Life — September 28, 1922 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

SEPTEMBER 23, 1922. “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY Vol. 80. 2082 London Offices, Rolls Hcuse, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. HEN it is a matter of sto- ries our debt is greater to Kipling than to any other writer of our time. He is a beautiful story teller, and a highly compe- tent poet of a certain kind—the most read poet of his generation, and the best remembered. But when it comes to politics one holds Mr. Kipling in affectionate d regard, for in politics he is a back- ward-looker. If he really said what Mrs. Sheridan said he did about the United States in the war, it was a grand thing for him to get all that trash off his chest, and a good thing even to have it get into print, be- cause such opinions as he expressed are quite prevalent in England and France, and to put them up where they could be examined was a useful service. But nobody really knows what Mr. Kipling said to Mrs. Sheridan. All that can be said is that she seems to have seen him, and that the senti- ments she imputes to him are such as one would expect him to hold. We believe he does not like the Yankees nor the way things are going in the world, and it is quite natural that he should make one of his dislikes re- sponsible for the other one. But he has said to the London Times: “I did not give the Clare Sheridan interview, and did not say the things that have been ascribed to me.” That is the only utterance that at this writing has come from him that seems trustworthy. One may understand it to mean that he did not consciously talk for publication, and that what he did say was not truthful- ly reported. The World’s big head- line—“America’s War Record Im- peached by Kipling in Talk to the Vorld,” does not seem to match the 598 Madison Avenue, New York facts. The lWorld’s part in the inter- view seems to have been the part not of a principal, but of an cavesdropper. The story that the United States, or Mr. Wilson, compelled the closing of the war before the Allies had gone to Berlin, and thus spoilt everything, is not new. One heard the same story last spring in Paris. Now it has been posted up where it can be read and corrected. Everybody has been told in leaded type that it was not the United States that insisted on the armistice, but the British and the French armies speaking through Foch and Haig. Pershing, it seems, was not for it-—apparently he would have preferred to go on to Berlin, but Foch opposed the loss of any lives that could be saved. He was for ending the war just as soon as it was won, and he had his way, which was the right way. That is the most important error that has been corrected because of the Kipling interview. The rest that he said is no matter. Indeed it is true that we have not saved our national soul. We did a wonderful stroke in that direction when we got into the war, and we stayed hard on the job for a couple of years, but there have been no national souls saved since the armistice, and our national salvation seems distant. Cue—— the yanks are comin; S to the money that Europe owes us, it will be in due time dis- covered that the eagerness of the United States for the payment of that money is very moderate, but that there is a strong desire that those debts shall contribute in some way to establish peace in the world. We have not yet done our part about that. We are a very slow-moving political ani- mal and seem now to be waiting for events to abate the curse of jealous nationalities in Europe and constrain the fabrication of a United States in that continent. That is a slow job, and waiting for it is tedious. But will Mr. Kipling and others like him please note that we are not at this moment particularly pleased with ourselves; not so happy as is supposed, in spite of having so much gold in our banks that is not needed there, and should be working some- where to help the world. Dr. Frank Crane, who is one of declared the other day that “the spirit of materi: ism,’ reaction, graft and_ isolation dominates the United States,” which is as hard a saying as any credited to Mr. Kipling, and has the advantage of looking true. I may be recalled that Mr. Baker was Secretary of War during the late hostilities. It was always the open season to assail him while he continued in office, and that anyone should be brought to book for dis- paraging him makes even now {for astonishment. But the Encyclopx Britannica is scolded by the World merely for saying such things as that Mr. Baker as Secretary “was widely condemned throughout the United States as lacking in energy, fores' and ability. So he was. When life seemed tedious the popular remedy was to throw a tomato, a bad egg, or anything handy, at Mr. Baker. And here now is the I!orld protesting that the editor of the Encyclopedia men- tioned must not do it, and calling a long list of distinguished citizens to witness that the Encyclopedia article misrepresents him. Verily the Demo- crats are looking up. Presently they will be saying that the Democratic Administration fought the war well. And it did. E.S. M. comicbooks.com