Life — August 3, 1916 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

SPOILING HIS SUIT dent to wait and see, but as to her be- ing the greatest power in Europe, which Dr, Rauschenbusch thinks so evil a prospect, surely it is better, at least, that the dominant power of the Continent of Europe should be one that has already a sufficient estate than one that must incessantly conspire to rob its neighbors. After Germany’s opening exhibition in Belgium and Northern France it takes some assurance for a pro-Ger- man to speak of “ Russian tyranny and cruelty.” The Cossacks were cruel in East Prussia; the Russian bureaucracy has been cruel; but the Russian people are not by nature cruel. What they will be in another generation on would like to live to see. Dr. Rauschen- busch argues that success in the war will strengthen the Romanoffs and Russian autocracy, but that conclusion will not be generally accepted. It is the Russian people—democracy in Russia—that has made such wonderful Progress in the last year, and made ob- servers feel that there is but one coun- try on earth, if any, in which the prospects for human life are better than in Russia. It will be impossible to get up any effectual fright about Russian domina- tion until the fear of German domina- tion is thoroughly allayed, and it will be impossible to excite fears of the consequences of the annihilation of Germany until there is some prospect of its happening. There is none at present. The Kaiser and the Prussian system may be licked: please heaven they will be: but that will not mean annihilation for Germany or anything like it. It will mean that the Germans will no longer be feared and can get up steam again and go ahead. ACOORDING to our reliable sport- ing contemporary, the Springfield Republican, the month of July, which opened with odds of two to one against Wilson, has seen them decline to six to five. The reason given is that the Progressives have split, and that Hughes will get by no means all of the Progressive vote. But what about the Roman Cath- olics? One reads an extract from the Guardian, a Roman Catholic paper de- 193 scribed as the official organ of Little Rock, which speaks of frequent prophecies that the whole ballot of its co-religionists “will be used to punish the President for his policy in- volving Catholic interests.” In read- ing “the publications which seek to form the public opinion of the Catholic hody,” the Guardian is “struck with the sameness of the sentiment that everywhere holds President Wilson up to scorn.” It fears imprudent action from the conventions of the great Catholic organizations in August, each of which, it says, “has a threat for President Wilson, either because of Mexico or because of the European turmoil." “God give our people sense,” says the Guardian, which is not pleased with what it thinks it sees, and prefers that Catholics should not join hands to beat a presidential can- didate. Most readers, we believe, ceive these intimations with surprise. Of course nobody is going to get the whole Catholic vote, but re- ligious considerations are going to in- fluence a larger proportion of the Roman Catholics in the coming elec tion than usual, of course it is inter- esting. But what is the matter? Carranza and the revolution generally in Mex- ico, no doubt, and (since most of our Catholics are Irish) some defect, per- haps, of mediation or interference with England in Irish affairs. Then there is a good deal of Irish anti-Eng- lish sympathy with Germany to reckon with, though the bulk of the Irish in this country, as elsewhere, are believed to be pro-Ally. What our Catholic brethren would gain, however, by turning out a Pres- byterian like Mr. Wilson to put in a Baptist like Mr. Hughes is something one would like to have expounded. Mr. Hughes’ advantage is that he has not had to do anything, so nobody is mad at him for what he has, or has not, done. If any Catholic whose usual political affiliations would incline him to vote for Mr. Wilson finds religious motives for voting this year for Mr. Hughe§, our machinery of election will enable him to vote that way, but whether it will be an advantage to Mr. Hughes to have the Catholic vote added to the German vote in his sup- port is a more complicated question. will re comicbooks.com