Life — September 14, 1916 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

TWEEDLEDEE AND TWEEDLEDUM Alice: uation. One thinks of no one whom Mr. Wilson represents more faithfully than he does Judge Hughes. Senator Ollie James presented the nomination to Mr. Wilson on the porch of the New Jersey palace. Senator James has remarkable gifts of decora- tive language, but he is not so persua- sive as Mr. Wilson. Mr. James blows up the parts of speech as the balloon peddler blows up his rubber wares. You admire them and admit they are pretty, but doubt their lifting power. But there was a good deal of liit to what Mr, Wilson said, He talked, or read, half a page of newspaper type; not an excessive amount, but he said something in every line. He did not AND I MUST TAKE ONE OF THEM brag; boasting, he said, is always an empty business which pleases nobody but the boaster; but he felt obliged to admit that the Democratic administra- tion had done a magnificent job. And then he told about it in detail, and very well indeed, with excellent concentration and a fine savor of sin- cerity. He went over all the legislation of his first two years, and said in ef- fect that it hadn’t been beaten since the ten commandments. He went over his course in Mexico, avoiding unsav- ory details, and openly gave himself the glad hand as to purpose and object, though mistakes, he said, he had no doubt made “in this perplexing busi- ness.” He made no boast of having kept 443 the country out of the war in Europe, but expounded the principles that had guided the administration and insisted that they were sound, and had been faithfully followed. Nothing in his speech was more interesting than his expressed opinion that this was the last appearance of this country as a neutral in a world war. “ No nation,” he said, “can any longer remain neu- tral as against any wilful disturbance of the peace of the world. No nation stands wholly apart in interest when the life and interests of all nations are thrown into confusion and peril. The nations must unite in joint guarantees that whatever is done to disturb the whole world’s life must first be tested in the court of the whole world’s opinion.” Sad to say, he twice introduced the phrase “in the last analys Tt is get- ‘ting to be that professor-bred persons not get through their prayers with- out allusion to the last analysis. It has a sort of Judgment-Day attraction But no matter about that. It was a fine speech, and omitted to include Jo- sephus Daniels as a reason for keeping the Democrats in office. We knew be- fore that Mr. Wilson could make a good speech, but it is a relief all the same to read a speech accepting renom- ation that does not taste like clap- UR own affairs have been so live- ly, along of the strike threat, that the war in Europe has almost had to take care of itself. Nothing seems to have been neglected. Greece is follow- ing Roumania into the Allies’ fold, and the homing flight of Hohenzollerns and their tools from thrones that they don’t fit seems to have begun. On all the fronts now the goes on like a twenty-four hour boiler factory. Sanguine people say the end is in sight, but even they do not say it is near. But at least, the end of the year is likely to sce great changes in the lines. work comicbooks.com