Life — February 9, 1922 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

FEBRUARY 9, 1922 “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY No. 2049 London Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. if N his speech of Janu- ary 21st, Lloyd George expressed some feelings that are preva- lent in the minds of good people. He said the need of Europe was peace and that above all other things he was for having it. He also said he was for putting off the ordinary party conflicts by which government goes on, until peace had been won and the world breught to a better case where it could stand more jolts than it can at present. There will be wide agreement with him in these desires. We all want peace in this world, and co-operation. Even in this country we are cold about partisan rivalries. Perhaps that was one reason why the recent election in New York went as it did. People could not be violently concerned about local matters because general matters, na- tional and international, were so much more important. Does anybody not an office-holder or an aspirant to office, care very much whether the Democrats or Republicans win the next election? Is there not, even here, a pretty broad sentiment that it does not greatly mat- ter who runs the country as long as it gets somewhere? We want leadership. We want accomplishment. We want to see duty done, our duty to the world and to our own people. We would be glad to see the most accomplished men from all parties working together as they did in the war to plan out what is necessary to do and do it. To a limited extent they do that very thing as it is. Mr. Harding’s admin- istration in itself is a sort of coalition government, a coalition of Republicans of diverse minds and purposes about concerns of the first importance such as the reconstruction of the world. The Democrats have a record of party sup- 598 Madison Avenue, New York port of the League of Nations, and the Republicans a record of having beaten it, but it is not really a matter on which there is a party division. Moreover, another coalition, the Agricultural Bloc, which looms up pretty large as a po- litical factor nowadays, is something outside of party politics, and may be- come useful in accomplishing some- thing good. If the farmers behind the Bloc should once realize that the main cause of bad prices for American agricultural produce is the lack of buy- ing power in Europe, and that the cure for that is not any increase of tariffs, but international co-operation, they might get behind such efforts as the Genoa economic conference to good purpose. Lloyd George’s praise of conferences where men meet face to face and get in contact with realities was much like a duck’s praise of water, but for all that it was very winning talk. Mr. Asquith and Lord Grey, in opposing him, seem to have come out for the old methods of diplomacy favored by the new Poin- caré control in France. But the facts of Europe are stronger than the party politicians and work harder and more continuously, and whatever happens will happen in accord with them. cheeild lorst! I analyzing, the other day, the birth statistics for the year in New York, Health Commissioner Copeland pointed out that the foreign-born mothers were having most of the babies, and also what is more remarkable, that the death rate for the young babies of native- born mothers was materially higher than for the babies of the foreign-born. This last’ statistic is not so familiar as the other. Dr. Copeland attributed it to the disinclination of the American- born mothers to make use of the baby health stations of the Health !epart- ment. Behind that disinclination is an American-born sentiment in favor of self-help and averse to public relief. In the case of the babies it does not seem to work well. Another thing that hurts the babies of native-born mothers in New York is that their fathers, as a rule, follow employments in which the rise of pay has not kept pace with the rise in the cost of living, whereas the pay of the wage-earners (so-called), who worked at rougher jobs, kept up right along with the cost of living, and went it and still goes it, some better. The Island of Manhattan is not a good place for a poor man’of the old American stock to raise a family, and judging from the statistical figures, he knows it and keeps out. For imported families Manhattan is not bad, it gives them schooling, medical serviec and various other expensive things For moderately well-to-do people oi any description it is a good cnougii family location with an excellent cli- mate, Commissioner Copeland was mort amusing than informing when, speak- ing of the district between Park an! Fifth avenues, where the birth rate is very low, he said it was typical taining well-to-do persons of Arericai birth. He did not point out, however that rents in that district are ‘righet than in most other residential « strict: in town and that very few young peo ple who are beginning to raise fam ilies can afford to live there. As a rule folks do not have houses in that dis trict until much later in life whe: their incomes have increased and al’ their children have been born and are grow: ing up. Evidently the great mission of New ecauise $ Com comicbooks.com