Life — May 4, 1916 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

E PRB’ PRUDENCE We May Still Be Useful Sometime HE papers report that in Washington, on April roth, Dr. David Jayne Hill, lately Ambassador to Germany, treated the Navy League Convention to a vigorous de- nunciation of the policy (Mr. Wilson's) which has “ caused the complete loss of our former prestige as a nation” and made our government “ practically neglig.ble as an inter- national influence.” Bad, bad; but fairly useful Republican doctrine for im- mediate use. But will it last? Will it still be felt in June, in July, in November, in March of next year, that Amer- ican prestige is knocked on the head, and that our influence with the nations has evaporated? One can’t be sure about that. Most heads in Europe just now are hot; excusably hot; but one man who seems to keep pretty cool is Prince Albert of Monaco. He claims to be a neutral ruler, and though the Germans have seized and fined his chateau and estate in the north of France, he doesn’t mind that. For he is a rich prince with a princi- pality that includes a valuable gambling privilege, and, on the side, he is a scientist of distinction He doesn’t seem to think we are so bad. He is quoted as saying to a newspaper correspondent that “the only 839 chance for the survival and future civilization of Europe is the infusion of American blood into European peoples.” In that way he hopes to get American ideas into Europe. European peoples, he says, are the slaves of tradition. It is in their blood, resisting every tendency to change. They live, as it were, in a web of race prejudices and customs and ideas which only the adoption of the Amer- ican outlook can alter. If this change does not take place, and there should be three or four more wars in the mod- ern style, Europe will become a desert. No country has done more for the progress of humanity than America, and it is only by learning from America that there can ever be such a thing as a United States of Europe. That is an interesting idea, and to us poor, spiritless, berated creatures of course it is consoling. Possibly we are not yet without some potential value to the world. Pos- sibly, by staying alive and minding our job, and thinking hard and doing what existing conflicts of American opinion permit us to do, we may yet demonstrate that continuance of even our existence has been worth while. ELS. M. Old Adages Disproved Handsome is That Handsome Doesn't HE idea that handsome is that handsome docs has caused so much trouble ever since it was first sprung upon an unsuspecting world that it is high time it is disposed of. In the first place, if you are really handsome, especially if you happen to be a girl, you don't have to do anything clse. As a matter of fact, no beautiful girl ever does anything else. It isn’t necessary for her to cook or sew or even talk. All she has to do is to sit still and be loved, and the line usually forms on the right. If you do a thing, on the other hand, the mere fact that you have done it is supposed to insure your being hand- some. What nonsense! If you do the handsome thing it will never be regarded as handsome by the only people whose opinion is worth while, because with them doing the handsome is so usual that it becomes common- place. If you are homely nothing you do will be hand- some. To do a handsome thing, therefore, always start by being handsome. Then you won't have to do it. ate? nite STATE DON’T WASTE TIME READING THIS REBUS comicbooks.com