Peril and Petty Annoyances of Public Life

IN common with others we sincerely express our sorrow at the national calamity—the horrible murder of our beloved President. His noble character and generous, lovable nature had endeared him to the multitude. Enterprising illustrated magazines and newspapers have shown him in all attitudes and phases of character. No public man ever submitted more graciously to the demands of the photographer, and those demands are too often annoying to those in public life. It was with pro- [455][456] found regret at the lack of principle among some of our fraternity that we read of the persistency of the man with the camera around the house in which the late President lay on his deathbed, in some cases pointing their instruments into the weeping faces of his relatives. Such conduct is contemptible.
     Our new President will not be such an easy subject for the photographer, judging from the scathing and well-merited rebuke he administered to a young man who pointed a camera at him as he was leaving a place of worship in the Capital, on Sunday, September 21. As the President came out of the Grace Reformed Church, at Fifteenth and O Streets, at the close of the service, a young man with a snap-shot camera levelled [sic] the instrument to get a picture.
     “Stop that!” commanded the President, and his voice rang out loud enough to startle those inside the church.
     “You ought to be ashamed of yourself to come here on Sunday and try to make a photograph of persons leaving a place of worship. You ought to be ashamed, and I hope your self-respect will prevent you from ever repeating the attempt.”
     The young man with the camera blushed. The President looked at him coldly, and the young man hurriedly bundled his camera under his arm and disappeared.
     It will be remembered that another young man was literally jumped upon, camera and all, for attempting to snap-shot President (then Governor) Roosevelt as he was emerging from the water at a summer resort.
     About the propriety of Sunday photographing the editors have decided views, but every man is entitled to his own opinion, presuming that he follows the dictates of his conscience. Deference to the opinions of others is, however, a mark of good breeding. No gentleman worthy of the name, to gratify pleasure or personal vanity, will parade his inclinations and foibles where common sense should teach him they are not tolerated.