The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1904-09-07
HOW ROOSEVELT DENOUNCED DAVIS.

4 number OF southern newspapers
are publishing this extract from Tbeo-
dore Roosevelt's biography of Thomas
Fl. Benton. =
"Before Jefferson Davis took his
place among the arch-traitors il our
annals he had already been known as
one of the chief repndiators; it was
not unnatural that to dishonesty to-
ward the creditor of the public be
should afterward add treachery to the
public itself. -
The Augusta Chronicle contributes
some interesting information relative
to the statements. ''We have it"
says The Chronicle, ''on the personal
testimony of Maj. Livingstone Minis
Of Atlanta. who was an actor in the
affairs of Mississippi referred to by
Mr.. Roosevelt, that, so far from fav-
oring reputation in that State, Mr..
Davis advised the opposite course as
good policy, while not condemning
the motives of thoe who differed with
him. That action cost him the Uni
ted States senatorship. He had it in
his grasp and it passed to Hon. A. G.
Brown
The Chronicle gives this account of
some correspondence which once took
place between Mr. Davis and Mr..
Roosevelt:
':In after years. when Mr.. Davis
was old and unfortunate. at Beauvoir,
the charges made by Mr.. Roosevelt
were brought to his attention. He
waved them aside magnanimously, say
ing: 'Oh, they are not true, but Mr..
Roosevelt made them in the hot i'm
pulse of prejudiced faith But when,
later on, Mr.. Roosevelt, in magazine
article, repeated the false charges and
ADDED that MIR. Davis personally did
not discharge his debts, the ex-Con-
federate president wrote a kind letter
to Mr.. Roosevelt, pointing out bis
errors and Offering to furnish uudis-
putable evidence as to his course in
the reputation era and his own in
dividual honesty. What did Roosevelt
do? Any man of honor, it seems to US,
would have been eager to correct an in
Justice and SANDER leveled at such
a. mau as Mr. Davis; but Mr..
Roosevelt, without the ordinary cour-
tesy of epistolary salutation of Sir or
Dear Sir, wrote coutemptuously on a
slip of paper and mailed it to Beau
voir: Mr.. Theodore Roosevelt desires
no communication with Jefferson Da-
Wis For further particulars we refer
the Houston Post to Maj. Livingstone
Minis, Atlanta, Ca, or to Mrs. Jeffer-
sou Davis, whose present address we
cannot at present furnisb.''
osThe interest Of the people of this
time in Roosevelt's opinion of Mr.
Davis is very slight, I" says the Hous-
ton Post. "The honor and fame of
Mr.. Davis are beyond the shafts OF
any liar or slanderef who ever lived,
but the matter is important in so far
as it gives All insight to the charac-
ter of a man now a candidate for pres
ident of the United States Mr.
Roosevelt when be penned his slander
of Nh. Davis, was quite obscure. 1t
was an act of graciousness on the
part of Mr.. Davis to offer i'll a kindly
spirit to correctly inform him. and if
Roosevelt didn't have the decency to
do right in the premises, it merely
proved that he was grossly deficient in
the virtues of honesty and truth.
THAT the uIdehciency still exists we
have had recent proof. Only a few
weeks ago the country vas moved by
the pitiful appeal of Gen. James L.
Tyner, once attorney general of the
United States, and recently an as
sistant attorney general for the post
office department. Roosevelt had
publicly denounced him as a criminal
and removed him from Office. He was
indicted and tried and an impartial
jury honorably acquitted him. The
old man appelaed to the president to
do him the justice to recall the SLAM
der and libel, but up to this day not
a word has come from Roosevelt. A
president of the United States is not
too great to undo wrong be has COM
mitted against the humblest citizen,
but Roosevelt in private and public
life has been guilty of reckless SIAN
derous charges against the good names
of other men, and so far has never
shown the slightest disposition to rec
tify his blunders No wonder people