Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1902-06-12
LAMENTABLE U~TTERANCE
Roosevelt II Man Outrages The
High Office of President of a
Great and Reunited
People.

GOPAOe
Nothing more lamentable has oc-
CURED in the recent history of the
Republic than President Roosevelt's
wild and bitter partisan speech in
the presence of the unreplying dead
at Arlington.
This speech continues to amaze
everyone and it embitters the mil
lions of citizens whom Mr.. Roosevelt
ch~aracterizes as the heirs of those
who were guilty of nameless crimes
in the war of the E'rebellion," nam
ing all men opposed to the misdeeds
committed under the Republican
policy in the Philippines as men
favoring wholesale lynching in the
South. For such a speech, taken
all in all, there is no excuse and no
palliation. 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 mem
cries and of proud history to prosti-
.tute noble emotions to the lusts of
party and of power. 1t is difficult to
believe that a brave man could have
been guilty of such outrageous con-
duct; it is certain that no sound man
would.
That kind of conduct is carrying
the strenuous life into an attempt to
resurrect dead heroes forIiving polit-
ical purposes. If Mr.. Roosevelt has
any sense of shame left, he should
feel ashamed Of such ignoble conduct
on his own part. His praise for the
dead who, under his supreme COM
mand, have been guilty ofso many
~o~ffenses in the Philippines, amounted
TO ten times as many words.
His wholesale abuse and defama-
ton 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 Mr.. R0osevelt's/ wild and
rambling political harangue in the
presence of the dead were southern
ers, 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 bit
terest and most vindictive speech
that has been uttered against the
South since the vituperative tongues
of Zach Chandler and Charles Sum-
ner were siIenced forever.
A fact almost as amazing as
Roosevelt's speech itself is that he
was not hlssed. How the multitude
of Southerners there could remain
silent while he DETAINED them and
their fathers cal only be attributed
to the virtue of the Southerners in
the presence of the grossest vulgari-
ty; for if ever a man in high station
appeared vulgar, Roosevelt appeared
so in his pitiful and ~disgraceful
political speech on Decoration Day.
But one thing certain, Roosevelt
will not soon hear the last of it. The
greafer-hearted people of the North
resent that sort Of talk as keenly as
their brethren of the South.
Within the cemetery where Roose-
welt spoke, American soldiers from
the North and the South, who had
been killed in Cuba and in the Philip
pines, slept side by side, dead broth
ers in the cause of the nation. That
K in itself is a rebuke to Roosevelt;
still stronger rebuke will abidein the
faithful hearts of Americans all over
tne Union. Roosevelt, who was in
fact never a soldier himself, with
his little tin horn and his little tin
sword, was trying to fight over again
a great war, which brave men ended
seven and thirty years ago.
Democrats are no more outraged
by Roosevelt than Republicans, and
Northerners are no more ashamed
of bis speech than r the Southern.
..ers. He stoops SO far below the
level of honest manhood as to arouse
the contempt of all honest Ameri
cans.
These would be hard words to
speak about the President of the
United States; but they are no
spoken here against that high office