The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-22
poosEVELT's SPEECH.

RoosEVELT's SPEECH.
After reading Secretary Taft's Mon
day speech and President Roosevelt's
Tuesday effort, some question arises
as to whether both productions were
written in collaboration, whether one
man wrote both, or whether each man
read the others and sandwiched in
such ideas as he fancied. Anyway, If
the authors did not exchange manu-
scripts it is a marvellous case of I'M
conscious identical cerebration.
Being delivered in different places,
the introductions are naturally sep
arate. Mr. Taft went into his subject
without any preliminaries, while the
president was compelled by circum-
stances to pay the usual stereotyped
tribute to the Puritans whose memory
the monument at Provincetown is to
commemorate. But here the difference
in production ends. There is, of course,
a difference in style. Mr.. Taft's is the
form of a legal argument; the presi-
dents a didactic sermon on the virtues
which go to make great men and ma
lions, a sort of disguised autobiography
which any acute observer could recog-
nize who has followed the presidential
career.
On one point both men lay the same
emphasis; there is to be no let-up in
the prosecution of the corporations and
men whom the president designates as
Tof- Of On he
tariff, Secretary Taft pronounced for
some sort of revision at some time
after the next presidential campaign,
while the president expressed just the
same idea by saying nothing at all on
the subject Evidently both intend 10
make the railroads and the prosecu-
ton of corporations the great issue and
subordinate the tariff as much as pos
sible.
The presidents analysis Of the Puri-
tan character is of interest, because it
indicates very clearly his own theory
Of individual and national conduct
For instance, after dwelling on the
Puritan's task of cOnquering a conti-
nent and laying the foundations of
our whole American system of civil
political and religious liberty" Mr.
Roosevelt says:
1.-The Puritan was no Laedicean, no
laissez-faire theorist. When ne saw
conduct which was in violation of his
rights-of the rights of man, the rights
of God-as he understood them-he at
tempted to regulate such conduct with
instant, unquestioning promptness and
effectiveness. If there was no other
way to secure conformity with the
rule of right, then he smote down the
transgressor with the iron of his
wrath. The spirit of the Puritan was
a spirit which never shrank from reg
ulation of conduct if such regulation
was necessary for the public veal; and
this is the spirit which we must show
today whenever it is necessary
As a matter of historical fact, the
genuine Puritans. the men who found
ed the commonwealth which had its
beginning at Provincetown, did not
know the first principles of civil or re-
ligious liberty as we know it now
They demanded, and got liberty for
themselves in civil and religious affairs,
but they never conceded it to others
No more rigid tyranny in religious be-
liefs ever existed than the Pilgrims es-
tablished and maintained. It was
Characteristic of the Puritan, as the
president says. to compel conformity
with his own beliefs. and IF there was
no other way, then he smote down the
transgressor with the iron of his
wrath"
X X X
Recognizing the tremendous moral
power of these iron men, con-
ceding their strong adherence to
high standards OF individual life, no
historian of standing today. not even
a John Fiske who was one of them,
insists that they conceded the liberty
Of conscience to others which they de-
manded for themselves.
In this popularity, as in others, their
traits appeal to the president. Like
them. he is perfectly willing to adj, lit