Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-10-25
VOICES OF THE PRESS.
The President In the South.
louisville Courier JournalD


Certain puzzle headed newspapers
Affect to see in the warm welcome met
everywhere by the President on his
journey through the South Il variance
from the storm of Indignation which
followed the Booker Washington Incl
dent. Their surprise, where it hap
pens to be genuine, is the offspring of
a liberalism equally without sympathy
and imagination, or else it is the fig
nent of a sectiOnalism which has
put party spirit before all other con-
celebrations. Bigotry so dense knows
not the people of the South.
| Theodore Roosevelt, the partisan
Republican succeeding the gentle Nc
Kinley with Il ruthless assault upon
Southern ideas and predictions, in
the Indianola affair, in the Crum af-
fair and in the Booker Washington af-
fair-Theodore Roosevelt, the self
wlled Executive, twirling the Big
Stick and riding rough shod over
whoever, or whatever got in his way,
without much regard to law. or us
age-Theodorr Roosevelt, the Presi-
Idential candidate, who. having captur-
led the machine ana secured his nomi
nation, seemed borne along upon a
tons wrung from the corporations by
methods that to say the least of them
looked like coerciOn-n short, Theo-
dore Roosevelt, the strenuous, aroused
the antagonsm and invited the at
lacks of all who could see in his cleo
ton only a menace to the peace of
the country as we'll as to good order
ana good feeling i'll the southern part
of it.
| That was Il year ago.
Coming in upon a wave of unexam-
Piled popular volition-partly the re
bound of extraordinary conditions but
at the same time an undeniable per
Sonal tribute-another, and quite diff
ferent. Theodore Roosevelt appeared
upon the scene; the Big Stick was laid
away; the habliments of the Rough
Rider were exchanged for more con-
ventional apparel; words We're uttered
and enginerts We're set in motion
which gave the people promise of
emancipation from the rapacity of Ger
tain aggregations of capital that had
long defied the law; and, finally, by
an act of daring AZ original as it was
lfelicitous, and sustained throughout
by untagging persistence and inteli-
Roosevelt stands forth u very archan-
gel of peace. bringing upon himself
and his country glory unspeakable.
| These are simple facts emphasized
by their unexpectedncss, for they did
not spring and could not spring from
any logical deduction either of per
sOnal character or Of political antece-
dents.
| The Theodore Roosevelt who spoke
at Richmond of Lee and Jackson
Iwho. standing in the Confederate cap
| ital. under the shadow of sectional
battle fields. bravely put sectionaliSm
and partyiSm beneath his feet-WhO
Itenderly and in the name of a dead
mother. claimed kindred thrre--is n
gray horse of quite another color
Then and there he touched the button
| that in an instant thrills as it lights
Ian Southern hearts. Then and there
he wiped out every old score and OPP
ened a fresh set of books. Who has
changed, he or We? What boots it?
Maybe neither-maybe, just a case of
plain, old Fashioned misunderstand-
ling,
| Meanwhile, there is no disputing, no
resisting words like these:
| Coming today by the statue of
Stonewal Jackson, in the city Of Lee.
| felt what privilege it is that I, as
an American possess i'm claiming, that
you yourselves possess no greater
right of kinship in Lee and Jackson
than have. / can claim to be a mid
ding good American, because my an
cestry is half Southern and half
Northern; l was born in the East and
| have lived a good while in the West
so long, in fact, that l do not admit
that any man can be q better West
erner than | am. There was an I'M
Gle of mine, now dead, my mothers
brother, who has always been among
all the men I have ever known the
| man who it seems to me came nearest
to typifyng in the flesh that most
beautiful of all characters in fiction,
| -Thackeray'S Col Newcome-my I'M
| Gle. James Dunwoody Bulloch, an ad-
miral in the Confederate army. In
short gentlemen. l claim to be neither
Northerner nor Southerner nor East
erner, nor Westerner, nothing but a
good American, pure and simple. Next
to a man having worn the blue
comes the fact of the mans having
worn the gray as emitting him to
honor in my sight
In breadth of patriotic spirit and in
far-reaching statesmanlike suggestion, |
nothing finer than this was said by
Abraham Lincoln. 1t deserves, indeed. |
to be recorded in letters of gold along |
side of the Gettysburg speech, being |
at once an echo and confir nation of |
that immortal utterance. Breathing |
such sentiments. bearing such a mes
sage, Theodore Roosevelt becomes one |
of US. which il only to say that we
are all, all Americans. equally proud |
of common country, equal heirs of
: its sublime traditions, nor less loyal |
to the Flag of the Union because we