The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-06-18
Roosevelt and Kang Hi.

Baron Speck Won Sternberg went a
good deal out of his way to find par
allel when he went to forgotten Chi
nese emperor to find some of the
maxims included in the Roosevelt philo-
sophy of public service. The stock OF
phrases which may be used by a states
man intent upon lettering the condi-
ton of his generation is somewhat cir
cumscribed. They rally around the
common point of individual right to
opportunity. This idea involves de-
nunciation Of monopoly, injustice,
cheating in weights and grabbing the
soil. The land question which is at the
bottom of the problem of monopoly is
much older than Roosevelt and consid-
erably antedates Kang Hi.
Nor does Baron Won Sternberg mean
to imply that the president owes an
unacknowledged debt to Kang Hi for
some Of the ideas he has advanced any
more than Kang Hi, owed such a debt
to Confucius or Moses. Like Homer,
what they. saw they went and took, and
the world gained if not by the origina-
ton at least by their application of al
ready familiar ideas.
f. A study of Roosevelt does not con-
duce so much to admiration Of his orig
nality of expression as to sympathy
with the depth of his feeling. The pres
ident is continually appealing to his
fellow citizens sense Of right and he is
continually clapping upon them the re-
sponsibility for action when that sense
of duty has been aroused. =" .'s,~2
During the last days Of the tortuous
debate upon the rate bill in the senate
the president is said to have expressed
longing that the senators would let
up on their "yawp' and pass the bill.
This expression Is strictly apochryphal,
but it is illustrative. The president
could keep up his interest in a purely
academic discussion of court review
only a certain length Of time, He
found his enthusiasm over. a dialectie
discussion oozing away while it's tide
was still surging madly in the consti'
tutional bosom of Joe Bailey. 1t is at
once a weak and a strong point in Mr.
Roosevelt that he is impatient Of de.
lay This side Of his nature has given
his critics their excuse for saying he
is too impulsive to be a safe guide
Yet there is very little evidence Of
impulse in the president. He acts upor
well-considered grounds, but not neces
sarily- from premises invented by him
self. Some of them may have beer
once the property Of Kang Hi, as Baro1
Speck intimates. But it will be founc
that they are most of them the com
mon property Of the saltruists of thu
ages. The main difference between tn,
president and his opponents is-that h
does not see why i1nbeddeds b capita
should not give up those advantage
which do not belong to it but to tn
common good. Embedded capital, how
. ever, looking at the matter HISTORICAL,
and seeing that it has for long tim
enjoyed those advantages, believes tn
president must surely have leaped to
wrong conclusion in asserting that the
belong to somebody else. Baron vo
Sternberg has perhaps done the pres
dent service in pointing out that tn
Roosevelt ideas are not the Invention O
an 1mpulsive man of middle age, blu
are part of the common stock Of idea
OF those who saw in their day that ius
j., tice must from time to time have he
scales tested.