The San Francisco call., 1899-10-22
EDITORIAL VARIATIONS.
xH#uMA*N*Aw@xAMN*@xo
BY JOHN McNHUGHT.

ba s,,narActaI and temporary. 1t IS only
uhe, its effects and consequences are not
ed that IFS Importance in life becomes evil
dent. Nothing is so stimulating 10 en-
ergy, so strengthening to commence as
good luck, nor anything more depresslns
TO the heart and the brain tnan oau iuoH. I.
Moreover. the fortune which gooo luck
brings. though It be trff1ing in itself, opens
door to another fortune.
The doctrine of reincarnaton may De
true but 1t is not to be proven by argu-
ments based upon the justice OF the nat
ural order OF things. Unless there be an
almighty creator whose purposes en-
brace all the accidents OF life ana VINO
in his own way and IN his own time In
tends to make them serve the cause OF
justice. then there is not nor ever VIII be
any Justice.
Meantime IL is but fair to say that A
Short View of Great Questions is an IN
teresting contribution toward the solution
of a problem which will forever engage
the thoughts of all earnest men and Wo-
men. and while ii gives no answer that
Will be acceptable to the general run OF
civilized men, 1t deserves credltaole
place among those attempts which Bos-
ton Wit once described as efforts to 'scrut
the inscrutable and poss the impossible.
Senator Hanna's statement. 1T is an IN
suit to Admiral Dewey to speak Of him
as a candidate for the Presidency" is
hard saying. The office of President Of
the United States is very high office
indeed, and to be chosen chief magistrate
of this great republic is about as exalted
an honor as can be conferred on mortal
man. He may receive higher glory in
another world, but he can hardly hope
for IT here. Nevertheless, the Senator
| from Ohio may be right. Dewey is very
high, indeed. He might have to stoop
some and condescend q little to accept
the Presidency.
At a church fair in Haywards they can
onized him and placed his booth among
the booths of the saints and in the issue
of the Hebrew OF this city for Oc-
| tober 13 there is a reference to the
Jewish cast" Of Dewey's countenance,
a statement that he once remarked that
so far as he had learned from the read
ing Of the history Of nations as of indi-
viduals nearly all who amounted TO any
thing in the world had a trace Of Jew
| Ish descent: and a general intimation
that Dewey IS something OF a Hebrew
| himself
Being reputed a saint and ar son
Of Abraham as we'll as an ad-
mral and the hero of Manila. he
| has still other claims to greatness.
Mrs. Hetty Green, the richest woman
| in America, the woman who never
pays taxes, the woman who beat Joseph
! Choate at repartee in a courtroom, says
Dewey is kin to her. She declares
Dewey's grandmother was a Storey, and
lots Of her folks were Storeys. and the
| Storeys married the Deweys, and there
You are. You see," she says, when we
Deweys know we are right, locomotive
and a train of cars going down hill can't
stop us. That is the way with us Deweys,
especially with me and my cousin, the
admiral"
Clearly the admiral is too big for the
Presidency. 1t couldn't hold him. Mark
Hanna is an Ohio man, it is true, but he
seems to have sense.
Meantime the bearer of all this great
ness, the recipient of all these honors.
the first and only American 10 whom a
| United States Senator ever thought It
would be an insult to offer the Presi-
dency, is not so happy as he might be-
Like everybody else. he has a complaint
against his luck and suffers an irremedi-
able wrong at the hand of fate. Il am too
old to be a hero" he said. Il began this
business too late in life"
1t is the old cry that Ludlow set 10
rhyme:
while we wait for napkin the soup
gets cold,
While the bonnet is trimming the fashion
grows old.
| When the buttons are matched the pat
tern is sold;
And everything comes too late, too late"
1t is this fact that makes every biog-
raphy a story of mournful meaning The
self-made man tolls on and fights on and
| plans on, and at last wins; but when he
wins the faculty of enjoyment IS no
longer active. The choicest wines of
comet years and imperial growth will not
! gladden. him as beer would have done
in his twentieth year, and all the ap-
| plause of shouting millions will fall less
charming on his ear than the voice of a
| girl would babbling in his youth 1t is
very safe to say that on the great day of
the triumphal welcome to the hero at
| New York any young man who watched
| the parade in the company of a girl who
| knew how to fiatter had a better time
! than Dewey did. For him at any rate
| the occasion had not come too late in
! life.
There are some problems of government
| so profound and so complex. we can
never too much admire the wisdom Of the
! officials who solved them. The Arabs
have proyerb that whenever Allah calls
a man to an Office he provides him with
the wisdom to fill it. That must be as
true in the United States as in the des-
erts of Arabia.
Here Is an Illustration: In the Eastern
papers appeared an advertisement to this
| effect: ION April II, 1900, we will place
| on a large sheet one quart of wheat
Three Plymouth Rock hens. which have
! been kept from feed for six hours, will
| then be permitted to eat therefrom for
! ten minutes, when the remaining kernels
| Will be taken up, counted and the number
eaten by the hens ascertained To the
subscriber who estimates nearest the
number of kernels eaten by the hens we
| will give $50"
The postoffice authorities were called
| upon TO decide whether the advertised
| scheme was or was not a lottery The
! official to whom the problem was referred
evidently derived his brains from Allah
| to whom praise be given, for he has add
| ed to the records of our governmental
! wisdom this decision: The eating pro-
| pensities of hens, even though they be of
! the same breed. undoubtedly vary, and
the number of kernels eaten by one trio
! would be no criterion as to the number
| that would be taken up by another at