The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-02-04
BRINGING ROOT
To THE Front
What May Happen to Any Can
didate the President
Does Not Fancy.
(Mail Special to the Advertiser.)

President Roosevelt has long EeeH Try
ing TO get his Secretary of State, ELM
Root, into a more popular attitude be
| fore the country Some politicians here
! believe the President may be on the
point of succeeding, although more thar
once he has given up the task. The Sec
retary's great ability as a lawyer ano
as head of a department of the fed
eraI government is conceded by enc
mics and friends alike, but at every
move the President has made to have
his Secretary of State considered
candidate for the party highest honor,
he has been met with the criticism
that Mr.. Root s work as an attorney
for big New York corporations dis
qualified him.
If Secretary Root were not so
averse to public speaking, the Presl-
dent would have put upon him much
in that line which has been put upon
Secretary Taft. Many time when
the President can not accept an invita-
tion to speak, he wants some one to
speak for him. That explains in part
why Secretary Taft has been kept go
ing up and down the country making
addresses during the last two or three
years. Mr.. Taft has assumed the role
of substitute to the President very
satisfactorily, but Secretary Root could
have done a lot of the substitute
speechmaking if he would. The premier
of the Roosevelt administration, of
course, has heard occasional talk about
his own presidential prospects, but he
has been as absolutely Indifferent to
it as has Secretary Taft.
OF late, however, Secretary Root has
been coming to the front little as a
public speaker and the views he has
advocated have been attracting public
attention. This has been noticeable at
time when the public seems to think
that q presidential boom for Secretary
Taft is evoking little enthusiasm. Most
of Secretary Roots platform activity
has been the outcome of his trip last
summer around South America. Not
long after his return from that remark
able trip, he spoke before a trade con-
gress at Kansas City. Since then he
has spoken in New York and also last
week in this city before trade organiza-
tions. In all the speeches Mr.. Root
has made since his return from South
America, except a campaign utterance
or two, like that at Utica in denuncia-
ton of Candidate Hearst, he has been
dwelling upon industrial and trade is
sues and preaching closer relations with
the American republics. His state
ments on these topics have been SO
favorably received by business men
that politicians begin to question
prominent issue in the next presidential
campaign. The ship subsidy bin, which
Mr.. Root has been earnestly advocating
for the assistance he believes it will
give to South American trade, is likely
to become a law at this session. The
Secretary of State, more than any
other one man, unless it be the Presi-
dent, is responsible for the renewed
interest Congress has been taking in
that measure. The Secretary also start
ed into full swing new campaign for
a maximum ard minimum tariff, be-
fore he went on his visit to Canada,
which, while nominally but friendly
visit occasioned by the visit here last
summer Of Lord Grey, the Governor
General Of Canada, has an important
bearing on negotiations for the settle
ment of vexatious Canadian questions
long pending before the State Depart
ment.
The Secretary likewise has taken a
very pronounced attitude about Cuba
which meets with the approval of
Congress and, presumably, of a large
portion of the people of the United
States to whom the annexation of in,
sular territory is obnoxious During
the past week Mr.. Root has dealt a
hard blow to whatever annexation
hopes there were in some quarters by
his emphatic statement that annexation
was not to be considered GA good
deal of talk has been heard of the
annexation of Cuba,'' said the Seere.
tary in his speech before the National
convention for the Extension of For.
eign Commerce. Annexation must