The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-04-16
SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1904.
THE INDICTMENT AGAINST HIM.

I HE INDICTMENT AGAINST HIM.
Mayor Jones, of Toledo, is quoted as
speaking in complimentary terms of
President Roosevelt, summing up his
commentator in this one sentence, re-
ferring directly to the presidents ac-
tons in the coal strike, but equally fit
as description of his whole general
attitude: He acted, and he did not
wait for law"
Now this sums up exactly the reason
why a very large number of people OBJ
ject to supporting Roosevelt, and why
they will not vote for him if candi-
date is presented by the Democracy
who commands their confidence. It is
a perfectly just Characterization of
President Roosevelt to say that in all
his official acts he does not wait for the
law He is temperamentally opposed
to that method Of action and unable to
wait for it. This is the element in his
character which makes him so liberal
an exponent of the imperialistic idea.
When joined with bad intentions, it
constitutes a man a tyrant; when
Joined with good intentions, it is per-
haps even more dangerous as accus-
tOming the people quietly to the sub
stitution of personal for constitutional
government without impressing them
with the dangers of the change.
Any government that stops short Of
absOlutism must be a government by
law. Sometimes it is trying to wait
for slow legal processes, and public
patience sinks under the strain. That
is what the lynchers think and say
when they take a man out and hang
him without waiting for a court to de-
termine his guilt. BY disposition Mr.
Roosevelt has all the attributes of the
lyncher. He is very firmly convinced
of the right or wrong of almost any
matter that comes before him, and is
quite prepared to believe that the best
interests Of the country require him to
embOdy those convictions in action, no
matter what laws may say.
This is not the sort Of man whom the
American people should desire to serve
them, and it is not the kind of man in
whose hands institutions are safe. In
the supremacy of the law lies the only
hope of present stability and future
growth in liberty. The stupidest or
worst man who, nevertheless, holds
himself strictly bound by the letter of
the law can do less harm than a man
of really high minded and patriotic in
stincts who endeavOrs to carry these
into action by overpassing the bounds
Of law, and substituting personal will
and official prerogative for that line Of
action which constitutions and statutes
prescribe.
Mayor Jones has characterized Pres
ident Roosevelt exactly. His action
in the case of the coal strike was the
assumption Of a one-man power su-
periOr to the law. Whatever may have
been its practical consequences at the
time. it viii remain as a precedent TO
plague this country for many a year
to come, and to threaten both capital
and labor with infinite evils. In the
Panama affair the president acted in
exactly the same way, without the
slightest regard for law. He saw an
opportunity to obtain a canal conces-
sion, he believed that the people would
approve it and not inquire too nicely
into the means employed, so he broke a
treaty, thrust the honor of the nation
contemptuously on one side and made
himself the law in the case. He did the
same thing in his order relating to old
age pensions. In fact, the United
States has never in its whole history
had president so thoroughly tenn