty." The article argues against Roosevelt's claim that a former two-term president stands as "any other private citizen." The satire emphasizes that Roosevelt retained unique power, devoted followers (called "the Chief"), and political machinery unavailable to ordinary citizens—undermining his candidacy's legitimacy. The second section attacks Governor Metcalfe's challenge to Colonel Goethals's Panama Canal administration, noting Metcalfe's ties to William Jennings Bryan's *The Commoner* newspaper. The implication: Metcalfe should stick to publishing rather than interfering with Goethals's canal expertise. The satire defends institutional tradition (third-term prohibition) and expert competence against political opportunism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE GRAND OLD LIBERALS “ SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY” is he right in thinking it counts for nothing except as it applies to a third consecutive term? To our mind, there is plenty to say against that conclusion. The tradition protects us not only against the too protracted use of the great federal office-holding machine by a President in the interest of his own candidacy, but against the habit of power, and possible mental changes bred by that habit in the man himself. One may respectfully dissent from the Colonel's assertion that a man who has had two terms as President “ stands precisely in the position of any other private citizen”. We don't think so. He has probably had a much larger advertisement than any other private citizen. As a Presidential candidate he is n re of a certainty and less of a specu- lation than any other citizen, and has. probably, more habitual and fast-bound retainers and promoters than any other private citizen, The group of who wanted Grant for the third term knew precisely what they wanted and what they would get. So with the men men 1071 who wanted the Colonel that third time. They were not supporting an ideality as the Democrats were wanted Wilson. They were trying to bring back a demonstrated political fact. Did the Colonel, after he had left office, ever regain “ the position of any other private citizen”? Did he ever flow back into the main stream? Was he ever by the general who reabsorbed mass? Not for a minute. He was a man apart, known to hundreds of tried supporters as “the Chief", and with far more personal followers than ever went it blind after any Stuart Is it true, then, that as a candidate he was the same as if he had never been President? Is it true, then, that there is no ob- jection to a third term if it is not con- secutive? Is it not true, rather, that the tradi- tion against a third term is based con- siderably on distrust of the power that may develop psychologically in a man who wields for a long time the im- mense authority of the Presidential office, and of his influence on those who have shared his power and his rors? THE papers, especially Mr. Hearst's morning paper, have reports about the activity of Governor Metcalfe in Panama, and of a plan he has and hopes to carry through, for the ad- ministration of the Canal by a com- mission, which differs from and op- poses the plan of Colonel Goethals. We understand that Governor Met- calfe the publisher of Mr. Bryan's paper, The Commoner. No doubt he knows about publishing weekly papers, and we would feel easier in mind if he were back in Nebraska attending use- fully to his late duties there. For the impression is very strong in the public mind, of which mind is a part, that Colonel Goethals understands the needs of the Canal which he has fathered, and is the most competent mind to plan to meet them.