The Colfax gazette. [volume] (Colfax, Wash.) 1893-1932, 1907-06-21
DAN |. WELTYS GRAFTON
Delivered at Graduating Exer-
cises of City High School.
Speaks on Theodore, the MeddIer'
Young Mans Estimate of
Our Great President.

The graduating exercises of the COlfax
High school, which took place at the
Ridgeway theater on the 29th ult., was
an assemblage of citizens, teachers and
scholars not soon to be forgotten, and
on that occasion several papers we're
read and speeches delivered by the grad
uating class that caused much favorable
comment. The one delivered by Dan l..
Welty was unique in its class, and we
embrace the first opportunity in giving
it to our readers in full. Young Welty
struck a sympathetic cord when he
selected for his subject, Theodore, the
Meddler." Here it is:
When men ask, Whence comes our
president: the natural reply is, From the
Wild West. True, he was born among
the wealthy knickerbOckers of New York
But it was the west that made him what
he is; gave him his fearless heart, his in
flexible determination, his spirit of JUS
tice and his magnificent manhood. 1t
was the west that transformed him from
sickly youth into a vertable dynamo
of moral earnestness and physical and
mental energy. The romance of the
west hangs about him it's grandeur, its
wildness, its picturesqueness are con-
stantly suggested to our minds when we
think of him. His title among the finan
ciers of Wall street is, "TheOdOre, the
Meddler"
When he took the oath Of office Wall
street knew him only as a rash young
man, who, while governor of New York,
had dared to institute a campaign
against encroaching corporate wealth.
They had learned to fear him, because
with his rashness they had found com
bined political shrewdness and an ade-
quate knowledge Of the game of politics.
He had pushed law through the New
York legislature which Wall street imag-
ined had been bought and paid for
compelling corporations to bear their
Just proportion of the burden Of tax
alton. His efficiency had therefore made
him dangerous in Albany, and, cOnse-
sequently, when elected president many
were appalled, at the thought of what he
might do at Washington. This is why
Wall street called Roosevelt Theodore,
the Meddler." Ii the title were true
then it is obviously and infinitely truer
now.
He had not been president a month
before he entered into a conflict over
Cuban reciprocity. This fight proved to
the country that Roosevelt was every
inch man, and that he was fighting for
nothing but principle. This fight was
typical of all that has followed, with
crooked business and crooked politics.
He asked more than he expected to get;
got more than his opponents expected
to give; and planting his guns upon the
vanquished works he has fought on for
substantial victory. Not once has Pres
ident Roosevelt entered into a contest
with congress and failed. He has start
ed more fights than all the presidents
combined since Grant, and has won them
them because the issues have been simple;
his side has been morally right and the
people have been with him. His success
has mystified politicians who do not see
that the people are always with the man
who fights for the right, because it is
right, and does not cloud the issue with
a transparent desire for personal tri-
umph.
After Cuban reciprocity came the set
tlement of the coal strike, notable vic
tory for righteousness unarmed. Then
came the attack upon the Northern Pa