Love Licks.
The Saturday Evening Post says that “Max Ihmsen, Hearst’s chief political adviser, was once a theatrical advance agent.”
Was once?
When did he quit?
Judging from the way he managed Hearst’s New York campaign, he’s as much of what he once was as he ever was—if not more.
***
That brightest and best of newspapers, the Washington Post, suggests that some Frenchman snuff out the wretched little cad, libertine, and aristocratic brute, Boni Castellane.
Granting that the snuffing out suggestion is a good one, why should a Frenchman be asked to shoot the contemptible and loathsome creature?
The American lady whose money he squandered, whose jaws he slapped, and whose life he wrecked, has three able-bodied brothers—why should the Gould brothers wait for a Frenchman to take hold of the snuffing out job?
***
Joseph H. Choate, being asked to define the difference between Cleveland and Roosevelt, answered, “Mr. Cleveland is too lazy to hunt and Mr. Roosevelt is too restless to fish.”
But see what a happy middle-course Mr. Bryan takes. When too restless to fish, he hunts; and when too lazy to hunt, he catches fish. In other words, you never can put your eye on him when he isn’t after it.
***
The Moguls of High Finance have about worked out their plans for an elastic currency.
Their own notes are to be used as money, and the only thing back of the notes will be “the general credit of the Banks.”
How pleasant it is to witness the process by which national finance simplifies itself and acquires that suppleness of joint which the Moguls call “elasticity.”
A Money system which rests upon a bottle of ink, a quire of paper, and a printing press is so simple that even a wayfaring fool may comprehend it.
And when it comes to pass that any Mogul of Finance can turn himself, in the twinkle of an eye, into a Paper-money Mill, our currency will be “elastic” to beat the band.
Go it, Moguls!
***
The brilliant paragrapher of the Atlanta Journal writes:
“The only thing lacking about the dismissal of those negro troops was that they should have been disbanded in Boston.”
Inasmuch as nearly all of “those negro troops” will be given permission to re-enlist, it isn’t clear to my mind that Boston couldn’t have enjoyed the episode quite as much as any other city—Atlanta, for instance.
***
The same paragrapher who is really one of the brightest of the bunch, remarks:
“Stonewall Jackson once declared that ‘nothing justifies profanity.’ But then he never tried being Speaker of the House.”
While we are at it, let’s put the case stronger than that.
What’s being Speaker of the House to living in a town like Thomson, whose name the outside world spells in seven different ways?
What’s being Speaker of the House to having a fat knave and a lean sneak doing business under your name in such a den as Town Topics?
What’s being Speaker of the House to having the fat knave and the lean sneak virtually tell the world, in a magazine bearing your name, that you are wealthy and therefore could afford to work for them for nothing?
What’s being Speaker of the House to having your own friends invited, by the Secretary of your National Committee, to come round to the SIDE DOOR of the Town Topics den, and drop ten dollars, each, into the Mann-hole?
Dear me! When it comes to claiming credit for not cussing, I could name several things that dwarf the proportions of the Speakership of the House.
Mr. Roosevelt went down to Panama to take a look at that big ditch which nobody seems to be digging very fast. Thus far the trench appears to be just large enough to hold the millions of dollars that the taxpayers are pouring into it.
While he was down there it is to be hoped that Mr. Roosevelt gave close scrutiny to the place where the administration of Jules Grevy, President of the Republic of France, slid into that same ditch. By marking the place, carefully, Mr. Roosevelt may possibly prevent his own administration from tumbling into the same hole.
***
They are raising a rumpus in Government circles because the liquor dealers are bottling whiskey in bottles—bearing the official stamp—that do not contain full measure.
It doesn’t much matter. The less whiskey the bottle holds the better for the man who holds the bottle.
Don’t shoot!