The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1904-10-07

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ance of powers and enabling US foul
years hence, after an interregnum o.
| peace on earth, good will to men, tt
cast about us and determine what i:
best to be done with the problem:
which are now so hay, even to the
clearest vision.
What reason, what good reason
any independent-especially can any
intelligent German voter-give for a
refusal to vote for such a man?
III.
Now take the alternative.
1t is the simple truth, it is only the
truth to say, that we should very
much like to speak of the president
of the United States to be-though
agreeing not with his opinions and
policies-as an eminent, upright,
broadminded man. We cannot so re-
gard Theodose Roosevelt. As we read
his books and his career, as we con-
slider his public record, we can see
nothing but sinister, cynical egotist,
like Conkling, if not wicked at heart,
vet so vengeful and intolerant-so
corroded by ambition and pride-as
to be equal to any act deemed essen
tial to the qualification of his prevail
ing desire, whether it be the sacrifice
of the national honor in transactions
such as the Panama and the postal
scandals, or the wreaking of personal
spite against a veteran soldier like
Miles, or some purpOseless, venomOus
and gratuitous affront to an old man,
like jefferson Davis. The story, from
first last, is in the highest degree hui
initiating.
Beginning with his exit from college,
Theodore Roosevelt made the public
service the business of his life, and
to this good hour he has let no grass
grow beneath his feet, his method
having been TO deliver civic righteous
speeches-to issue civil service mani
festoes-to write books making histo-
ry over again in the likeness OF his
own distorted conceits-and to bully
the party managers the while into
cashing his demands upon them for
office.
The moral difference between
Benedict Arnold on the one hand and
Aaron Burr or Jefferson Davis on the
other" says ne in his Life of Ben
ton" a book teeming with intoler-
ance and insult, sis precisely the diff
ference that obtains between a politi-
clan who sells his vote for money and
one who supports a bad measure in
consideration of being given some
high political position"
The writer of these proscriptive
words, grossly offensive, wantOnly,
needlessly offensive to millions of his
countrymen, ought to know, because,
as president of the United States, he
has himself ruthlessly, shamelessly
sacrificed the professions of alifetime
to get only a nomination to a thigh
political position"
His abuse of the south, and of all
things southern, is a part-and per-
haps the sincerest part-of the under
lying duplicity of his character, for
it doubtless had its origination in the
notion that, as there was a Confed-
crate side to his house, he must be
extra loyal to the other side in order
to efface it. Hence in his earlier
writings he has nothing but ''arch-
conspirators, rebels and ''trai-
tors" to say of most of the Confed-
crate leaders. His theory was that
they had but two rights, 'that to be
hanged and that to be damned" De-
MED by his tender years the happi-
ness of advocating the hanging of
them, he proceeded to damn them, as
far as he could, in print. Yet, were
his blood-curdling sentiments thrift,
thrift, Horatio, thrift" He was not
old enough to know anything of the
passions of war. His father, though
a patriotic northern mad, was a mod
crate man. The ruffle to his shirt is
southern-the hot blood is Bullock,