Life — February 1, 1917 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

“Ee As You Like It Comments on matters that concern Lire are always wel- comed from our readers. But it should be understood that space can be given only to letters of brevity. Not Entirely Suited EAR LIFE: For God’s sake stop the dreadful piffle that Mr. Martin is writing on your editorial page each week! You are missing the opportunity of the century to stand for straight, clean, generous Americanism, instead of cackling approval of Woodrow Wilson's deadly opportunism. A President who keeps incompetents in high office; a man who impassively asks someone, please, to tell him what the war is about; a citizen of the United States who loves liberty and democracy so little that he treats Germany as tenderly as France, and Austria and Turkey more fore- bearingly than England. And you let Mr. Martin sing his little song of praise each week, instead of turning upon Mr. Wilson the touchstone of truth and showing to America her folly, her blindness and the weakness of her response to great events. Please, please, turn off the flowing tap of Mr. Martin's indiscriminating Wilson worship, and tell us the truth! CH. Washington, D. C., January 3, 1917. Some Notes in a Paean OODS HUTCHINSON, M.D.—The World’s Most Famous Writer on Medical Subjects” (we quote Mr. Hearst’s American)—allows himself about a column of rhapsody in the said American’s editorial page because, he says, the Harvard Union has gone dry by a vote of about two to one. “Bacchus No Longer Among Immortals” is his headline. “This vote at Harvard,” he says, “admits of no explanation or evasion.” But has the Harvard Union ever been anything but dry, and can it be anything else so long as it is controlled by Harvard College and Cambridge is no-license? Heaven knows what the young gentlemen have voted, but one reads in the papers that the Harvard Union is not successful as a club of volun- tary members and that the expedi- ency of making it compulsory is being considered. Alcohol is sociable. It in- creases talk. If it is abolished a lot of clubs will shut up shop. EROME: popular Hawaiian melodies were adapted from old Methodist hymns. What do you think of that? Dasuex: I'm in favor of giv- ing the Hawaiians an opportunity To a Canary RAIL little thing, in your golden barred gaol, Stared at and ogled and toyed with each day, As blithely you sing A rapture of Spring, Does never a longing your spirit assail To break through your prison and flutter away, . Frail little thing? Do you not dream of your gay feathered kind? Of flower-decked dales, of sheltering green leaf? A sweet, limpid stream Where joy reigns supreme, The freedom of wings and a kiss of the wind? Has your carolling spirit never known grief? Do you not dream? Wee trilling thing, your bright plumage, your voice Have changed your wild world to a small, stuffy cage, Where henceforth you'll swing. Then how can you sing While artless tramp sparrows forever rejoice In freedom and sunlight and airy rampage, Wee trilling thing? Resigned to your fate, oh, philosopher wise, You accept with sweet grace what the kind gods bestow, You never prate Of discord and hate, Sage that you are! Ere my narrow life flies Warble your secret that I, too, may grow Resigned to my fate! Andrew Ensign. to adapt the rest of the Methodist religion. “THE WORK OF PRODUCING AN EPIDEMIC MUST BE ENORMOUS, DOCTOR.” “YES, IN ADDITION TO THE AID THE NEWSPAPERS GIVE US, WE AIM TO SUPPLY EACH CHILD WITH A TON OF THREATENING LITERATURE.” comicbooks.com ica