The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1902-05-13
THE YAKIMA HERALD
TUESDAY. MAY Is, 1902.
A VERY INDEPENDENT PRESIDENT
Does Not Take the Customary Confidential
Advice Of Party Leaders, but Does What He
Conceives to Be the Right Thing to Do

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following interesting sketch of the ma
TONS chief executive and his methods
of conducting his high office:
1t is now the cattlemen who are vio-
lently protesting at the strenuousness of
Roosevelt. He is charged by them with
enforcing the laws, and it has been so
long since that has been done that the
results appear in the light of a great
hardship. The great cattle barons have
been grazing their stock on the public
domain without compensation, permits
sion. or saying thank you. No particu-
lar objection was made to their tres
passing until they began to fence the
land in and to forbid other trespassers
to trespass on the land on which they
were trespassing. This was a trespass
on the patience of the interior depart
ment, and the secretary reported to the
president and the president said: "Put
'em Off" So the ejectment orders went
forth, and they raised Cain in the coun-
ties of Chaunes, Eddy and Guadalupe
in New Mexico, and stirred up the dust
in Colorado and Wyoming, and spoiled
the plans of the Interstate Land and
Cattle company, and many individual
grazers in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma
and states further west and north.
The cattle raisers have stirred up the
senators from their states and the latter
have been storming the White House
with tales of the ruin which will GER
tainly fall upon them if the government
insists on the order to tear down the
illegal fences. They say the cattle COM
panies have contracts to deliver so many
head of cattle to the beef trust on GER
tain days and if the fences are RACED the
animals will mix with those of other
ranchmen and they will be ruined. But
the president says it is not his fault if
they banked on their ability to break
the laws with impunity. He insists that
the laws must be obeyed, even at the
expense of the beef trusts profits.
1t makes the republican party leaders
very tired the way Roosevelt goes ahead
and does things without asking their
advice. 1t is charged that no man in
the White House ever took less advice,
or asked less, than Roosevelt. He talks
a lot in his addresses about self-reliance,
but his personal example is more elo-
quent than anything he has ever said or
hn &c hca 1ntn n
law unto himself. If he thinks it is
right, or will be good thing to bring
dozen or more suits against the trusts or
railroads, he goes and does it. He does
not send for the senators. That is what
Mckinley would have done. Neither
does he begin to feel out public senti-
ment, by few well-worded semi-official
announce .nents. His crusades are quite
without preliminary heralding. He just
gets busy; and the first that is known
of what he is up to, is when the howl
goes up from those who are pinched.
As Roosevelt is very abstemious OF
advice before he begins on important
official and political moves, so he is I'M
speakably obstinate in persisting in the
course he has entered upon. Senators
who have been in the habit of sharing
in the executive councils, and have
helped to shape public policies, find no
audience with Roosevelt. He will not
even hear them with patience. He has
an answer to every argument, refusal
ready for every plea. He insists on
doing most OF the talking himself, and
the words of those who would dissuade
him fall like water on ducks back
The best illustration of this is his atti-
tude towards trusts and railroads. Pres
ident Roosevelt made up his mind that
it was right to enforce the laws-the
Sherman antitrust law and the inter-
state commerce act. He did not take
counsel with Senator Hanna or Mr..
Fairbanks. He simply gave his orders
to the attorney general.
The first consequences of his action
were protests of most urgent and violent
nature from most powerful sources.
Senators who deal in railroads came
trooping up to the White House to know
if he were crazy. They suggested that
he was carrying the bluff too far. They
could see that little sham-battle bust
ness against the trusts and railroads,
and little loud talk, would be very
good in its political effect; but real at
tack, genuine enforcement of the laws,
that was out Of the question. They