The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-05-15
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ARRA|GNED
BY SENATORS BAILEY AND T|LLMAN


ator Carter that the president had dur
ing his campaign for the presidency
displayed matchless courage in defying
the railroad power Of the country, Sen
ator Bailey said of the presidents attl-
tude in that election:
Has the senator from Montana ex-
amined the record on that question!
AS he did the record of the senator
from Maryland and myself? What Will
the senate say when [ tell the senator
from Montana that in his messages OF
1902 and 1903 the president was as ST.
lent as the grave upon the question OF
regulating the railroads; that standing
nthe presence of the American oco-
pie pending the great contest Of 1904,
he spoke never a word in its favor,
either in hiS.letter of acceptance or in
his speech of acceptance.
"Only after his election in 1904 did
he challenge the railroad power in
mortal combat; did the senator from.
Montana know that when he declared
that the president had exhibited the
mervelOus courage in defying it prior
to his election?"
Senator Carter replied that in pub
lie address delivered in the city OF Min
neapO1is before his nomination the
president had in clear, distinct and un-
equivocal terms announced his posi- :
ton upon the subject and likewise
upon necessary antitrust prosecutions
and legislation.
In reply Senator Bailey said he dio
not know the president had discussed
the railroad question in his speech at
Minneapolis, but he had examined the
presidents public messages prior to the
election and had found nothing Of that
character in them.
Senator Bailey said that the presl-
dents secretary had written to the
editor of a publication known as
Freight" in the summer Of 1904, de-
claring that in his letter Of acceptance
the president would 'speak OUT on
the railroad question. He said the
presidents promise had not been re-
deemed. Continuing, he said:
Il do not say that the president put
it in his letter and then when his as
tute political advisers told him tnat
the railroads would not contribute,
that he cut it out, will not say that
although there are many men unchari-
table enough to say it. I only put be-
fact that his secretary said the presi-
detn would speak on it and he did not
speak on it.
perhaps these insurance companies
which were contributing the trust
funds of widows and orphans to secure
his election owned so many OF those
railroad bonds that they deferred not
the president, but the presidents ad-
yiser's from Incorporating in his letter
a message of hostility against the rail-
roads Immediately preceding the cleo
ton.
! Mr.. President, | love brave man.
love a fighter and the president OF the
United States is both on occasion, out
he can give UP with as much alacr!ty
as any man who ever went to BATHS
either civic or political. He fights fu-
riously when it is a physical contest,
| I grant you, because that is a question
of courage as we'll as endurance, but
he seems to have no endurance in
these political contests here. Why he
was going to revise the tariff and his
friends called him off, and then that
great voice that was filling the nation
with demand for tariff revision sud
denly sank into the gentleness and
| weakness of a whisper.
Then he was going to have the
| railroads regulated and it was an
nounced that congress would be col
vened in extraordinary session to dea
with it, but the great leaders assem-
| bled with the president, prayed win
| him a little while, and no call was IS
sued for an extraordinary session Ol
congress. He waited until the regular
/ session and five months of that has
| elapsed and still no legislation. AuC
| when we do get a bill, God save the
| country from such bill as it will be
| 'If the president had been this he
| roic figure which the senator from
| Montana would have us believe he Was
| you know what he would have done
He would have summoned these re
| publican leaders to a conference, IRON
| the house and the senate, and he woult
| have said to them:
| "'Gentlemen, am not talking to yor
now as the president of the United
| States; l am talking to you as Theo
dore Roosevelt, the republican. | an
| talking to you as republican. l wan
| to tell you that happen to have learn
| ed that unless you pass good Bill
| the president of the United States in
| tends to veto it And they wouiI
| have passed a bill fulfilling in somt
| degree the laudable exvectations of rni:
peovle. If congress had failed to dt
| it and he had vetoed the bill they pass
| ed and then convened them in extraor
binary session to pass good one, n
would have written his name side b!
side with the names of Jefferson, ane
Jackson, and Lincoln, and other:
among his illustrious predecessors.
But, Mr. President, let us have NJ
more talk in the senate and talk IL
the country about this iron man. HI
is clay, and very common clay a
that"
During the consideration of the rail
road rate bill in the senate today Sen
ator Tillman made an attack upon the
president He referred to the Lons
amendment saying that he did so witt