The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1900-08-20
WHAT ROOSEVELT SAID.
Statement Regarding
St. Paul Speech.
A Carbled and FaIsified Report
Sent Out.
Stands by the Speech
Absolutely.
Only Appealed to Democrats to
Help Elect Mckinley.

New York. August 10.--Governor
Roosevelt at Oyster Bay, 7. L, today
gave out for publication a letter which
he had written on August 8 to General
John 81. Palmer of Springfield, Ills.
relative to the ST. Paul speech made by
the governor in which he had been
quoted as making derogatory remarks
Democrats. The letter reads.
"My dear General Palmer: notice
that ia your recent very manly inter-
view stating why you could not support
the Populistic Democracy and the Kan
sas City platform and nominees. you
alludo to a statement was supposed to
have made. attacking Democrats gener-
ally in my St. Paul speech.
You have evidently seen report
which was not merely garbled but folsi-
fed. I stand by this speech absolutely
and have nothing to explain in connec-
ton with it; but do wish to point out
where its meaning was deliberately IN
verted.
Il do not feel that this is IN the least
merely party campaign. I feel that
we have right 10 appeal to all good
citizens whether in the past they have
been Republicans or Democrats, no
matter what their political affiliations
have been, TO stand in with us now.
"Iu my speech began by saying:
" we appeal not only to Republicans,
but to all good citizens who are Ameri-
cans in fact as well as in name. to help
us IN re.electing President Mckinley
81 ended by saying: study the Kan
sas City platform and you cannot help
realizing that their policy (The policy of
its makers and sponsors) is a policy of
infamy; that their triumph would mean
misery so widespread that it is almost
unthinkable and disgrace so lasting
that more than generation would have
to pass before it could be wiped out.
They stand for lawlessness and disorder,
for dishonesty and dishonOr, for license
and disaster at home and cowardly
shrinking from duty abroad. We ask
the support of all Americans who have
the welfare OF. the country at heart, no
matter what their political affiliations
may have been in the past. We ask the
support of all sound-headed men who do
not wish to see our material well-being
swallowed up in an abyss of disaster.
'We appeal to all good men who be-
lieve in civic decency and shrink from
the taint of financial dishonor and we
appeal to all brave men who are proud
of the national name and reputation and
ask them to see to it that we are not
humiliated before mankind and that we
do not abandon the position we have
taken in the forefront of the great
nations of the EARTH
'You will see that ] most explicitly
draw the line between the men who sup
port and ask support for the Kansas
City platform, and all other citizens,
whether Democrats or Republicans. /
feel that, as a matter of fact, the great
est possible ccedit is due to meu like
You my dear sir, and to the other gold
Democrats, who, four years ago, stood
and now stand for national honor.
81 hold up the policy advocated in the
Kansas City platform, as base and
cowardly policy, to emphasize our right
to appeal to the countless thousands of
high minded Democrats who abhor base
ness and cowardice and are quick to
see and disown them. We appeal to
these Democrats to strike hands with us
at this crisis of tho nations history; for
they have been betrayed in the house of
their friends; and, if they are far-sight
cd. they must necessarily see that every
principle of courage, of patriotism and
Of national self-respect demands that
they have been at this moment betrayed,
lust as under similar circumstances, the
northern Democrats during the civil war
repudiated tho principles of men like
vallandingham, just as in 1924 the
northern Federalists repudiated their
party under like conditions.
"Tn short feel that the Kansas City
platform makers and their followers
have forfeited the right to appeal to any
Democrat who is keenly sensitive to the
national honor.
"They claim the late Gen. Lawton was
Democrat. Doubtless he was at one
time, but the bitterest arraignment OF
the Kansas City platform is contained IN
the words Lawton wrote just before his
death: If l am shot by a PHILIPPINE
bullet, it might as well come from one
of my own men, because I know from