The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-12

 | tickled to term it. has come to pause for the time being here in Washington. There were great efforts made by the | District Commissioners and the local press to inaugurate a welcome commen- surate with the exalted station of the | home-comer, and nearly as possible con- | sonant with the bowling hospitality ac- corded MT. Roosevelt by the warty- knuckled West. Well, the people turned out here somewhat. but it would be | straining the adjectives of generous in | tent to ascribe sincere and general cor | diality to the greeting by the population | of the national capital.
 There was the Marine Band waiting at the White House grounds, and there the bulk of the crowd gathered to hear the 1 music, as they always do when that ag- gregation of military musicians perform. Along the line of march between the de- | barking station and the executive man sion the sidewalks of the broad Pennsyl- vania Avenue were thinly lined. On the ample vantage points of the Treasury Departments spacious porticos were some hundreds of people. come out in the cool of the evening-the return was at z p. m.-and there awaited the pageant prepared by the District of Columbia's executive triumvirate. A squadron of followed by a miniature army, consist ing of the several battalions of high school cadets.
 Looking at the marching especially of the colored boys, who were just ahead of the Presidents carriage, in which he stood bobbing a teeth-gleaming acknowl- edgement to the spasmodic homage of the groups here and there on the sidewalks. people remarked how intimate seemed the relationship between them and how fit- ting that the young negroes should be thus honored by the man of all men who had opened wide for them the door of opportunity.
 It was this correspondents fortune to hear a group of men discussing how greatly enhanced in President Roose- velt's esteem the black race has become since he became President and started his Rooseveltism for another term. little while ago the negro, they eaid, was not nearly so large, so important, so capable and so worthy in the Roosevelt philos ophy.
 The latest extended speech made by l President Roosevelt on his way back | from the West was at Springfield, H., where, making proud obeisance to the presence of a company of negro National Guard. he extoled the colored troops, | saying: "A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country, is good enough to be given square deal after- ward This fine intellectual perform | ance he accentuated by adding: More than that, no man Is entitled to and less than that no man shall have" There was Rooseveltism for youi Said in terms | intended never to be forgotten! It was not a week before an Illinois mob of white men had shot a negro to pieces for killing a white man.
 But the Rooseveltism of the political campaign is not the Rooseveltism of the military campaign. It Is not the Roose- vetism of the book. In the book Roose- vetism commisserates the infer1ority of | the negro to the white man and declares | that the black is not to be expected to show the same high qualities as the white man.
 At Springfield, the other day, the Pres ident observed that it was his own good | fortune to serve beside coiored troops" referring to the war with Spain and the campaign in Cuba. It Is to be presumed | that Roosevelt regards that campaign | as a sufficient test of soldierly qualities. He thought enough of 1t to write book about 1t and give his views quite cir cumstantially. He does it in his work entitled The Rough Riders," which may be had upon diligent inquiry at any book shop. In that remarkable contribution | to history, written by this conspicuous States and commander-in-chief of the | army. the reader is told how, when the l colored troops were weakening in the trenches before Santiago, clinging to | cover from the storm of Spanish shells, Roosevelt stepped forth alone, with pis- tol in hand and scared the negro soldiers worse than all the Spanish bullets.
 But here Is Colonel Roosevelts own story, after he had rambled along in a desultory way. .narrating the various incl dents illustrative of the conduct of the troops oops of of, the he, beessieging lines; dier) produce non-commissioned officers who can accept the initiative precisely like the best class of whites; but this cannot be expected normally, nor is 1t fair to expect it,
 After a characteristic Aggression, afford ing instances in which he figured else
 where yhfds ,,ln,s In the victory at santiago-the
 the name of The Rough Riders" should
 stances in which he exploits his exposure
 to imminent peril while others were hug ging the earth; instances of other hair | breadth" escapes in which his irrepres- sible fidgetiness carried him back and
 losing his men and fussIng with them for not coming along, again in the rear, darting hither and yon. taking command
 of this. that and the other. he arrives in
 which he scared the negroes far more
 than they were frightened by the havoc
 of shrapnel and the weird death-song of
 the Spanish Mausers. Men were being shot to death in the trenches. It was a
 time that indeed tried their soldier-met- tie.
 | None of the white regulars or Rough Riders showed the slightest sign of | weakening; but under the strain the col 1 ored infantrymen, who had none of their | officers. began to get a little uneasy and | to drift to the rear. either helping wound | ed men or saying they wished to find l tnelr own regiments. rms l would not | allow, as 1t was depicting my line; so jumped up and,walking a few yards to | the rear, drew my revolver and halted the retreating soldiers and called out to them | that l appreciated the galantry with | which they fought and would be sorry | to hurt them, but that I would shoot the
 first man who, on any pretense whatever, | went to the rear.
 My own men had all sat up and were | watching my movements with the utmost
 interest l ended my statement to the
 " Now. I shall be sorry to hurt YOU.
 and you don't know whether or not
 shall keep my word, but my men can tell
 you that I always do
 "WhereupOn my COW punchers hunters
 and miners solemnly nodded and com
 mented in chorus. exactly as if in comic
 opera:
 /" ..rtIe He always does; He always does
 This was the end" concludes Colonel
 Roosevelt, "of the trouble with the
 smoked Yankees as the Spaniards called
 the colored soldiers. They flashed their
 white teeth as they broke into broad
 grins and I had no more trouble with
 them, they seeming to accept me as one
 of their own officers"
 The weapon with which Colonel Roose-
 welt terrified the demoralized colored ! spanish army, was the pistol with which
 he killed a Spaniard-a fleeing Spaniard-
 feat which the Colonel describes him
 self as an incident of the battle of San
 tiago. Two out of the now generally re-
 treating enemy broke from cover a few
 yards away and ran for their lives "As
 they turned to run says the Colonel "I
 closed in and fired twice. missing the | hrst and killing the second My revolVer | he