Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-04-08
ATTACKS ROOSEVELT
Ex-Governor Odell Introduced
 at Banquet by Satan.
WOULD PREFER ELECTRIC CHAIR.
Former State Leader Declares He Would Rather Be ElectrOcuted Than Resume Chairmanship
 Of New York Com mittee,

.
 NEW YORK, April S.--In thinly yelled attack on President Roosevelt. in which he referred to paranoiacs and grasshoppers, B. B. Odell, IT,, former governor of New York and chairman of the Republican state committee, de- clared he would rather be electrocuted than be placed at the head of the Re publican machine in this state.
 Mir. Odell made this statement at the first annual dinner of the Grillers' club here, at which prominent leaders of both parties were present. While he did not refer to the president by name in any part of a rather long speech, his inferences were so plain as to cause sensation.
 The former governor was introduced soon after the dinner began by the ap- pearance of a character impersonating Satan from behind screen, who call ed upon and sentenced him to resume the leadership of the Republican or ganization. Mir Odell declared the sentence was unusually severe and said he preferred the electric chair
 Every age" said Mir. Odell "has it's foibles, its vagaries, it's strenuous men and times when the voice of the re- former, like that of the grasshopper, is burden in the land. The time comes when there are fewer diseases than remedies. more charlatans than physicians and more apparent faults than virtues. There is microbe Of politics as well as a microbe of dis ease, and one is as dangerous as the other. Those afflicted with political germs are sometimes violent, untracta- ble and impossible and at war with themselves and all mankind.
 "When one contemplates the danger of this disorder he may well prefer the uncertainties of political death to the worriment, the ambition and the selnshness which are the propagating causes of the disease.
 Some men who have become fa- nous encircle themselves within the boundaries of their own egotism. With fin this circle 1t is impossible to bring their fellow men, because with keen perception they are liable to discern the false, the untrue and the sham.
 Give to me the simple man in pref erence to him whose constant banker ing for power and pelf has distorted his imagination and led him to the be- lief that his honesty is the only simon i pure article and that all other mem- bers of society are cheats, frauds and liars.
 Tt takes something more than the power to inhict personal or political chastisement to climb hills and to shoot, to make a brave man.
 "The bravest man is he who can dis. 1 cern his own faults and make both confession and reparation for them. The man who can withstand public clamor. demands for sacrifices with. out reason, is braver than he who trims his, sails to every political wind and who mistakes summers zephyrs for roaring whirlwinds and typhoOns.
 Dignity is the characteristic of a gentleman The people do not demand efficiency at the sacrifice of honesty or dignity.
 "Precedents which make possible graver abuses than those we seek to cure are both revolutionary and un- i American. -.
 That paternalism in government which seeks to take away from the in. dividual the power of initiative and performance. which aims to safeguard I him In the same manner fin which we protect the infant, not only fails in its purpose. but is positive injury and detriment to the community"