Smyrna times., 1904-09-21
ANOTHER LIE NAILED!
Quotation From Presidents Book
Shows His True Feeling.


Shows His True Feeling.
Numerous attempts are being made
by INSCRIPTIONS politicians in misquOt-
ing and misrepreSenting President
ROosevelt's sayings and writings to in
jure him in the estimation of the peO-
pie of this country. The claim. for ex-
ample, that he ever referred to the
farmers as the basest of mankind is a
pure lie made out of whole cloth. PeO-
pie in every walk of life will be glad to
read the following quotation from the
presidents volume, The Strenuous
Life" in the article on Fellow Feeling
us Political Factor" published over
four years ago:
Nevertheless the fact remains that
the only true solution of our political
and social problems lies in cultivating
everywhere the spirit of brotherhood,
of fellow feeling and understanding be
tween man and man and the willing
ness to treat a man as a man which
are the essential factors in American
democracy as we still see it in the
country districts.
''The chief factor in producing such
sympathy is simply association on
plane of equality and for 4 common
object. Any healthy minded American
is bound to think we'll of his fellow
Americans if he only gets to know
them. The trouble is that he does not
know them. If the banker and the
farmer never meet or meet only in the
most perfunctOry business way, if the
| banking is not done by men whom the
farmer knows as his friends and assO-
| ciates, a spirit of mistrust is almost
sure to spring up. If the merchant or
the manufacturer, the lawyer or the
clerk never meets the mechanic or the
| handicraftsman save on rare occasions,
! when the meeting may be of Il hostile
kind, each side feels that the other is
alien and naturally antagOniStic. But
if any one individual of any group
were to be thrown into natural associ-
alton with another group the difficult
ties would be found to disappear so
far as he is concerned. Very possibly
he would become the ardent champion
of the other group.
Perhaps l may be pardoned for
quoting my own experience as an in
stance in point. Outside of college
boys and politicians my first intimate
associates were ranchmen, COW punch
ers and game hunters, and l speedily
became convinced that there were no
other men in the country who were
their equals. Then l was thrown with
farmers, and l made up my mind that
it was the farmer upon whom the
foundations of the commonwealth real
ly rested; that the farmer was the
archetypical good American. Then
saw a good deal of railroad men, and
after quite an intimate acquaintance
with them grew to feel that, especial
ly in their higher ranks, they typified
the very qualities of courage, self re-
lance, self command, hardihOOd, ca.
pacity' for work, power of initiative
and power of obedience which we like
most to associate with the American
name. Then l happened to have deal
ings with certain carpenters unions
and grew to have a great respect fol
the carpenter, for the mechanic type
BY this time it dawned upon me thai
they were all pretty good fellows ant
that my championship of each set il
succession above all other sets haC
sprung largely from the fact that
was very familiar with the set cham
J pioned and less familiar with the re
] | mainder In other words, had grow
into sympathy with, into understand
, ing of, group after group, with the eff
feet that 1 invariably found that the.
and 1 had common purposes and
common standpoint. We differe'
among ourselves or agreed among Our
selves not because we had differen
Q occupations, but because of our way
a Of looking at life"