The age-herald., 1901-12-04
President IlooseyeIt's First Message

dent Roosevelt does not rehash the reports. It does not take up in detail the years story of our foreign relations, and except in it's last two paragraphs they are not men tioned, and there only incidentally. It is written in luminous English that can be easily read and understood. It has good features, but as whole it is not an impressive state paper. It is not departure that will be fol lowed, or that deserves to be followed. The literary man and maker of books and magazines has not done much bet ter than the political worker or war hero had done before him.
 One-half of the long message is de- voted to four essays-one on anarchy, another on trusts, still another on the tariff, with short one on ship sub sidies.
 Tn his discussion of anarchists he talks to the gallery much more than to Congress, and when he declares that mo man or body of men preaching anarehistic doctrines should be al lowed at large" he fails to say who should decide what is anarchistic doc Urine. He Is calling in a power that might be employed in violation of the constitutional freedom of speech. Doc Urine without overt acts or incendiary are not punishable in England where assassinations of soverigns do not occur, and they need not be pun ished here. Acts against an individual in office should be punished, and that, too, in the sternest manner.
 President Roosevelt discusses the trusts, or rather he defends them, de manding in the end-what? Certainly not what he demanded at Minneapolis just before he became President, for there he said: Nor can legislation stop only with what are termed labor questions. The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast combina- tions of capital, which have marked the development of our individual sys- tenn create new conditions and neces- sitate a change from the old attitude of the State and nation toward prop erty." This is good, healthy, honest doctrine, but there is none of 1t in the message. The back-down is well-nigh complete. All he asks is federal super vision of the trusts to the end that publicity" may be secured. He says publicity is the only "sure" remedy we can now invoke. It Is perhaps the only "sure" remedy that is consistent with a five-million-dollar campaign fund in 1904. And yet in Septembel at Minneapolis he declared that i"it fl evident that the State, and if neces sary, the nation, has got to possess ths right of supervision and control as re gards the great corporations which are its creatures; particularly as re gards the great business combinations which derive a portion of their i'm portance from the exercises of some monopolistic tendency"
 When he discusses the tarif which gives them some monopolistic tend ency" he Is as mild as a May morn ing. chiefly commenting the Dingle, scheme for robbing home consumers and giving reciprocity some of tha article that it will get very much o in Congress, namely, talkee-talkee That is all it will get until the Dem ocrats are sent back to Congress ant the White House.
 These characteristic Republican DO sitions are topped with an out-and-oui endorsement of the ship subsidy bill True, the Hanna-Payne, or the Frye Payne scheme is not specifically men tioned, but a subsidy bill is plainly demanded, and Mir. Hanfia or MT. Frye can read into it whatever they like.
 He approves irrigation at govern ment expense, lower railroad rates ir an indefinite way. an isthmian canal without specifying which one, the Mon roc doctrine, a larger navy. an army 10000 strong. the civil service system a permanent census bureau, and q dozen other small matters, none ol which are of general interest.
 The message is as a whole a disap pointment-just about such a message as the late President Mckinley would have written before his final nomina ton. He offends no campaign contrib utor, and he puts himself in line to re coive the Republican nomination fl 1904 in the customary way. He out bids the excellent Mir. Hanna.