Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1905-04-20
THE CORTELYOU EPISODE.
Defiance by the President of Settled
Conventions of All Conserv-
alive Men.

III d ToCeHt issue the fnllduelpnlH
Public Ledger, an Independent news
paper with a reputation for fairness in
its treatment OF public men, editorial
ly discusses the unique episode in pol
itics which has been terminated by
the induction of Mr.. Cortelyou into the
office of postmaster general-a position
for which his fitness is universally
conceded, anu in which no M doubts
he will be faithful, efficient and sue
c~essful, says the Washington Post. The
Public Ledger notes that when MI.
Cortelyou left the department Of com.
merce and labor to conduct the presi-
Dental campaign as chairman of the
republican national committee, he took
his Office staff with him; Mr.. Hitch
cock, his chief clerk, became secretary
of the campaign committee, and Mr..
Weaver, Mr.. Cortelyou's private secre.
tary, accompanied him in the same
capacity. And now. the Ledger on
tinues, the campaign being happily
ended, Mr.. Cortelyou returns to official
life as postmaster general, and brings
his staff back with him; Mr.. Hitch
cock becomes first assistant postmaster
general, and Mr.. Weaver private secre-
tary, as before. Our Philadelphia con
temporary suggests:
"This temporary transfer of a cabi-
net officer and his assistants to the
active control Of a campaign for the
election of the president could hardly
fail to provoke criticism. This will
be renewed by the return of the Off
GERS thus detailed to posts correspond
ing with those which they previously
held. AS the places have been kept
for them, the assignment for the can
paign will be regarded as setting a
conspicuous example of the participa-
ton of public officials in practical pol
tiles"
From beginning to end of his
campaign for election to the presi,
dency, from the summer Of 1902, until
the Sth of November, 1904, MI. Roose-
velt's methods were very exceptional.
In some respects they were defiant of
the settled convictions of conservative
men in all parties. But the result was
quite as exceptional in its great, its
unexampled and almost %stupendous
success. Does not the explanation OF
all this reside in the fact that Mr..
Roosevelt is an exceptional man, .
character strikingly different from any
other that the country has ever
known?
Conspicuous among the novel fea-
lures Of Mr.. Koosevelt's canvass was
the Cortelyou episode. 1t was a plain
f1outing of the merit system, and it
was a mistake in other respects. 1t
would in all probability have been ia
tai to a candidate identified with the
opponents of reform in the civil SER
ice. But it can scarcely have caused
even the slightest loss of votes to the
candidate who, in the infection of that
heavy blow full in the face of the
merit system, departed from his pro-
LESSONS and his record as a devoted
friend of that system. 1t did not shake
and nothing that has occurred has
shaken, the firm confidence of the PEG.
pie in Mr.. Roosevelt's honesty, SINGER
ity, patriotism and devotion to high
ideals. He was overwhelmingly elect.
ed because Of that overwhelming conf.
dence. But we repeat that his plan Of
campaign, from the outset in 1902 to
its triumphant ending, was almost
contemptuously defiant of conservative
ideas, and that only an extremely un
conventional and altogether exception.
al candidate rendered that triumph
possible.