Life — March 24, 1927 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

MARCH 24, 1927 VOL, 89. 2316 “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 598 Madison Avenue, New York Cuartes Dana Gieson, President R, E. Suerwoop, Editor Cc F. D. Casey, Art Editor {,OREIGN affairs are getting quite im- rua, Mexico, C| 3 especially a. The movement there to win back China for the Chinese is reasonable and proper to develop in the present stage of world politics. The United States ought to support it, but with intelligent understanding, for the movement ought to win in the end, and present problems are mainly concerned with the processes by which it works out. The interests of foreigners in China are important. They have grown up in the course of nearly a century, and to a large extent are legitimate. In protecting those in- terests the English, French and Japanese naturally want the moral support and military co-operation of the Americans. They ought to have it in so far as their attitude towards China matches the attitude of these States. They should certainly have it to protect life, probably to protect property, probably also in sitting tight just now, but they can hardly have it in final opposition to China’ nationalistic ideas. We need men in Washington to define our gen- eral policies for the benefit of our officers at Shanghai and elsewhere in China who will carry them out. We also need good independent judg- ment in our representatives in China as to what they shall do in emergency and how they shall do it. This is a big job that is going on in the East. Beginnings of it are plain enough, but the end of it is quite out of sight. When Admiral Beatty says the British Government will build all the cruisers it has planned for and wishes that the in Maxwett, Vice-President Laxononxe Ginsox, Secretary and Treasurer United States would build an equal number, his reason for that opinion is that any naval activity that can be forescen in the world will lie in the Whatever happens there, he her Chinese troubles or ‘ous difficulties, the United ates and Britain will be in accord. So he favors more cruisers. Mr. Coolidge docs not agree with him. The thought of spending a hundred million-dollars on warships is not acceptable to him, at least not yet. All the same Admiral Beatty's observations are interesting and ac- ceptable, and they match up hand- somely with the sentiment that now tops the editorial pages of the Hearst newspapers, which put at the head of their policies: “An agreement of the English-speaking peoples to pre- serve peace among themselves and promote peace of the world.” H OW far will either of these pur- poses be promoted by the United States Senate? It is not too much to say that if the peace of the world depends on the agreement of tke Senate to any policy, it is in a highly precarious state. That is not because of an undue preponderance of perversity among the Senators but because a minimum of perversity can control the Senate’s action. Just now the Senate is the most formidable skeleton in the closet of peace. For that reason it may be all for the best that it should have made such a holy show of itself in the concluding hours of the recent session, The mischief that a few in- considerate and irresponsible Sen- ators could do under the present, rules was disclosed with great em- phasis in that finish. The incon- venience and hardship due to the failure to pass the necess. priation bills will keep the Senate's defects in the people's minds for some time to come, and may help Vice-President Dawes to put through his plans of senatorial reformation, LOMO £ USTICE HOLMES’ picture is in the papers because he is cighty- six years old. But that is not very old for him. Age is a matter of fact rather than of arithmetic. Judge Holmes is pretty young. If a ian lives along a good while and k in active life, his advertisement k: growing. That is the case of Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. George Baker, Mr. Thomas Edison and plenty of others, and very much the case of Justice Holmes. It is not as though he merely went through the motions of living and of being a working mem- ber of the Supreme Court. The in- teresting thing about him is that he is such a moving member, and has so much punch and opinions so inter- esting for their forward-looking quality. There must have been quite an unusual provision of materials in the Holmes family to have furnished forth The Autocrat and now the Justice. The Justice is so notable that some observers and biographers of him find it in their day’s work to disparage The Autocrat a little by comparison. But no! the Doctor is an Immortal; true father to the Jus- tice in mind and spirit, but not de- pendent on that for his hold on the attention of posterity. There is a great deal in inheri- tance. Even the scientists admit it more than they used to. There is a young fellow at Yale named Prentice who is the grandson of John Rocke- feller. He is a good scholar and got into the Phi Beta Kappa. ‘The newspapers have all recorded il as though it was a Rockefeller triumph. He has another whim—that of work- ing his way through college. That may be the Rockefeller in him, but ps the Prentices have been scholars for generations and the young chap’s scholarship them. probably comes from E. S. Martin. comicbooks.com