The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-01
EPIC OF MIR. ROOSEVELT
IDxAL AIM EXPLAINS SEEMING
 INCoNsIsTENCIEs IN CARRIER
Eliminated as Candidate"-He So Stated in 1901 - Since Then Events Seem to Show . Change
 Has Come Over Him.

20B COme OVeI 1A1ns Washington Letter in Baltimore Sun. Not long ago MT. Joseph H.. Choate. Ambassador of the United States at the Court of St. James, gave vent to these diplomatic and Delphic words:
 ''The influence of President Roosevelt's personality and public spirit has worked an immense change upon the young men of America
 A cablegram says that these words are attracting attention. To discover the req son for that and to find the character of the change upon young Americans wrought by MT. Roosevelt's influence we
 must dismiss from mind as supornciali-
 ties the wide expansion of the campaign
 hat habit and the wholesale adoption of
 bulky and losee-fitting garments. together
 with the marked development of Rough
 Rider mental and physical traits. and
 dwell upon the ethical facts in the case,
 about the only ones available for Ann
 bassador Choate at his point of observa- tion 3.000 miles from America. Mature
 consideration of these lead tO the con-
 clusion that the influence the diplomatist had in mind must have been that count ing for the maintenance of lofty ideals in the face of persistent and aggravated misunderstanding. if not misrepresenta-
 ton. What are the facts?
 Said He Was Eliminated.
 On his way from Buffalo to Washing
 ton on September Is, 1901. President Roose- welt said:
 T was a candidate for the nomination
 for the Presidency in 1904 I have been eliminated. and l am not now in any
 sense a candidate
 That was plain enough to be under
 ufn fv air Ind
 positive as the contemporaneous state-
 ment that the policy of MT. Mckinley
 was to be maintained. Yet the purpose
 to discount it has been unswerving from
 that day to this. Indications of the de- sign became sharply manifest when the selection of Leslie M. Shaw in place of Lyman J. Gage, and of Henry c. Payne in place of Charles. Emory Smith for cabinet positions. together with the
 bringing of James s. Clarkson from dis tant Iowa to a federal place in New York. started the cry that Mir. Roosevelt was for remaking of the West with view of strengthening the chances for his nomination in 1904. Color was eagerly applied to the insinuation through the widely recognized and thoroughly appre- ciated gifts of Messrs Payne and Clark son as expert wire-pullers and jealous partisans. gifts which, as far as Clark son is concerned, Mir. Roosevelt, as Civil Service Commissioner. not many years before had made notorious. But time brought its vindication. The Negro in Politics. In the midst of the campaign for the upbuilding of white Republican party
 in the South. centering in North Carolina and Alabama. where the negro had been practically eliminated from acticity in any but ante-convention politics Mir. Clarkson wrote from New York on Octo- Der 1s last to a North Carolinian:
 T need no thanks for what did in op- posing the Jim Crow party in Alabama and other Southern States. No self respecting Republican can tolerate a4iy such attempted departure from the car dinal doctrine of the party. Tho pres,- dent has no sympathy with 1t. and you may assure our friends and your whole race that he is as sound on the doctrine of human rights and manhood suffrage as I ann"
 So. too, MT. Payne came to the defense of the Executive when criticism arose over the removal from office of Julian H.
 Binxham in Alabama because he had participated in the lilly white" moye- | mentH The statement of Postmas ster Gen eral Payne. regarded as representing the views of the President. was as follows: ''The change in the office of Collector of Internal Revenue for the district of Alabama in no wise reflects upon the in- tegrity or ability of Mir. Bingham. the incumbent of the. office. It is one of those things which occasionally happen in politics. The position taken by the Republicans of Alabama at their recent State convention, as understood by the Republicans of the North, Is looked upon as perversion of the fundamental prin-
 ciples of the Republican party. and Mir
 Bingham is. in a measure. held responsi-
 ble for that action; hence the change.
 Neither the administration nor the Re
 publican party of the North will stand
 for the exclusion of any section of our
 people by reason of their race or color,
 when, in other respect. such persons have
 compiled with the laws and are eligible
 under the law to full and free participa-
 ton in political action and are of a high
 standard personal character. In other
 words, there are a few hundred colored
 men in Alabama who come up to the re-
 quirements of the recently adopted State
 Constitution and are eligible for partici-
 of the Republican State convention refer red to in arbitrarily excluding them Is
 not approved; no more than such action
 would be approved if it were taken in Ohio or Indiana"
 "Wrong Kind of Politics."
 It will be noted that the removal of Bingham from office was not on a charge