Life — March 17, 1927 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

MARCH 17, 1927 5 “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 598 Madison Avenue, New York Cuantes Dana Ginson, President R. E. Surrwoop, Editor F. D. Casey, Art Editor Me. LAZLO, the painter, has made a portrait of Pr es ide nt which, judg- ing from the reproduction of it in the newspapers, gives Mr. Lazlo’s idea of how Mr. Coolidge ought to look. He seems to have de-Yanked him, but Mr. Coolidge frankly disclosed as the Yankee that he is is more in- teresting, especially when one re- members that enormous majority by which he was elected to the office which he now fills. Congress having now adjourned, the feeling of the politicians is that the campaign for Mr. Coolidge’ 's suc- cessor has begun. It is still quite possible that he may succeed himself, especially if he finds it expedient to let out a few tucks between now and this time next year. Here in the East he has been warmly applauded for vetoing the Farmers Relief Bill. The applause is based on the opinion that the bill was unsound, unconsti- tutional and would not relieve the farmers. It was a bill to increase production, whereas what farming needs is restraint of production. “What the farmer needs is combina- tion and co-operation. Wherever co- operation has had intelligent people at its head it has worked, and the farmers have been self-sustaini The farmer would not be ss with an arbitrary basic price if it was not dependent on supply and demand. The men who claim to represent the farmers are represent- ing themselves.” So one hears in the name of an authority lately much respected. It does not look as though the farm bill was good enough to do Mr. Lanouorxe Ginson, Vice-President Secretary and Treasurer Coolidge any lasting damage, but rather that it was bad enough to make his veto of it do him appre- ciable good. Who else have the Republicans? Governor Lowden and the Hon. Charles Dawes. Oh, yes, and Dr. Butler! But Dr. Butler himself could hardly be elected and prob- ably does not want to be, but if he is as urgent as he seems for the re- tirement of Mr. Coolidge, he may have a candidate not yet disclosed. Meanwhile Alfred Smith seems to be gaining strength among the Dem- ocrats. Nobody else’s boom bulges much as yet, though a boomlet of Senator Reed of Missouri is tumes- cent enough to be talked about. Senator Reed is an earnest character, very like the little girl with the curl on her forehead. When he has chosen to be horrid he has done it unforgettably. However, so it was with Andrew Jackson, and at times Mr. Reed is very, very good. er se ae THE world just now seems to be full of people looking for some- thing or somebody to write a book about. The ordinary purpose to write a book has a pecuniary basis. Writers have to work at their trade. It is often the only one they have and the one by which they seek to earn wages when they need them. Particularly attractive just now is the job of gutter-sniping the Great and Good. It is not a new job, but it was rediscovered by Lytton Strachey, who made a great success of it in his portraits of Arnold, Man- ning and others and of Queen Vic- toria. He is the ablest gutter-sniper of the lot and his books have sold deservedly well. Not all our current biographers have this motive of detraction. Don Seitz in his books about Pulitzer and Greeley has something quite different in mind. So has Philip Guedalla in his story of Palmerston. But a re- cent biography of Washington seems to have been designed, if one may judge by the reviews of it, to muddy our first President so that he will not present too great a contrast to the ordinary Americans. That can be done to almost any one, so curious is the mixture of carnal and celestial materials in the human make-up. You get truth about human charac- ters in the Old Testament stories in the Bible and it makes very lively and interesting reading, but when the same thing is attempted in current biography the effect is disappointing. One reads of escapades of Sam- son or King David and says, Well; times are different now! And they are different certainly, but more in the particular of what is considered fit to print than in the facts of life. OMEBODY, stimulated by the noise made about the latest biog- raphy of Washington, has now under- taken to do General Grant. Every- body that knows anything about Grant knows that at one time in his life he was pretty drunken. It does not need to be set forth that he was a human being because he never seemed to be anything else. The remarkable thing about him is not that he was a faulty man but that he was so good; that he came back so strong =Ster such serious lapses, and developed in great matters a character of such strength and purity. He was a good soldier; not a good President, though there have been worse, but on the whole a very good man with a child- like simplicity of nature that was very engaging indeed. He lived in the midst of great corruptions and at times they spattered him more or less, but in himself there wasn’t any corruption and nobody need feel nervous for fear of disclosures to his damage. The remarkable thing about the gutter-snipers is the free advertising they get. A prospect of a bad smell seems attractive nowadays. E. S. Martin. comicbooks.com