The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-06-03
Washington Day by Day


 ing more lamentabie has occurred in the recent history of the Republic than President Roosevelt's wild and bitter par tlsan speech in the presence of the un- replying dead at Arlington.
 This speech continues to amaze every one and 1t embitters the millions of citi- gems whom MT. Roosevelt characterizes as the heirs of those who were guilty of nameless crimes in the war of the Ire be,lion;" naming all men opposed to the
 misdeeds committed under the Repub- lican policy in the Philippines as men favoring wholesale lynching in the south' For such a speech taken all in all, there l is no excuse and no pailiatlon. A national cemetery on Decoration Day was not the place nor the time for partisan speech | making.
 Invited by the Union veterans of the civil war to speak for their dead, he took advantage of sacred memories and of proud history to prostitute noble emotions to the lusts of party and of power. It Is difficult to believe that brave man could have been guilty of such outrageous | conduct; 1t is certain that no sound man could.
 That kind of conduct is carrying the 1 strenuous life into an attempt to resur- rect dead heroes for living political pur- poses. If Mir. Roosevelt has any sense of | shame left he should feel ashamed of such ignoble conduct on his own part. Ills praise for the dead was little enough; 1t might have been embraced within three hundred words; his praise of the soldiers who, under his supreme command. have been guilty of so many offenses In the Philippines, amounted to ten times as many words.
 His wholesale abuse and defamation of the dead and the living of the south was unworthy of any man. be he Pagan or Christian, pauper or President. Fully one-half of the people who heard MT. Roosevelt's wild and rambling po- litical harangue in the presence of the dead were southerners. who had gathered there to hear him pay tribute to the dead soldiers of the north. Instead of hearing that which they so much desired to hear, in honoring the Union dead, they were forced to listen to the bitterest and most vindictive speech that has been uttered against the south since the vituperative tongues of Zach Chandler and Charles Sumner were silenced forever.
 A fact almost as amazing as Roosevelts speech itself is that he was not hissed. How the multitude of Southerners there | could remain silent while he defamed | them and their fathers can only be attrib- uted to the virtue of the Southerners | in the presence of the grossest vulgarity; for if ever a man in high station appeared vulgar Roosevelt appeared so in his piti- | full and disgraceful political speech on | Decoration Day.
 But one thing certain, Roosevelt will not soon hear the last of 1t. The greater hearted people of the North resent that | sort of talk as keenly as their brethren | of the South.
 Within the cemetery where Roosevelt | spoke, American soldiers from the North | and the South who had been killed in | Cuba and in the Philippines, slept side by | side, dead brothers in the cause of the nation. That in itself Is rebuke to Roosevelt still stronger rebuke will abide I in the faithful hearts of Americans all | over the Union. Roosevelt who was In | fact never a soldier himself. with his lit- tie tin horn and his little tin sword was trying to fight over again great war, which brave men ended seven and thirty | years ago.
 Democrats are no more outraged by Roosevelt than Republicans, and North erners are no more ashamed of his speech than are the Southerners. He stoops so low below the level of honest manhood as to arouse the contempt of all honest Americans.
 These would be hard words to speak about the President of the United States; | but they are not spoken here against that high office; they are spoken in crit | icism against the man Roosevelt, the | man whose blow and biuster and false claims to heroism have placed him in the | Presidency. which as an office all Ameri- cans hold in high reverence.
 A lawyer representing Col. Gaynor and Mir. Green. who are In jail in Quebec charged with stealing several hundred thousand dollars from the government. | has been in Washington for several days, presumably in conference with the law | officers of the Department of Justice. | This lawyer suffered himself to be inter- viewed by a local reporter, to whom he | declared that Gaynor and Green were | prepared at any time to return to the | United States. provided they were grant, ed a change of venue from the southern district of Georgia, where their crimes were committed. to any other district In any other state: holding that Judge Speer of Georgia was prejudiced against them and under him they could not get fair trial. Judge speer, by the way. has the distinction of being accused of prejudice by all criminals who come be- fore him for trial; distinction which is enviabie because Judge Speer upholds defends and maintains the law. There is probably no United States judge in this country who is less lenient towards male factors than this same Judge Speer, some time member of Congress.
 It is quite we'll known that public and official sentiment in Quebec Is friendly towards Gaynor and Green, because they spend their money freely, and pay big judicial and legal fees. Proof of this was had when the legal authorities of Quebec went to the last extremity to re- move the prisoners from Montreal to the Jurisdiction of the Quebec courts.
 -Ass