Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1906-02-24
UNFAIR TO PRESIDENT RoosE-
WELT.

irritation among the host OF special
correspondents" at Washington who
represent western, southern, and east
ern papers, as is evident from a mere |
reading of the dispatches, says
Golfers Weekly. The CORE |
spondents magnify anything that
shows the president in bad light.
They made columns and columns Out
of the Mrs. Miner Norris incident,
and they have been somewhat over
pleased at Mr.. Roosevelts AUTHORIZE
ton of the sketch Of him in "Fads and
Fancies." This feeling of irritation
among newspaper men, as well as
among many congressman and pri-
vate individuals, is due mainly to the
presidents lack of tact, fault, but
not one so serious as to blind us to the
fact that American citizens should re-
joice in the existence of President
Roosevelt. Where is there another
man whose inspiration carries to such
large numbers of those who are fight
ing graft from Maine to California?
How many can furnish sympathy and
strength, as the President does, to
men who have never seen him, but are
trying to effect better things in their
own communities? There are hun
dreds of men in public life, of the kind
from whom presidents are chosen, who
are unable to comprehend many OF
the things which the people need and
want. and for which Mr.. Roosevelt Is
a living dynamo of encouragement.
We are not forgetting his faults, even
along the lines for which our praise
is now being given. We regret, for
example, the part the national govern
ment is playing in Illinois politics and
the senatorial contest in that state,
and time and again there has been
cause to grieve over his interference
on the wrong side of the local fights
Admitting his shortcomings, we reit-
crate that the prejudice against him
among Washington correspondents Is
something against which people should
be on their guard, and that, standing
as he does on the whole for good, his
wide popularity and power of reaching
millions, and making them believe in
him and in the doctrines which he is
continually expounding, is one of the
most valuable assets of present pol
itics.
Whatever hostility to Mr.. Roosevelt
can be worked up will be used to the
uttermost now by the forces of corrupt
MONEY! privilege that are ranged
against him. Whatever our criticisms,
let us not forget the desperate con-
test which special privilege every
where is prepared to wage at Wash
ington-a contest in which, whoever
may be right in this detail or that,
on the whole the president is the most
powerful champion of the vague but
strong feeling of the people, that H.
nancial burdens are unequally distrib-
uted and need to be readjusted. In
this contest, which will be long and
hard one, it will be the policy of the
shrewd manipulators who are guarding
their present "snaps" to take advant-
age of every one of Mr. Roosevelt's
slips. Let those of us who wish JUS
tice everywhere, whatever interests
fall, criticise him as freely as we would
a holder of the humblest office, but
let us not lose sight Of the fact that
the presidents fiercest enemies are
likewise enemies of us all. 1t is not
a question of who is right on the Hep
burn bill or on almost any other meas
ure that may be before the country
1t is not a question of means but OF
ends and spirit that we are consider
ing. The presidents ends are justice
and equality, and his strongest oppo-
nents are those whose ends are injus-