The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1906-04-13

started not single man toward the
penitentiary, they saved not u dollar
of the public funds, they failed to
make a single definite charge which
could be investigated by any reason.
able person. 1t was n campaign of
mud singing. Calling guns of tlnlth
were trained upon members of the ad-
ministratlon, and particularly members
of the house and senate, but out of 1t
all there came not one tangible proof
of actual dishonesty.
Old Stories Warmed over,
There was revamping of old
stories, vast amount of personal i'm
pressions, caldron of froth, a few
readable stories which left n bad taste
in the mouth-and then the bubble
burst.
1t is a curious thing that the one
man in Washington who more than
anyone else was disgusted by this
wholesale villitication of public men,
without a word or syllable of actual
proof, was President Roosevelt, the
patron saint of the graft-hunters them
selves, and the man whose honesty
has become synonym of the best
American citizenship throughout the
world.
Not one of the magazinists attacked
the president, none of his pet policies
was roughly handled, none of his per-
sonal friends was unkindly assaulted,
but the president has taken 1t upon
himself to rebuRe the villifiers and he
intends to do it, as he does everything,
publicly, frankly, and completely.
Those who have seen Theodore Roose-
welt hit out from the shoulder with a
pair of light gloves, or who have heard
the crack of his single stick beating
down an opponents guard, know that
when he Is in earnest he does his best
The "Muck Rake.
He is sick and tired of the maya
zinists and their filth campaign and
as president of the United States, as
well as an individual, he deems it his
duty to expose the unfairness and the
treasonableness of these wholesale in
situations against the integrity of the
American government.
President Roosevelt's first public ap.
pearance outside of Washington this
winter will be on Memorial day before
the Army and Navy union at Norfolk,
Va. He will be in his element there
because he will be speaking originally
to the enlisted men of the service, who
make up that union, and it is to them
he will preach his sermon.
The president has taken as his text
Bunyan's story of "The Man With
the Muck Rake" and he has begun to
weave about that title a speech which
will be read throughout the country
and probably throughout the world in
defense of the integrity the capacity
and the general average honesty of
public men of the United States.
His speech will be a distinct depar-
ture in the way of public addresses. 1t
will be in no sense defense Of his
own administration, because no one
has attacked that, and the president s
personal activity in forcing rich and
influential officials out of their places
and into the penitentiary will give him
the right to insist that the campaign
of villification of public men shall eli.
ther cease at once or shall be imme-
diately followed by production of
sufficient proof to secure the trial and
conviction of accused persons.
Failing that, the president will ask
the American public to join with him
in his appreciation of the average hon
esty of the American citizen, whether
he be in or out of public office.
The men who have been writing the
kind of magazine articles which the
president asserts have disgusted him,
and which have caused the most criti-
cism in Washington because of their
profusion of attack and dearth of evil
dence are Upton Sinclair, David Ora
ham Phillips, Alfred Henry Lewis,
Henry Beach Needham, Lincoln Stef-
fens, Ray Stannard Baker.