Life — August 29, 1918 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

AUGUST 29, 1918 “While there is Life there's Hope" No, 1870 Published by LIFE 17 West PUBLISHING A, Minter, Se Thirty-first COMPANY 'y and Treas, Street, New York English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Blégs., London, E, C. HE fighting is slower, but, so far as we get news, it continues to be the kind of news that war- rants who feels in his hones that the German power is crumbling in trans- lating that feeling into an opinion. People who feel that it is not for our good to be too hopeful about the must arrange to get dif- ferent lines of information printed in the papers. Officers reported to have landed here August 21st were quot- ed as believing that Germany would be done up by Christmas. Very naughty of them, but acceptable to optimists who have bets about the end of the war. The call for the new draft bill is based on the opinion that it is good economy to rush matters. General March thinks that with four million American troops on the western front the Allies can go through the German anyone war lines at will, so he is urging Congress to provide for having them there the soonest possible, which is next spring. That is the right spirit, and doubtless Congress will recognize its timeliness Then if the Germans choose to w; or can wait, to test General March's calculations, all right; and if not, so much the better, At present the Germans seem not to be happy. It is a sorrowful business to get over a drunk, and the Germans have been on a frightful spree, and evidently begin to realize that. they have got to sober up. Even in Russia their exhilaration is declining. The more evidence they give of abating powers in the West, the more the tide of opposition rises against them else- where, and the lower sinks the Ger- man heart at home. It is hard enough still to make any positive assertion about Russia, but current reports make out that the Bolsheviki are on the run. A few thousand Allied troops, includ- ing several regiments of Americans, have landed at Vladivostok, and more are operating about Archangel, and the Czecho-Slovaks are doing what they can in Siberia, and the Cossacks have rein- stituted discipline and are doing much better, and bands of armed peasants are threatening Petrograd, and evi- dently if Germany had armies to spare she could find use for them in pacify ing Russia. For Russia is no Belgium. It is not a German province yet, and not likely to be until Germany has more spare time and more spare troops than anyone can see in prospect. UR President has gone to the north shore of Massachusetts to play with Colonel House and get a little rest from himself and the rest of Washington. Perhaps also from the war, though the war tags around after one, even though he is President and has marines to stand off intruders. It is about as detachable as one’s skin, but, like one’s skin, becomes a habit, and is not necessarily uncomfortable. We all wish the great tribulation was over, but we shall miss it quite a bit when the papers get back to divorce and baseball, and the main topic of concern is no longer battles, but taxes. There is something to be said even for But it is good for all the change the north a sporting life. the President to get and the air of shore the company of Colonel House are both salubrious. We all (pretty much) want Mr. Wilson to last us through this present including the preliminaries of organ: ization that will follow it, and he the only top-hole purveyor of gove: ment who was in power four years ago who still holds his job undimin- ished in strength, authority and pres- Indeed, he has gained in he can, and war, tige. three. The Kaiser has held his job, and seems to have kept his health, but how much authority remains to him is not clear, and his prestige limps very badly He talks more than he used to, and gets much less attention, and the main interest in him now, outside of Ger- many, is expressed in curious specula tions as to what disposition will |) made of him when the final crash comes. The Czar is gone; the Austrian E peror is a new hand; the control ha changed in France and England, but Mr, Wilson, who seemed to have got pretty well through the heavy work of his first term when the Germans made the fatal break through Belgium, been so hard at the business of govern, ment ever since, and worked at it so successfully, that the question is not what will become of him, but what his mind will be as to the next treatment for the invalid world when, presently, it comes off the operating table. For the war he has pretty well done what a President can do, and has only to let existing machinery work its way out, but in the dishevelled world ¢ will emerge from the war he promises to be the most powerful arbiter of the destinies of nations, That is partly due to extraordinary circumstances which have made the United States the most disinterested large-scale partici- pant in the war, and partly to the de- velopment and advertisement of his own mind and character in the last four years. Our country will have a say—a very weighty say—as to the com- ing rearrangement of the world, and Mr. Wilson will be its chief spoke: man, <A general idea of what he will want may easily be gained by reading his recent speeches. He will want as much liberty and independence for na- tions, great and small, as is consistent comicbooks.com