Life — August 18, 1921 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

AUGUST 18, 1921 London Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., RESI- DENT HARDING made quite a good speech at Plymouth; a much better one than he would have ventured to make last summer. He admitted that a good deal is going on in this world, and ad- mitted it with a pious mind that did not pretend to know precisely what was up, but had confidence that the world was under higher direction than that of even the Republican Party. Of the Plymouth settlement he concurred -in the view that the hand of man alone did not build what was founded there, and though we might speculate and conjecture and try to ac- count for such results as have followed it, at last we had to recognize that they are too many for us to explain. He went on to speak of the English speaking races as exponents of liberal in- stitutions with an errand to carry them out into the world. What was begun at Plymouth, he said, went on in Europe, America, Africa and Australia, and helps us now to look to the future with con- fidence. There is no retracing, he said; we must go on; and then, recalling per- haps that the pulpit he occupied was in Dr. Lodge’s diocese, he cited the Pilgrims as our example against the supreme cen- tralization of power at home, and the superstate for the world. Besides that, he warned us that we must fight the danger in the growing assumption that the State must support the people, the warning coming with good grace from him after his recent achievements in as- sisting Congress to sidestep the Bonus bill and the Norris bill, and give the struggling taxpayers a fighting chance to live. Is it going to be that we shall count in Mr. Harding among the idealists? It sounds like Saul among the prophets, but “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 598 Madison Avenue, New York he seems to have it in him. He spoke at Plymouth like a forward-looking man; like something better, much better, than a mere politician practicing to hold to- gether his party. Moreover, he feels that the outlook is promising, and it is. The Irish horror is mending. The pros- pect of highly useful results from the disarmament conference in November is good. Back of these efforts towards understanding and pacification is the steady pressure of the facts of current life, terrific taxation, halting business, in all countries more or less physical dis- comfort and in some countries starva- tion. If the world was comfortable and happy the disarmament program might fail. The expectation of success for it is based on must. eourishment ‘we pray !!? HE immediate job that cries out loudest to be accomplished is the rescue of Russia. There, too, the pros- pect of improvement is based on the ex- treme distress of present conditions. What was excessively bad before has be- come intensified by the destruction of crops by drought and the resulting mor- tality from famine and disease. It is a curious thing that Europe, already sorely distressed by the results of the war, should be pinched still more this sum- mer by droughts. In all countries that means an increased pressure for agree- ment and co-operation. In Russia it means the rising of the peasants. It looks as though the Bolsheviki were about to give up. Hoover seems all ready to fight the devil in Russia with food. It is a much more practical method in that coun- try than fighting him with fire. It has never seemed doubtful that Russia in the end would come to better conditions and a better civilization than she ever had, VOL. 78 London, E. C. It has only been a question of how long it would be before the change fur the better would begin. It may be ther now the beginning has come. now R. CURRAN has got the nomina- tion of the Coalition Committee as the Fusion candidate for Mayor, and that is first-rate as far as it goes. It does not necessarily beat Hylan, but it is a good first step. More independents, detached from politics in local matters, seem to want Curran than could be lined up for anybody else. The World calls him “Mayor-size, fully qualified by ability, by character, by training, by ex- perience and by knowledge of city atfairs for the office,” and says he has been right en every issue of municipal government which has entered into the campaign. He needs still to be accepted by the Re- publicans at the Primaries as their can- didate, and if they unite on him against various interlopers, the prospect of beat- ing Hylan will be pretty good. But Hylan will not be easily besten. He is a better Mayor than he was when he started; he knows more, not yet enough, but more than he did. T uid seem that a very proper pre- liminary in electing a new Mayor of New York would be to double the sal- ary of that office. At present it is fifreen thousand dollars. It might very wel! be thirty thousand and if the employment was paid in proportion to its importance, it would be much more. The Mayor of New York ought not to be bothered about money for his personal expendi- tures. He has plenty else to think about. And yet one never can be sure about comicbooks.com