Semi-weekly Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1897-1901, 1901-09-17
The New President.


cepd to the chair made vacant by the
death OF his superior. A man OF q
engaging ways and Of high ideals in
his younger days, there can be only we'll
wishes for him and his administration
as he takes up the duties that devolV
in such sadness and SOLDERING weight
upon him. II there are fears and doubts
they are due to Roosevelt's own make
up, impetuous, headstrong, strenuous"
in his own words, and yet with a practi-
cal effort while governor of New YORK
to plarate Platt that does not give the
best promise for the larger sphere where
m~ultitudes of Platt.like men are sure to
he swarming about his administration.
He cannot be expected to have Mckin-
ley's marvellous facility of winning and
handling men, good, bad and indiiter-
ent. for it is not once in a century
that any man appears with such
a power 10 this respect. And 1t Is
doubtful if he has the qualities of min
eled tact, bonhommie aud reserve force
that won Arthur such success under most
trying circumstances.
But in one respect, and the most i'm
portant of all, he takes the Office unoer
better conditions than any other vice.
President who has assembled to the CHAIR.
He does not represent any other element
OF faction of the party than Mckinney
did. and his elevation does not
mean any split. Even the Plat
hostility is not an avowed one and it
is altogether probable that Platt's power
in politics is gone anyway, supplarted by
Odell's. Roosevelt has been in entire SYM
pathy with the policies of the Mckinley
administration except that, as his public
utterances indicate, he would perhaps
carry them to further lengths. There
was not in his nomination anything OF
the usual practice of throwing the NOM
~ination for Vice-President as a sop to the
defeated element of acOnvention, because
there was not any such element in the
convention that renominated Mckinley.
This practise was the real secret OF the
failures of the Tyler, Fillmore and john
son admin STATIONS. Tyler was never in
full line with the Wing party, and when
he had to face the issue of a national
bank charter, which Clay's leadership
forced upon him, there was nothing for
him to do, without stultifying his past,
but to veto it and break with his party.
Fillmore's situation was similar, though
nth curious contradictions. lie had
started out in public life strongly anti
slavery in sentiment, but gradually had
drifted towards the %"silver gray Sec
ton of Whigism, while Taylor, a slave.
holder himself, was out of sympathy with
the slayeocracy's schemes in forcing the
Mexican war, in which he did a soldier S
duty and reaped so much glory, and he
stood i~nfexibly against the effort 10
make slave territory out OF what hao
been free before it was acquired. But
Fillmore had been nominated to assauge
the disappointment of the Clay and
Webster men who had been over
|whelmed in the Wing convention of lsls
by the storm of Taylor's popularity, and
the inter party opposition to the Presi-
dent, especially the southern wing OF the
party, had become grouped about fllll'
more and az soon as Taylor died he natu-
rally was with it through the compro.
mise measures of 1850 and in al the
chief tendencies of his administration.
He did no actually break with his party
and his name led in the early balloting
of the Wing convention of 1852, but he
was greatly out Of favor with the grow
ing anti-slavery sentiment, his support
was chiefly southern, and even that was
rather lukewarm, so that the only ques.
ton of SCOTS nomination over him was
Wehster's strength. Four years later
Fillmore appeared at the head OF the
American" or Knownothing ticket.
Andrew Johnson was never a Republi-
can but a Democratic leader before the
war and partaking largely of Southern
ideas, though himself of the poor
white" class and never in full favor with
the s~laveholding ~sristocracy. But he
stood with magnificent bravery for the
Union, supported the administration only
as a war Democrat and was appointed pro-
v~isional governor of Tennessee as such
His nomination for the vice presidency
was purely for the purpose of "recogniz-
ing" the wal Democrats. and his break
with the Republican party on the re-
construction measures was inevitable.
Probably Lincoln would have had it if
he had lived. johnson claimed that he
was only carrying out Lincoln's policy,
and so far as that developed, in a purely
tentative way, up to the time of Booths
crime, it showed Johuson's claim to
have been true. Lincoln's shrewd and
kindly way might have averted the
clash that ,Johnson's stubborn belliger-
ency precipitated, but with the passions
of the time awakened as they were, it
was almost inevitable sooner or later.
Tyler, Fillmore and johnson all tried to
build up personal parties in support OF