The Minneapolis journal., 1902-06-26
A NOTABLE SPEECH

General Wood, late governor general Of
Cuba, Governor Taft, of the Philippines,
and Secretary Root of the war depart
ment, must naturally be pleased with and
proud of the stirring speech made BY
President Roosevelt in their behalf at the
meeting of the Harvard alumni yesterday
at Cambridge. It has not been GUS
tomary for a president to enter the public
forum and make special pleadings for
and defenses of men whom he has ap-
pointed to Office and who have been hos
tilely criticized and misrepresented as
to their official acts. But President
Roosevelt Is not tied down to convention
etiquette. the traditions of presidential
manners, and if he sees any of his ap-
pointees unjustly dealt with, he Is ready
to take a pronounced attitude of de-
tense in their behalf.
Z The president paid high tribute to the
value OF college education, which he
said did not per SO impart superiority to a
man, but made him more responsible,
made it "doubly incumbent on him to do
we'll and nobly in his life, private and
public" He took up the cases Of Taft,
Wood and Root seriatim, and in strong
language he vindicated them effectively
from the charges which has been made in
a partizan way. Each of these college
graduates in highly responsible posi-
tions under the government, has sacrificed
material advantages to meet national
needs. Wood, charged with malfeasance
in office and even with being a partner Of
peculators; Taft, charged with tyranny
and corrupt practices in the Philippines,
which would make Turkish pasha shud-
der. Root, charged with being Cocoon
spirator with the president in plot to
execute military coup and oyerturn the
republic; charged with devislng modes for
bestowing more acute sufferings through
manifold tortures upon the poor Fill
pinos''; charged with concealment of
facts touching the doings in the Philip
pines; these men have fearlessly done
their duty with the certainty Of attack,
with the certainty Of misunderstanding,
with the certainty of being hampered by
ignorance and worse than ignorance"
and they have done "the best that the
conditions allow" The president was
severe throughout his speech. He re-
ferred to the attacks on Wood as made by
people who are not merely unworthy OF
having their names coupled with his, but
who are incapable of understanding the
motives that have spurred him on to bring
honor to this republic"
There will be fierce outcry against
this resonant speech from the opposition.
They will assert that the president has no
business to take upon himself to defend
certain oticeholders in public speech.
But the president has the right. as Ia this
case, to defend and vindicate the honor
and integrity Of this republic and the
American nation. In defending these out
rageously and wrongfully assailed men
who have wrought to the best of their
ability and patriotism to carry on the
great work of diffusing our institutions
in lands recently acquired honorably and
In accordance with the principles of In
ternational law, the president speaks fol
the nation as against those within the
| nation, who have sedulously sought tt
| obstruct the national purpose to upliff
| and transform the peoples who have
either been for centuries Under the heel:
Of remorseless despotism or under t NJ
blight of an inherited savagery ane
| cruelty. It Is well that the nation hal
| such a. president as Theodore Roosevelt
| who can personally strip the disguis'
from the face of a spurious patriotism
which eproclaiming its devotion to tn
''eternaI principles of the fathers" ia
natically seeks to blot out those princi
pies, and, for definite and practical poll
cies, substitutes malicious personal at
tacks and works It's culminious am
vicious program like the "seeret, blacl
and midnight hags" in Macbeth.