The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1905-11-01
OBIECT OF THE PRESIDENTS VISIT
nr HON. DOUGLAS eLEssNER in The Grimm News.


Now that President Roosevelt has
come to Georgia and gone through 1t
on his mission of temporarily healing
old wounds and bridging political
cbasms it would be worth while to
look for the motives that are actual
ing this apparently candid, in his own
mind very astute but really rather
shallow actor in the great role to
which he has been elevated by the ia
vors of fortune and the votes OF
thoughtless populace.
X
Immediately upon entering the south
on his long promised trip President
Roosevelt began an exposition of his
various policies and speeches, which
are intended to be an appeal to the
southern democrats to support him IN
congress and thus make up the loss of
strength he has suffered from the OPP
position of republican senator's and
representatives Itis the boldest move
Republican president has ever made,
and the result will be watched with
great interest
-
With the president the railroad rate
question is the paramount issue at
this time in domestic affairs. 1t is
not likely that the president will in
December renew the suggestion made
in his last annual message to have the
Interstate Commerce Commission en-
powered to adjust rates, but he is
likely to advance the suggestion that
some central authority be so en-
powered, and that the new rate go in
to effect Immediately. This will be
quite as Objectionable to the railroads
as the original proposition, and they
will fight it just as bitterly.
~
The president realizes that he has d
tremendous fight on his hands. He
knows that the railroads have been
hard at work all summer and fall
flooding the country with arguments
against his policy, and that they have
made great Roadway in the east and
far west. From these sections he will
get few republican votes. He also
knows that the bulk of the support he
will get for his legislation will come
from the middle west.
~
The south is the debatable ground.
Here the railroads have been doing
hard work. but whether it will prove
effective must be developed later.
The president will undoubtedly try to
win the southern shippers for a rate
bill that suits him, even if it does not
suit the railroads, in the hope that
they will compel the senators and rep
resentatives to give HIM succOr. Thus
abe south holds the balance of power
and a republican president is driven
to the extremity of appealing to the
democracy of the south to come to
the aid of the republicans of the mid
die west in getting relief from the
railroads in the way which he has
pointed out.
y X
The president is likely to stir up a
Tartar is Alabama. This is the home
of Senator Morgan. Senator Morgan
is one of the few senators of the old
school left. He is 81 years old, but
he was able to speak longer and more
coherently than many of his col
leagues during the last session of the
senate, and in most of his speeches he
took issue with the president. He OPP
posed the president on Panama and
on Santo Domingo, and now has come
out openly again to the proposal of
the president to use the federal author
ity to establish railroad rates. The
aged senator takes the position that it
is an invasion of state rights, and he
will doubtless make his views known
in reply to the president very soon af-
ter the cheers for Mr.. Roosevelt have
died out in Birmingham, Montgomery
and Mobile.
This invasion of the south at this
particular time is one of the most dra
matte steps an executive OF the United
States has ever taken. While the
president is one of the most popular
men in the country, he has not been
able to induce congress to follow him
on many of the questions he has