Life — May 4, 1916 — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

LEARNING HIS LESSON way? And would you have him say, “I am President only of the United States"! The great fault that is found with Mr. Wilson is that he has seemed too much to do that very thing ; seemed too scrupulously, too parochially neutral. When he spoke in the Sussex note of action “in behalf of humanity and the rights of neutral nations,” that was the line to take, and one from which no sound American would raise a finger to divert him, The nation, despotic king, or hier- archy, which substitutes its own selfish interests for humanity, shuts itself out from humanity, becomes in- human, revives and worships stand- ards of the Beast, and heads straight for perdition. So says Mr. William Roscoe Thayer, a fairly bitter critic sometimes of Presi- dent Wilson, but not a critic of his concern for humanity nor of the Sus- sex note, All that we can possibly do for hu- manity will be done for the best pos- sible good of the United States. If that is a tenet of the Celestials, we are with them on it down to the last letter. And the way to help humanity just now is to put a crimp in Germany’s barbaric warfare and to help by every means to save the world from the demoniac Kultur. All the decent people are agreed on that—Taft, Roosevelt, Marse 849 Henry, Dr. Eliot, Congressman Gard- ner—and Henry Ford will come in as soon as he understands. They differ more or less about details, but we shall all be together presently; Germany, demon-driven Germany, will see to that. FTER all there is something to be said for our system of govern- ment which gives great powers and a fixed term to a President. There are bad chances in it, but so there are in every system, and ours safeguards us from premature disturbances due to the popular whim. The British govern- ment is in constant danger of being upset, has had one or two upsets si the war began, and has just narrowly escaped another. Ours has had a posi- tive continuity of tenure, and is good for ten months more, no matter what happens. We have had to bear with its defects, and he patient while it went to school, and it may be that it will turn out to be greatly to out advanta and the world’s, that we had to. The opposition to the administration seems to have entered an area of de- pression. By so much as Mr. Wilson enlists the best sympathies of the coun- try the job of expelling him from na- tional leadership grows more difficult, and despondency ensues among per- sons committed to that endeavor. Our complicated difficulties in Mexico are not going as badly as the opposition has expected. There seems to be a fair possibility of working out the Mexican problem’ without a general war in that country. Mr. Bryan is out of the Cabinet; Mr. Daniels’ influence in Cabinet councils is probably unim- portant; General Funston and General Pershing seem to be getting firm sup- port and to be acting both with energy and discretion, and at this writing the Mexican situation is still fairly hopeful, The job for the moment is to pass proper bills for naval and military preparation. That duty must not miss accomplishment, no matter what is the immediate outlook in Mexico, nor what immediate details of conciliation Ger- many may yield. comicbooks.com