Life — April 21, 1927 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

VOL, 89. 2320 “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 698 Madison Avenue, New York Cuantes Dana Greson, President R, E. Suerwoon, Editor F. D. Casey, Art Editor HINA continues to make a ” good deal of talk and American ma- rines continue to be gathered from home stations and shipped out to that country. Troops! and also war- ships of the United States continue to flit in that direction. That seems all a part of reason- able precaution. Some boats and guns we had in China the other day were very useful in getting Amer- icans and other foreigners out of Nanking. We should have as large a force available for shore duty in various ports of China as will be useful to the accomplishment of the purposes that our Government has in mind—the protection of the lives and properties of Americans and other foreigners and any friendly service it may secm possible to do the Chinese, even to the point of killing at a pinch a few of them that look like bad ones. Our attitude is that of parties with life preservers ready to throw over to prevent submersion of persons in deep water. It seems the British want us to go in with them in some pol that savor more of strong-arm methods than our representatives like. Mr. Coolidge and the State Department seem to be holding off from commit- ments of that nature, and aiming at an American policy in China which shall not be too much mixed up with the policies of other nations. That is reasonable, for the relations of our country with China have not been like those of any other country. Meanwhile, there is a lot of reading on this subject in the papers every day and radical differences of Cram Maxwett, Vice-President Lanononne Ginson, Secretary and Treasurer opinion by people on the ground as to what should be done. An Amer- ican medical missionary, Dr. Hutch- eson, says that a group of pacifist missionaries stood in with the Bol- shevists and begged the American Government to take the American vessels out of the treaty ports. It was not done and Dr. Hutcheson’s opinion is that that is why so many Americans got out of Nanking alive. One may conclude that so far our Government has been doing all right. Even that conclusion is subject to revision on further information but it looks true now. Beyond that all conclusions seem premature. Among other observers of the Eastern situa- tion is the Pope and to him, we are told, it looks rather good. He secs going on in China a vast conflict be- en the old civilization and the He sees the details of that conflict “exactly comparable to the chaos in Europe when the old Roman Empire broke up under the on- slaught of the barbarians to make y for Christianity which swept the Western World.” The Pope is an extra-good historian, and he sees in the rival generals in China a repeti- tion of what happened when the Roman Empire was passing out. Out of China’s afflictions he sees coming a great wave of Christianity sweep- ing the East. ~ fi ENRY FORD is better and at this writing the papers say he will be well enough to testify in the Sapiro suit. They also say that he has shut out the general public from the grocery and supply stores that he started for his employees. His conclusion that the accident that he met with had better be regarded as an accident and not as an assault with intent to kill is probably judi- cious, as is also his other conclusion that it is best to go slow about put- ting too many shopkeepers out of business by underselling them. A good many things in themselves de- sirable have to wait until the time is ripe for them to happen. If done before that time comes they are too upsetting to the existing order. Is there anybody now living more important to contemporary life than Henry Ford? His billion dollars does not make him so important ex- cept as it is combined with his s gularly lively and unterrified mind. 175,000 seems rather too much for Young-John Rockefeller to have invested in the effort to put Prohi- bition in the Constitution of the United States. To be sure, it is not a large sum for him to have invested in any cause he thought was good, but wasn’t it too much to invest in helping the movement to make the people of the United States sub- servient to minorities with paid lead- ers, for that is the description given by an experienced observer for some- thing that has been going on in this country to the prejudice of sound politics ? A minority with paid leaders put over Prohibition, and Mr. Rocke- feller, Jr., seems to have been the largest contributor to its pay roll. As a conscientious and thoroughly well-intentioned man he may live to be regretful of his concurrence in this particular movement, though in any case he may think it was worth trying out. HICAGO has had an election for Mayor. Reduced to its simplest terms the case as seen from the out- side is that Dever, who has been a good mayor, has been beaten by a substantial majority by Thompson, who was mayor before him and a very bad one. The main reason given is that Dever was for enforcing the Volstead Act and Thompson fs against it. Prohibition comes high. E. S. Martin. comicbooks.com