Life — June 4, 1914 — page 24: 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 PUBLISHING COMPANY J. A. Mitcnett, Pres’t. A. Muucs, See'y and Treas, 17 West Thirty-frst Street, New York English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. ELCOME home to Colonel Roose- velt, a thinner man by several stone than when he went away, a man walking with a stick and limping a little, but a man alive and pretty hearty, all things considered, It seems he had a close call to going where even the millennial Progressives could not have pressed a nomination on him. He has known what it was to be deadly ill, and we have come very near losing the finest live curios- ity in our whole Museum of Natural History. But he seems well out of the woods, and no doubt will regain his old form in a month or two. He has now the advantage of a substantial curtain of intense memories between the present and all that happened be- tween the time of his return from Europe and the time of his departure for South America. Scen through the hazes of the Brazilian jungle and the recollections of river spills, fever, ab- scesses, delirium and starvation, all the politics of 1912 must seem dimmer and farther away. Perhaps the Colonel, having got by so small a mar- gin a new lease of life, will bring to it deportments and aspirations some- what chastened by critical experiences. He has a whole book of new emotions and thoughts in his head. Perhaps some of the old emotions and aspira- tions will be crowded out by the com- petition, More likely not, but, anyhow, we are all glad to see him back, and so well along on the way to restored health. And as to his river, of course he got a river and will prove property and put it on the map. A mighty insalu- brious river it seems to have been for the Colonel, and it will probably turn out to be not very healthy for his geographical critics, LONG of the later developments in the pacification of Mexico, and especially of the proposals under con- sideration by the mediators, our neigh- bor, the Evening Sun, observes: The Wilson Administration has definitely, if not yet publicly, adopted as its policy in Mexico the theory that only by taking property from those that possess it and distributing it among those who have nothing can order in Mexico be reestablished and prosperity assured. ~ Will the citizens of this great nation cheerfully give blood and lives that the forces ordinarily employed on the north of the Rio Grande to protect Property rights shall be used on the south to destroy them? It is doubtful that the citizens of this great nation will cheerfully give blood and lives for that purpose. It is still more doubtful if they will be asked to. There seems a fair prospect that they will get off without giving any more blood or lives for any Mexican purpose, but if there is to be an in- tervention, the outlook indicates that it will be more an intervention to save some property to its present owners than to distribute it to the peons. The distributor seems to be Villa, The prospect is promising that he, if let alone, will have power to indicate and compel whatever readjustment of Property rights seem to him necessary for the pacification and future welfare of Mexico, and that the part of our government will be to influence him in the direction of moderation. The people really to blame for the troubles in Mexico and our troubles concerning them are the Evening Sun’s friends, the Cientificos, who, first under Diaz and next in spite of the in- effectual resistance of Madero, have hogged everything of value in the land and left a great mass of people with- out property, or the hope of prop- erty, except as they might get it by fighting. “The Cientificos,” says Mr, Charles Flint, “ wanted too much. They didn’t know where to stop. They have killed the goose that laid the golden egg.” That is the general tes- timony. The worldly wise and able men of Mexico have shown themselves to be incurable over-reachers, without power of self-restraint, and without consideration or concern for the de- pendent masses of the people. It is they who are at the bottom of all the mischief. It is they who have made a public nuisance of Mexico. It is they who, by their limitless and conscienceless extortions, threaten the health and peace of the United States as Havana's yellow fever, another product of indolence and greed, threatened it sixteen years ago. Villa is not the disease in Mex- ico, He is the doctor. President Wil- son is not the disease; Mr. Bryan is not the disease. The disease is the Cientificos, who had most of the brains and education and nearly all the wealth and power, and used them to make life impossible for the peons. HAT we shall have to do, if we do anything, will probably be to pull Villa from the throats of the Cientificos. It is better that they should be taught than destroyed; bet- ter that they should disgorge than be disembowelled, This process of getting away from comichooks.com