The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-09-23
MONEY ON ROOSEVELT.
Mississippi Statesman Scores the
Presidents Constitutional Amend
ment Bluff

Presidents Constitutional Amend
ment Bluff.
Washington, Sept. 22-In view of the
recent conference at Oyster Bay, in
which a committee of distinguished
Republican senators met to edit the
Presidents tongue on his swing around
the Western circle. and the announce
ment that he would confine his re-
marks to trust busting" and eliminate
remarks anent tariff revision, Senator
fernando D. Money of Mississippi, at
Democratic Congressional headquart-
ers, said:
1.-The President sent a message to
Congress last December suggesting a
remedy for the trusts which was to
give publicity to their doings and bring
everything to the public view. His
suggestion was embodied in an amend
ment to the census bill offered by SEN
ator Du Bots and every Republican
voted against it, thus declaring that
they were not in accord with the Presi-
dent on that subject. The President
sent in no message recommending a
constitutional amendment for the con-
troll of the trusts. If he had done so,
- 10 u HdNSllOll WIESlIlST IL WOulu nOI
have met the fate of his suggestion of
more light but he had patronage to
dispose of and real earnest effort on
his part probably would have carried
Du Bots amendment to the census bill
or the Presidents recently proposed
amendment to the constitution. He at
tempted nothing while Congress was in
session. He now proposes a constitu-
tional amendment which seems to be
the only remedy presented to his mind
Nobody knows better than the Presi-
dent the exceeding difficulty of passing
an amendment to the constitution
Even those amendments which settled
the status of the freed negro as a citi-
zen, civilly and politically were only
made amendments by dragooning
Southern states into their support by
the threat of depriving them of their
federal relation, and in the state of In
diana by a certificate that two-thirds
of the Senate had voted affirmatively,
when in fact two-thirds were not pres
emit That question was imminent and
overwhelming and some settlement
was vitality necessary and yet, after
the heat of the four years conflict. and
the enormous sympathy developed for
the negro In the North and the neces-
sity for fixing his status which was
obvious to everybody, there was
really no fair adoption of the Four
teenth and Fifteenth Amendments. AS
a student and writer of history, the
President is acquainted with these
facts, and 1t will be singular if he is
not aware of the difficulty of the con-
stitutional amendment that he speaks
of. 1t sounds very well to the people,
Words are cheap, but performance is
difficult. Even If the required two
third vote of each house could be OBJ
tained and the President should give
his signature, then three-fourths of the
states must ratify the amendment and
to say that one-fourth of the Repub-
lican states, at least. are not abso-
lutely dominated by the trusts and
their politicians would be too absurd
and would torture credulity. One who
fears the power of the trusts and rec
ogniZes their terrible menace to free
institutions can take little comfort
from any utterance of President Roose-
welt on this subject, and giving him
credit for some knowledge, it is diff
ficult to give him credit for sincerity.
If he is sincere, then he Is repudiated
by his party, and no hope of reform in
this particular can be expected by the
public from the Republican party and
it's President"