The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-29
AN rrsArE PRESIDENT.

a chief executive who was better at making pledges and disregarding t..em. Never has there been one who had more to say about civic honesty, fai h. fulness in ofice and strict devotion to honest administration in official life and made less effort to prove his words by his acts.
 The case of Paul Morton is discred- itable to the President and to the gov ernment He was admittedly an open and fragrant violator of the laws for bidding secret rebates by railroad companies. He openly admitted that as an official of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad his compsny violated the law. "The trade was H. legal and we knew it when we made It." is about the language he used with reference to one transaction. He used the word "we," thus admitting that he was a party to the violation.
 This man was member of the Presidents Cabinet, but certainly that fact should not have shielded him. Being one of Roosevelt's official fam fly was all the more reason why he should have been called to account. and why he would have been so called by President anxious to protect the good name and fame of the govern ment and the country. So far from taking this course tho President in- tervened and stopped the inquiry which had been begun by special attorneys of the government who had been em- ployed to investigate the affairs of lenders. Instead of allowing the pros- ecution to go on, as a President so lavish of pledges would be expected to do. the prosecution was stopped by Roosevelt himself Not only that, but Morton was kept in the Cabinet, and when he went out he carried with him from the President such g letter of commendation and Justification as few men in this country could really deserve.
 It was one of the most open and complete whitewashings that was ever given to a tainted official by his chief It was tine most shameless vindication that any President eyer was guilty of, and the excuse for 1t was that Nor ton was the Presidents friend. Be- cause of that personal friendship a more than suspected violator was not only Suffered to go without inyestiga- tion but was held up to public view as a very paragon of official perfec- tiop. Is 1t any wonder that lovers of honest, clean government are shamed and humiliated, and that newspapers of the Presidents own party either damn him with faint praise," or open- ly and pointedly criticise his coursei The entire episode is a nauseous one and a discouraging one. Paul Mortcr has been :Vindicated" but our gov ernment has not.
 Nor is the case of Bowen and Loom Is one whit more creditable to tn President or administration. It may and probably was, right and proper | dismiss Bowen from office. His con duct, to say the very least of 1t, wa not such as to authorize his retention in a position so delicate and importan as that of Minister from the Unlte' States. That he had done some goo, service in the past is not to be dis puted but that fact, instead of excus ing his later '1ndiscretions" but serve to accentuate them.
 Bowen should have been retired, no | a doubt about that, but Loomis shoul' have gone by the same route, and a the same time. To kick one out ant retain the other was an act of par tiality and favoritism that cannot b excused by right thinking people, no can 1t be explained in any way tha I is creditable to Roosevelt. Loomi was mixed up almost criminally il the Asphalt Company affair. He wa shamefully, or shamelessly, entangle' with Mercado in the torpedo-boat bust ness. He was implicated in the Wes Virginia mining concessions in a wa, that cannot be explained in any man ner that reflects credit on himself o his government.
 In all these, as well as ih variou other matters. Loomis is proven to hay been certainly as blamable as Bowe was. If there were 4ndiscretions, prac tically amounting 10 grave blunders in one case there were the same fault in the other. If one of the men wa shown to be liberally coated with ta | tt ota hot he
 rubbed with the same stick. The
 were particeps eriminis, so far as bein
 equally guilty goes.
 Yet Bowen was dismissed with dis
 ed and otherwise treated as a con
 temptible criminal, while his equall
 guilty mate was not only exonerate
 and highly complimented but was bot
 retained and advanced. Blyfil wa
 executed and Black George rewarde
 for offenses of equal grade. Wa
 ever a more conspicuous example (
 injustice, of personal favoritism an
 of indefensible discrimination exhibite
 by a President of the united States
 No wonder so many staunch Republica
 organs are straining themselves in th effort to refrain from kicking out ( the traces.
 Mir. Roosevelt should call a ha in his habits of speech. He shoull at once discontinue his spectacula deliverances in favor of official hor
 esty. He should refrain from his COT
 tinuous habit of exhorting all an