Life — July 6, 1916 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

JULY 6, 1916 J. A. Mircuete, Pres’t. ‘* While there ts Life there's Hope"" No. 1758 Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY A. Mitter, Sec'y and Treas. 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York English Officcs, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs, London, E. C. ind HERE has been a of intermission of po- litical discourse. The col- leges have been commenc- ing, and that has been a distraction. What was necessary to say about the political conven- tions has been said, and at this writing there have been as yet “*~ no new disclosures of political attitude. Mr. Hughes has been talking it over with the chiefs of his parties, arranging his summer, bestow- ing his presence at commencement on the delighted university that bore him, and otherwise preparing to get ready. Mr. Roosevelt has been thinking it over, repelling or soothing his more belligerent friends, and (rumor says) preparing the letter in which he is coming out for Hughes. Mr. Wilson has been working on his job, which is particularly steady company for him since the Mexican complication has been running so much to fireworks. eryone else who takes a human in- terest in human affairs watches the headlines in the papers to see the last guess about what has happened across the border. Civil War memories are revived in the minds of elderly people by the sight of regiments marching through the streets. Younger people recall the Spanish war, and parents of sons in the ranks wonder how much safer their offsprings are than the re- cruits of ‘o8 The calling ovt of the militia is disturbing both to business and to society. Youths leave their em- ployments right in the busy season; honeymoons are interrupted; engage- ments that were hanging fire come out * with bangs; weddings are rushed ahead while bridegrooms tarry. In spite of Carrizal, we cannot take our war prospects very seriously yet, but the mobilization of the militia is a fact and speaks for itself. The ar- mories are full of business; there are men in khaki always in sight. 'O see so many able-bodied young men diverted from their bread- winning labors is a shock to the thrifty, but one to which it seems high time that we all got used. Let us hope the sight is going to be distributed over the country as evenly as possible, so that the cities of the East may not be the only ones to benefit by it. But it is not possible to spread it out anything like as evenly as might be done in a country which had universal military service, When our Federal govern- ment calls on the militia to perform a national duty it has to take the neces- sary regiments where it can find them, from the states, that is, that have reg’ ments that are approximately fit to go. In the present case that means pre- dominantly the Atlantic seaboard states. And in those and all other states the militia includes not all the young men of a certain age, but only those who thought they had a military duty to the country and came forward to dis- charge it. So by our present system the burden of military service falls very unequally, It is sustained by the dutiful and neglected by the busy, the inconsiderate and the selfish. The more credit to those who bear but the system is not fair. It involves very serious hardships to some men who are called out, and lets off thousands who might much more reasonably go. The defense of the country should not rest on so inequitable a foundation as that. OWEVER, the present stir is an excellent thing for us, and will do more to show us where we are in mili- tary matters than months of discussion without action. All this activity stands for undiluted duty. There is not, in these parts at least, any disposition at all to have a war with Mexico. We do not wish to do that country anything but good, Americans in Mexico have suffered grievous things, but the num- ber of them is not large, and their suf- ferings have not stirred us to even as much wrath as we should have felt. We are more or less disgusted with the Mexicans, but we are not mad at them.” Whatever we have thought of the efficacy of Mr. Wilson's absent treatment for Mexico, most of us have sympathized with his intention to do her nothing but good. At Harvard's commencement Mr. Moorfield Storey said we were too big to fight Mexico, and ought to call in arbitrators. The trouble is the lack of a competent gov- ernment in Mexico with which to arbi- trate. There is no important question about which we disagree with the Car- ranza government, except a question of fact. Can it keep order in the northern provinces, and does it want to? Can it catch the raiders who in- yade our territory and kill our citizens, and does it want to? If not, we must do it ourselves, If Carranza and his forces had helped, it would have been done before now, and our troops with- drawn. There must be some power somewhere that can control Mexico and keep order there. The mobiliza- tion of the military forces of the 2 comicbooks.com