Life — August 26, 1915 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

SSS ALL THE WORLD the Mexicans has always been some- what of a mystery. Mr. Fuller seems a great deal better, and that is lucky, for really it is about time that our best foot should be put forward in Mexico. THE Plattsburg training camp has much exceeded expectations. It has been overrun with applicants of a high quality. If it did nothing else, it would be worth its keep as an adver- tisement of the need and possibility of military training. It has attracted thir- teen hundred recruits, including a large Proportion of stylish or otherwise dis- tinguished and husky young men whose names the newspaper-reading public knows and feels an interest in HATES A HATER their proceedings. They are men ex- cellently qualified to set an example. An example is useful in proportion as it is known. The example set by the Plattsburg war students is compara- ble in its reach to that set by the Rough Riders in the Spanish War. It helps to make military training the fashion, and that is a real help to the country. That such lively politicians as Mayor Mitchel and Collector Malone should betake themselves to Plattsburg means a good deal. It suggests that active young men with leadership in them see in the camp an opportunity they ought not to miss. Probably the camp is pretty good fun. The company is excellent, and in having fun good company is the biggest factor. The work is hard— about as hard, apparently, as training for football, but it is interesting, and the papers say the progress made in military knowledge by the neophytes is marvelous. 375 In June people were saying: “How flat that training-camp proposal has fallen! Nothing will be done till Con- gress votes money and the government takes hold. But it did not fall flat. Something has been done without waiting for an appropriation. An effectual appeal was made, and the appealers kept at it till they got an effectual response. Give them credit for their efforts; they deserve it. WALKER be pro- want a M* JOHN BRISBEN may or may not German, but he seems to made-in-Germany peace. As prospec- tive chairman of the Friends of Peace, to be held next month in Chi- cago, he has written to the Times proclaiming that “if there ever was a time when it was necessary to awaken the (American) people to the dangers of militarism it is now.” Very true. German militarism threat- ens civilization, and it is high time that even outlying nations like us should provide means of protection against it. But that is not Mr. Walker’s view. He seems to have no eyes for what is going on in the world. He talks, in- deed, about “the frightful fate of Europe, where people have allowed militarism to get the upper hand,” but what he sees here is only people who look for an immense profit in selling us battleships and powder and the con- trol of the expression of public opinion by sinister business interests. Mr. Walker is for treating a whole- sale situation with retail methods. He is right in saying that ninety-five per cent of our people are opposed to militarism, but he is wrong in suppos- ing that they don’t hate it badly enough to fight it on occasion, or that they object to being in possession of the means to fight. To be the soft spot in a hard world is an overrated con- dition, Tf Mr. Walker does not think so, let him ask China. comicbooks.com