The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-23
THE WEEKLY JOURNAL, Issued Thursday. One Dollar n Year
THE PRESIDENT.

If the press of the country repre- sents accurately the impression made upon thinking people by President Roosevelt's Provincetown speech that strenuous official has need to ponder long and well upon tho responsibility which is his. More than ever before is 1t his duty to calmly judge of the possible consequences of the thought iess1y spoken word, the paralyzing eff feet of immature counsel and the de- structive force of boisterous invective. In many senses of the term he has come to the parting of the ways, where in the selection of the road he may make he will require all of his im- mense personal popularity and the ad- vice of his closest friends to either re- tain the confidence of the nation for his own use or for the use of his choice in the presidential office.
 It is in no spirit of vicious criticism that we approach the consideration of President Roosevelt as he is now pre- scented to the country as logical out come of his Provincetown attitude. Every public official gives his friends and his enemies opportunities to dis agree with him. He expects it and It is well for the country that they pos sess the courage to speak out in the hope that 6 word of warning may withhold the nasty blow While President Roosevelt has given both his friends and his enemies frequent opportunities to regret specific actions, so fascinating has been his personal character that the marked tendency has been to forgive him because of his sincerity. It is the most difficult thing in the world to openly quarrel with a man whose love of nature is as passionate as Mir. Roosevelt's. People who know him and people who have never seen him follow him on his trips to the woods, whether with gun or fishing rod. with an affectionate in- terest in his safe return. They read of his love of children and of his pranks with them with never ceas- ing charm. They feel the thrill of his simple enthusiasm when he tells them that he likes men who are dead game" Pictures of him making hay on his farms exchanging jokes with his men as he yields the pitchfork, continue to give pleasure. He is felt to be a human being and there is mo- thing humans like quite so much as the revelation in others of the in- pulses which move them. It is be- cause President Roosevelt is all this and much more that his power for mischief as well as his power for good Is extraordinary The Provlncetown speech in the mouth of another would have soon been lost sight of. Tn the mouth of an extraordinarily popular man of human instincts it's echoes are destined to be heard for many a month.
 The situation confronting President Roosevelt to-day is of slow growth but 1t feeds hungrily upon the sense of ap. prehension and insecurity which his careiessly chosen words to illustrate an ideal, possibly sound in itself, have pro voxed. His charge, which in the mouth of the President of the United States should possess all of the weight of ex. trene caution and deliberatlon, that rich fnalefactors have combined to dis. credit the government, taken into con. sideration together with his stern ant relentless pledge to keep up the fgh against evildoers, falls disquietingly upon people ofeareful speech who reach conclusions with all of the facts in ev. idence. Rich malefactors cannot sue. cessfully combine to discredit the goot name of the government without tht consent of those who to make the un. dertaking successful must be drawn il millions from the ranks of the people That stands as a matter of course. st of itself it discloses the emptiness 0 the charge, but there remains to d, mischief the spirit back of such a ter rife assault. Something more than tht personal sincerity of the man making such a charge is necessary to evade it serious consequences. It is we'll enougl perhaps to make faces at capital great many people do 1t all of the time from the most ignoble of purposes, bu when the faces made are, as in thl case, distorted enough to send capita which is temperamentally timid int retirement. away from the pay envel ope, a condition arises which is not eas fly controlled. When the President o