The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-04-11
Az ABSURD SCHEME.

The Governor of Illinois has given official
sanction to an absurd scheme and one
which probably has Interior motives behind
It. According TO a dispatch in yesterdays
Journal he has appointed a committee Of
three persons to collect funds for the relief
Of the inmates of the British concentra-
ton camps in South Africa. One member
of the committee is Mayor Harrison, OF
Chicago. another is Peter Van Vlissingen,
a noisy Boer sympathizer, and the third
is unknown to the Journal. The appeal
says:
We desire to collect five million checks
and drafts of 81 each from all parts Of
the United States. payable to Theodore
Roosevelt, to be presented TO him as petit
ton for such aid as he may be able TO rem
der these people, and as a practical and
beneficent demonstration of the sympathy
of the people of America for these recon-
centrado camp sufferers.
Mr.. Peter Van VIissingen was conspic-
uous in the recent attack on Secretary Hay
and President Roosevelt because they de-
clined to stultify themselves by asking the
British minister at Washington to give
Rev. Mr.. Thomas and wife passes through
the British lines to distribute a relief fund
of s., 900 among the Beers. which fund would
have been diminished nearly one-half by
the personal expenses of Mr.. and Mrs.
Thomas in going to and returning from
South Africa AS already stated in the
Journal the President found much better
way by sending the draft with his personal
| Endorsement to our consul at Cape Town,
with instructions to distribute it among the
needy Beers. Now it is proposed to raise
five million dollars in drafts or checks Of
one dollar each, payable to Theodore Roose-
Welt, and to be indorsed by him and for
warded as the 5000 draft was. If this abb
surd scheme should succeed it would i'm
pose upon the President the task of per-
sonaly indorsing five million drafts. Any
| bank president or cashier who has had to
! sign bills knows that with a name of aver
age length $500 signatures in a day is a
big and a hard days work. With such a
name as Theodore Roosevelt 1900 sigma
lures would be a good days work. and that
would leave little no time for anything
else. At that rate it would take the Presi-
den. $500 working days, or more than eight
years. to indorse 100000 drafts. The orig
inators of this brilliant idea seem to assume
that Mr.. Roosevelt will be reelected not
only for a second but for a third term,
but they make no allowance for his giving
any attention to other duties or for the
probability that he would be a physical
wreck long before he could complete the
herculean task of writing his name con-
secutively five million times. They omitted
one thing. They should have urged the
starting of an endless letter chain to in
sure several hundred thousand letters a
day urging the President to hurry up"
OF course this preposterous scheme is as
devoid of sincerity as il is of reason. 1t is
intended to give Boer sympathizers a
I change to exploit themselves by being adj
vertised as contributors TO the fund and
to embarrass the President by almost fore
ing him to decline indorsing perhaps sew
eral thousand small drafts. The mayor of
Chicago should be ashamed of himself for
lending his name to the promotion of so
absurd and so palpa bly, insincere scheme.