Life — December 31, 1914 — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

Mettow as MOONLIGHT WHISKY We do not claim to be exclusive in our desire to produce extraordinary whisky —but somehow results seem to have credited us with that exclusiveness. riginal Bottling Has Old Gold Lobel GEO. A. DICKEL & C Distillers NASHVILLE. TENN WHERE LOVE IS (By Angus MacDonall) A reproduction of this picture in full color, show- ing the vivid golden light effect of the desert. and measuring 15 by 10 inches on paper 21 by 16 inches in size, will be sent on each yearly subscription en- tered before April 1, 1915. A subscription to Lire is the best possible gift, whether to yourself or some one else—a copy of Lire every week, fifty-two copies a year, and this picture, all for the regular subscription price.* "Subscription, $5.00 Canadian, $5.52 Foreign, $6.04 LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 17 West 31st Street, New York Thoughts on Politics (Continued from page 1210.) Not that all men have an extreme rigidity of impression, but that men of character and force usually come to have one point of view apiece, acquired and developed out of their y bent, modified by experience, and-held with minor adaptation to the end. In this country when a man turns up whose point of view seems timely, and advertises it with due energy, he is quite apt to be a candidate for President. If he is elected and turns out well, and his point of view keeps up with the date, he gets another four-year term. Otherwise we dump him gently out and replace him with some other patriot whose errors have seemed to the voters to be safer and more attractive. N autocracy like Germany has not this great safe- guard. Its Kaiser has a life job, and if he under- takes to be leader and is a man of character and energy, there is no escape from the control of his ideas and his point of vi unless his motor-car runs into a tree or something brings on a revolution. But if the leader is a selected official, appointed because he has demonstrated his capacity for leadership, he can be discharged when he begins to get out of date and replaced by somebody whose views seem more timely. No doubt it was the German consciousness that no merely human leader is able to be right long at a time that has made the Germans so hospitable to the theory that in their business of government the Hohenzollern family are under the special direction of the Almighty. ‘They have felt that their Kaiser, as their Kaiser, had an preciable allowance of inspiration, and that “Gott” be- ing with him, and with the Germans in general, would sce to it that the Kaiser got a good steer and did not get the faithful German pcople in wrong. This belief has heen accepted both by the Kaiser and his people with an affecting sincerity. It is part of their religion, and in it rests much of their strength, If they had had a bad Kaiser it might have gone by the board years ago—though it sur- vived some very depressing Prussian kings. But as it is, it has lasted finely with William up to ne Tf the under- pinning is now to be knocked out of it, it will jar the ans extremely, ND that seems to be what is going to happen. We republicans believe that the German idea is hope- lessly out of date, and that the Almighty no longer pur- poses to govern the world through ruling families like the Stuarts, the Bourbons, the Hapsburgs, the Romanoffs and the Hohenzollerns. We believe considerably in good gov- ernment by leaders—which, indeed, are indispensable—but we no more believe in permanent leaders than in perma- ‘nent rubber tires. When our leader gets a puncture or seems to be wearing thin, we get out a new one. Re- sponsibility for what happens to us we take, upon ourselves, not that we are unduly confident of escaping calamities, but because when calamities come we have to bear them anyhow, and no intervening responsibility is going to make them any lighter. E. S. Martin. comicbooks.com