The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-10-17
SATURDAY, OCT. II, 1908.
THE PERFORMER" AT WORK.

The acquisition of high Office and
responsibility has an extraordinarily
different effect upon different men.
Sometimes it sobers a man of low
ideals and sordid political customs and
changes him into a real patriot. This
was the case with Vice President Ar
thur, who up to the time that he sue
ceeded to the presidency had no repu-
politician, but afterward so completely
changed his course and governed him
self in that high office so nobly that his
party would not have anything more
to do with him.
Sometimes, we regret to say, position
and responsibility have a contrary eff
feet. This seems to be true of Presi-
dent Roosevelt. We cannot doubt that
he was sincere in his earlier advo-
cacy of the principles of civil service
reform. He championed them too long
and too earnestly, and there was too
little to gain by insincerity to cast
suspicion upon his motive. 1t is GER
tain that he is anything but a reformer
today, and the lamentable change has
come about since he became president;
or, rather, since he became possessed
by the desire of succeeding himself
and subordinated to that all the best
of himself and of his past record.
1t is pitiful spectacle which the
president is now making of himself.
We have lately seen him approve the
removal of woman in Delaware from
a fourth-class postoffice solely because
her place was wanted for follower
of Addicks, the gas man. He did this
willingly and willfully, and in so doing
not only broke over his own princi-
pies, but violated the letter of the law
which placed these postoffices under
civil service rules. For this act, which
all his past utterances would declare
to be little less than a crime, he has
offered no explanation.
He is now busted with the practi
cal work of running Republican cam
palgns in various parts of the coun-
try and particularly in the state of
Maryland. Maryland is close and
doubtful, and the president has thrown
the whole weight of his personal in
f1uence into the scale The attack
made upon him by Senator German is
none too bitter to be just President
Roosevelt's whole past is identified
with the principle that federal en-
ployes should not be active in strictly
partisan politics. Yet he is himself to-
day practically managing the MARYLAND
campaign. AS his friend and mouth
piece, Secretary Moody, said at New
York, the national campaign has al
ready begun as far as the Republican
party is concerned. 1t has made Theo-
dore Roosevelt its candidate, and he
has taken up the duties of candidate
and campaign manager both with
alacrity. An Associated Press dispatch
from washington says that the presi-
dent is in close consultation with the
Republican leaders of Maryland, and
has practically called them together in
his office to insist that they pull off
their campaign successfully.
No president can thus descend 70 the
position of local party leader with
out sacrificing much of the dignity of
his station. No one who has ever pre-
tended to the slightest interest in civil
service reform or belief in it's princi-
pies can do so without stultifying him
self. No one can do SO without in
dorsing the principle that it Is the
first duty of federal officeholder to
get into the harness and work for the