Life — March 25, 1920 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

MARCH 25 1920 ‘* While there ts Life there's Hope" No. 1951 Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY Eowaro S. Matty, President Tuowas L. Masson, Secretary James S. Mercatre, Treasurer Le Roy Mitrer, Assistant Treasurer 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York English Office, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. OPLE are going to Eu- rope again. Steamers run and apparently now make comfortable pro- vision for passengers, and the passengers are forthcoming. They do not say as of yore that they are going “to have a good time,” but they seem to be out for recreation and enter- tainment very much as hereto- fore. Parents are going over “to see where Jimmy fought in the war.” Other inquirers are going be- cause it is six years since they have been, and a good deal happened over there, and they wish to see the pieces of Europe before they are all dug in. Undoubtedly the said pieces will be interesting to examine, and Americans rich cnough to inspect them will see a good show. Maybe it will do them good, and doubtless the money they carry over will do Europe good. Ap- parently a good deal of money will pass over, for the tourist migration promises to be large. And perhaps it will do good in an- other way, by reminding folks here who need such a reminder that there has been a war. There is a new book cut by Philip Gibbs, called “Now It Can Be Told,” and, as described by a reviewer in the Times, it seems a very proper book for all tourists to carry with them, In it the reviewer says Mr. Gibbs has put what he had to leave out of the long stream of dis: patches he sent to the newspapers while the war was going on. He went through with it from beginning to end, and seems to have formed a very low opinion of modern war and strong ob- jection to a recurrence of Indeed, the reviewer says the final purpose of the vook is a passionate disclosure “ of the purpose for which men died, and of the manner in which politicians, blind to the smouldering indignation in the hearts of nations, are returning to their dirty corner games.” That sounds about right, and it must be a proper book for tourists to take along, and if enough of them go, and besides disbursing acceptable money in Europe, refresh their impressions about the war and the kind of a war it was, and come back with a sense that something has really happened to the world, their travels may be consider- ably fruitful of good. Anyhow, it is comforting to have some travelers traveling again at their own cost. S to the blind politicians and their “dirty corner games” they are strange phenomena. The trouble with them is that they are trying to live, and incidentally to make a living, in a world that has passed away. Consider Sena- tor Lodge and the scandal of his un- interment! Consider most of the pres- idential candidates and most of their more zealous backers!) What a very small proportion of them have any real sense of what has happened! What a very large proportion of them are still living in the irretrievable past and planning the details of a state of things that belongs to it! Perhaps it’s lucky in a way that it is so, because the mechanisms of life have not changed much yet and there must be people to tend them and keep them going. They may not change violently at all. Passing from one era to an- other does not necessarily involve wholesale demolition of material fixtures. They will last, slowly chang- ing and perhaps improving, as long as enough people are enough pleased with them and enough pleased with the life to which they minister, to protect them and keep them going. And seeing the apparatus of life remain apparently stable, and having rolls and coffee aid boiled eggs for breakfast about as usual, a great many people are fooled into thinking that not much has hap- pened to their world, except H. C. L, and the income tax. There must be farmers and crops and railroads « houses and motor cars and gaso! and there must be people to attend to all those things, and in a presidential year there must be delegates and con ventions and candidates and politicians to think about them, All this stability of mechanisms induces an appearance ot just-as-usual, and most of the poli- ticians are fooled by it, and think of candidates as they used to, and con- sider what states they can carry, maybe But election is seven months ahead, and something will happen and much will be seid in every week of that time, and the man who will carry states in November is likely to be the one who gives best evidence of knowing what has happened to the world. That is why so many people have turned away from all the politicians to Hoover. Alone of all the candidates, unless one should except McAdoo, he knows what has happened to the world and has fairly precise ideas of what should be done about it. HE world doesn’t think it needs politicians or any more corner games. It needs a doctor, and one who can change the treatment. The Uni States is part of the world. A cc siderable group of senators are very loath to think so, and combat every- thing that implies acceptance of that assertion, but it is really so, and the only way to make the United States safe and comfortable is to get in with a real punch and help to make the rest comicbooks.com