The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1902-06-13
OFFICIAL COUNTY PAPER
FRIDAY. JUNE 10, 1902.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND THE
ARMY.
Hartford Conn., Courant.

14EEHn.E. EIEEE[e>
All Americans are familiar with
the remark of the young husband to
his wife to the effect that she does
not make biscuits like mother.
Those who feel the smart Of Presi-
dent Rooseveltis frankness in his
Memorial Day address, follow in
their objections, the turn of thought
in this ancient jest. Mckinley would
not have said it, they say. I'm fact
one of them is reported by the
Washington correspondent Of the
New York Times" as saying, cit
would never have entered Nj. Nc
Kinley's head to make such a charge
as Mr.. Roosevelt made today"
Probably not; and why? Because
Mr.. Roosevelt made no sssuch CHARGE
on last Friday. He did not charge
the democratic senators and Mr..
Hoar, who have been Safeguarding
the American army for weeks, with
giving their approval of lynching."
He said that s'the men who fail
to condemn these lynchings and yet
clamor about what has been done
in the Philippines are trying to
pull a mote out of the eye Of their
brother Wien their W eyes are
clogged with a beam. The mar who
is known to have condemned ''these
lycnhings'' was not mentioned. Or,
in the second place, Mr.. Roosevelt
did not indict before the nation
those states OF communities where
lynchings take place. II he had
done. so the indictment would not
have been confined to the southern
states. But Mr.. Roosevelt did not do
so. He said that in ''each case''
that is, in regard both to lynchings
and to real or alleged cruelty in the
Philippines-ssit is well to condemn
the deed, and it is we'll also to refrain
from including both guilty and in
nocent in the same sweeping condem-
nation.'
In addition to the matter of lynch
ing Mr.. Roosevelt cited some Ameri-
can opinions, officially expressed, in
regard to military conduct in this
country in time of a The most
effective citation was from a resolu-
tion passed by tie Confederate con-
gress in October, 1862. No one will
deny, we imagine, that that reslou-
tion isapartfof American history-of
United States history. 1t is true
that those who made it had no idea
at the moment, and certainly no
Intention, of making United States
history. If they had understood
clearly what they were actually
doing, they would have done it differ
entity OF not at all. But SO far as we
can see they have no reason to- be
ashamed of it. They fought valient-
lysand enough, they went ragged and
hungry enough, thd they .bled and
died enough, to justify them in hay-
ing their own opinions, and in eX-
pressingt hose opinions. They wuold
not have been very good Americans
hard as they were striving to he
something's else-if they had not had
thoughts, and had not uttered their
thoughts. But the sincerity and the
sacrifice of it all, on their part, do
not modify in the slightest pa1ticu-
lar or shade the fact that they were
wholly in error. They were in error
in fancying that they were not max
ing United States history; and they
were just as mcuh in error in declar-
ing officially that the tender-hearted
and patient Abraham Lincoln pos
sessed a ssspirti of barbarous feroci-
ty.;n
The southern people ought to know
another thing, and with half a
chance we are sure that they will
know it. 1t was their representative
in the Confederate Congress at Rich
mond in 1862 that expressed the
opinions cited by President Roose-
welt. That formal expression of opin-
ion by the Confederate congress, in
regard to Lincoln and the troops
fighting to hold this great nation
together, carried conviction to every
Southern mind that the statements
made were true. Yet today there is
not more than a handful of men in
any Southern state so uniformed as
not to know that in substance every
assertion in that historic resolution
was and is monstrously false. There
was no war Of conquest waged, there