The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1906-08-10

10 put the screws 10 the recalcl
trants in Congress. They wincet
and cried aloud, but men in clos.
quarters cannot be very obdurat'
and the average politician is never
very squeamish. A growl or tive
came from the Gray Wolves o.
the Senate; but Mr.. Speaker Can
non, and his dociIe Rules Commit
tee, danced to the music of the new
fiddler for dear life. Thus the Slo.
gan Roosevelt and Prosperity.
So far SO good. Fke President
still has his party in the hollow Of
his hand. He can do with it as be
will. In 1908 he may be its nomi.
nee. In any event, unless the
party repudiates him, he will be
its sole logical expression and in
case he is not its nominee, he will
be our best witness; because the
Republican party without Theo-
dore Roosevelt is a mcribund af-
fair, an elephant in an iron cage,
with one foot bound by Tariff
thongs and another strapped to its
own tail, whilst the same old vo-
racious trunk reaches yainly out
after the familiar sustenance Of
criminal wealth, formerly poured
in with such abundance by the
Insurance companies, tn e Rail-
ways and the Banks, to say moth
ing about the fat fried out of the
Protected interests.
The President has played clev-
er game. He has sought to cut
the ground from under Mr.. Bry-
ans feet. He has thought, how
ever, too little of the ground be-
meath his own. The difference be-
tween them is the difference be-
tween the spurious and the true.
Mr.. Bryan's clothes do not fit Mr..
Roosevelt. If Mr.. Roosevelt be
the candidate in 1908 he will have
to face the third-term proposition.
If he be not, we put him on the
stand as our star performer.
Can walrus waltz to the music
Of "the beautiful blue Danubeg"
Can the elephant dance a jig with
out his fiddler? AS little can the
Republican party, hopeycombed
with abuses, the author of all our
commercialized policies and our
lowered moral conditions, prance
round as a real Reformer.
But, on the other hand, if Mr..
Roosevelt be indeed an angel and
not mortal--as the New York
Sun claims him to be-he may
fling ambition to the winds and go
in for results, "doing his utter
most at the bat whilst he has the
chance" to quote Harper's Week
ly, and, in that event, the day of
our complete redemption might be
deferred, some of the worse abuses
having been actually mended.
We would do the President no
injustice. Respecting the Office he
holds though not magnifying its
dignity conceiving its occupant
the first citizen merely. yet still a
citizen the servant, the very
body. servant, of the people-we
entertain for the personality of
Theodore Roosevelt the consider
alton which his character and his
deeds have the right to command
of his countrymen. Yet, to be
equally just to ourselves, we should
discriminate between the man, as
he is, in his private and domestic
stockings, and the same man in
jack. boots, mounted and riding
for a wager, hot with the passions
of combat and ambition. Already
he has swung the pendulum too
far in the direction of Centralized
power. We need to swing it back.
Who shall say that too much dom
nancy may not degenerate into
absolutisms And, then whats
Mr.. Bryan is the true, the origi-
nal Moses. Mr.. Roosevelt merely
impersonates the part. The house
is yet dark and half-empty. We
must await awhile for the curtain
to rise. for the lights to be turned