The Saint Paul globe., 1904-01-30
SATURDAY, JAN. 80, 1904.
DISGUSTING HYPOCRISY.


President Roosevelt has right to
aspire to the Republican nomination
and a right to work for it by all hon.
orable means. We do not quarrel with
him for that, but we think that, for a
man of his temperament and record
and former utterances. a hypocritical
pretension is particularly outrageous
and disgusting. Why turn the eager
countenance of the spokesman over one
shoulder and the beatific mask of the
reformer over the other?
A special dispatch carried by some
of the Republican papers contains an
authorized utterance by the president
In which he states that, while he de-
sres the nomination and while the
conventions in the several states will
! necessarily contain many federal office
holders, because they are men best in
formed about local politics, yet he
hopes that, as far as possible, the col
lection of federal brigade" will be
avoided. He piously disclaims any
desire to interfere with or influence i'll
this way public opinion, and sympa-
/ thizes with the severance of political
activity and official life
Now this is the sort of mush to
which we particularly object. 1t is
all right when a man like President
Cleveland orders officeholders to alb
stain from "pernicious activity" and
bars them out of conventions under
penalty of losing their jobs. 1t is all
right, also, when a man of another
stamp frankly asserts that it is a part
of the business of off1ceholders to sup
port the men who make them, de-
mands that his appointees serve his
cause, Furnishes them If they do not
and takes the consequences. Either Of
these positions is ineligible and re-
spectacle. Attempting the combina-
tion of the two is disgusting and con-
temptible
1t is a particularly we'll known fact
that President Roosevelt has for more
than a year past been working the
Offices for all that they were worth in
the interest of his own nomination.
He placed Mr.. Payne in charge of the
postoffice for that purpose and no
,pther. No man with the least ac-
Quaintance with the politics of his
own state is ignorant of the fact that
the senators and representatives have
had federal patronage turned over to
them absolutely when they were
pledged to the support of Mr.. Roose-
Nelts candidacy. 1t is no secret to
anybody today, either at Washington
Or in any state of the Union, that the
federal offices are being apportioned
everywhere in the same way and under
the same old rule. There never was a
spokesman of the most pronounced type
In the White house who made more
ruthless use of the offices to advance
his personal ends than does Mr.. Roose-
welt
AS We said before, we have no quar-
rel with this if it is done in the open.
We can at least understand and re-
spect the theory of public life on which
the spokesman acts. We understand
and appreciate good deal more high
ly the theory Of duty on which the sin
cere reformer acts. But the one thing
which the public justly loathes is the
hypocrite. That has not beef the
character of President Roosevelt in tba
past. We do not see how, In view ~
the plain and universal fact all over
the country with reference to Office
holding and his SNUG pretense of vir-
tue. he can be acquitted of the charge
today
our own Jadam Bede has come to
aI Hes.-