The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1907-11-02
Roosevelt, a Trustee.

The great evolutons in human history have been
wrought out when, after long preparatory struggle
waiting, the mass of mankind within the given
and affected is magnetized into readiness for
the event series of events. The hope of patriots
in this nation, that notable uplift is to be achieved
in the present epoch, is based upon the fact that
the necessary preparatory period has already passed
into our national experience; and the declaration
for square deal between the government and the
people and the people and the corporations,
but the echo of the general purpose. Not all the
strenuous energy of any executive could have been
effective except for the fact that the vast majority
of the voters of the country ready and
ious for better things Wanting this thrill of
pectancy and this gratihed acceptance OF vigorous
onslaught upon acknowledged evils, the extraordl-
nary sefassertion which has characterized the policy
of the President of the United States, would have
aroused instant and effective opposition. 1t would
have been regarded as determination of ar
rogance; it would have been reprehended
invasion of our constitutional safety; and, under
some personalities it might have led to mpeach-
ment
But into the Presidential purpose has entered the
might of the peoples will The nsensate seizure of
governmental prerogatve and authority, well
the effective confiscaton in instances, of the
peoples property by lawbreaking corporations, had
aroused such general and such steadfast feeling of
indignation that millions of citizens of the
country-not heretofore in political afhlation with
the President or in an attitude of personal admra
ton toward hinl-were glad to give their voice of
commentator and their cooperation citizens in
his warfare against the powerful evils OF the times
1t was mighty meetng-that of people already
tempered and prepared by reformers and a man
in the Presidential office asserting his determination
to effect reform The president is therefore but the
trustee and not the originator of the purpose for
REFORM; and as such trustee he must be held to
strict accountability in the utilization and expendl-
ture of the superative force at his command 1t
will not be sufficient that he shall display the peo-
pes will in spectacular assaults upon the citadel of
wrong He must do than this; he must in
vest the resolue nsistence of his fellow citizens in
permanent civic righteousness whose just appllca-
ton shall insure its perpetuity and whose present
achievement of good shall give abiding assurance
that the special form of evils, to be corrected,
will not recur in the life of the republic
No one doubts the zeal; one questions the
dynamic force of the President when he declares
for the square deal Only here and there one ques-
tons his authority or the wisdom of its exercise,
when he goes further than any of his predecessors
in directing the other departments Of government,
in waging legislative and judicial warfare against
those powerful aggregations which have grown up
under or in avoidance of the laws Just as the
prodigious achievements of our civilization IN its
of the worlds commercial mastery daz-
zled the eyes of our people, binding them to IN
ioutous methods which being fastened upon
our civic system; so, too, in the glory OF the Prest
dents repeated avowal for square deal, in which
the people should attain their rights, there is little
visible tendency to inquire into the impartality with
which he applies his chosen and forceful remedy