Arizona republican., 1899-01-15
THE SANTIAGO OBJECT LESSON.

It is no news to our ''anti' friends . that they are making Governor Roose
 welt tired. He considers the attitude o
 some of them during the last years wal
 "as profoundly un-American as was
 that of the 'Copperheads' in 1861." The
 present attitude of these people does
 not please him much better, but he is lconvinced that they are pretty small
 crowd numerically and that it's a waste
 of time to argue with them. GIe feels
 a comforting assurance that the coun- ltry will not return the islands to Spain,
 nor suffer any unfriendly European power to grab them, nor suffer them to
 sink into "a condition of sQualid and Isavage anarchy" If the islanders can in time be made fit for self government,
 well and good; meanwhile we must Igoyern them as best we can. Discus
 sion of theories will not avail much, :"
 says Governor Roosevelt; i've have a
 bit of very practical work to be done,
 and done it must be, somehow"
 In the current issue of The Outlook,
 the governor suggests that General
 Leonard Wood at Santiago has given
 us an invaluable object lesson in how
 to do it. He speaks of his comrade in
 terms of warm personal affection-in-
 deed, their friendship seems to have strain Of the old David and Jonathan quality in it-but it is with General Wood the administrator that he is con- cerned in this very timely article He points out that the generals whole young life was a training for the dut.es that have now come to him. He testi- fies that, while the general is honorably ambitious of reputation for doing his work well, his first care is that the work shall be done thoroughly we'll ''let the credit go where it will" He recites the things done in four short months by General Wood in a city where ''all conditions were ripe for a period of utter anarchy" and where foolish, or violent, or weak governor would undoubtedly have preclpitated it. He gives us this glimpse of his friend at work:
 ''I was frequently in Santiago after the surrender, and I never saw Wood when he was not engaged on some one Of his multitudinous duties. He was personally inspecting the hospitals; he was personally experimenting the cleaning of the streets; he was person. ally hearing the most Important of the | countless complaints made by Cubans against Spaniards, Spaniards against | and by both against Ameri- 1 cans; he was personally engaged in | working out a better system of sewer- | age or in striving to secure the return | of the land tillers to the soil. I do not | mean that he ever allowed himself to | Ee swamped by mere detail; he is much too good an executive officer not | to delegate to others whatever can E safely be delegated; but the extraordi- . nary energy of the man himself is such t that he can in person oversee and di- rect much more than is possible with the ordinary man.
 What Leonard Wood has done at 5antiago-this is governor Roosevelt | deduction and moral-other men of the Wood type can do at Havana, in Porto |, Rico, in the Philippines. The first thing h is to get the men; the next thing is to leave them for the present with very free hands. Politics should have no more to do with the choice of these mil ' an admiral or a general, and they |. should be allowed to pick their men for the work that is to be done, and not nave incom peJents or misfits forced up- 1n them by pull-manipulating polite ans. Nor should they be needlessly md unwisely hampered in their admin by minute instructions and interference from Wash ngton. We cannot possibly" says Theodore Roosevelt, ''at any rate for he present, do better than to take for each province some man like General Wood, give him the largest power pos ;ible both as to his methods and his ; and then hold him to l strict accountability for the results ] that he preserve untar- lished the honor of the American name ,y working not only for the interests If America, but for the interests of the I people whose temporary ruler he is.'' (
 If this isn't common sense, we don't z lnow that article when we see it. But Z ommon sense, resolutely and success : ully applied to the practical solution { If important national problems, has t mother name. Wsiting about it in $ he after times, the historians and po- itical essayists call it constructive ' tatesmanship. q
 -
 The legislature will convene tomor