The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1908-08-29
ROOSEVELT AND MORALITY

ROOSEVELT AND MORALlI L.
The American magazine publishes a
| letter from some man whose Identity
is not disclosed about his visit to
President Roosevelt According to thi;
unknown visitor the president said,
| several times: WELL I'm through
now" He said that when his term
closed he wanted to get clear away out
of reach for year or two, so that he
would not be accused of interfering if
he said anything, or Of disappearing if
he kept silent When his visitor sug-
gested that the people might call him
to take on the harness again four
years hence he said, with a sort of
Sadness" mo, revolutions don't go
backwards. New issues are coming up.
L see them. People are going to dis
cuss economic questions more and
more; the tariff, currency, banks.
They are hard questions, and 1 am
lems are moral problems, and my
teaching has been plain morality"
This, if correctly reported, illustrates
what to many seems to be mex
plicable inconsistency in the presidents
character, says the Oregon Journal
The sentences quoted seem to contain
more contradictions. New issues are
coming up" Yet the people are going
to discuss old economic questions
the tariff, the currency and banks,
more and more. If old questions are
going to be discussed more and more,
how are new issues to get to the
front? And these old questions the
president does not care much about. He
is not deeply interested in them, al
though they are to be discussed more
and more. Is he not then interested in
the practical questions that will inter-
est the people more and more?" Or
is it because they are hard questions"
that he cannot take an interest in
them. The presidents official utteran-
ces on these subjects show that he has
no clear and comprehensive ideas
about them; they are to him hard
questions indeed, and he has avoided
them as much as possible, and left
them to be solved by such men as
Aldrich and Morgan and Cannon and
other like leaders.
But the contradictions in the SEN
fences quoted are more apparent than
real The presidenA realizes his limita-
lions, knows where NE is weak, as we'll
as where he is strong. He knows that
he has no compreheps grasp of
some public questionsA some of the
more important of them ITO most peo
pie do not deeply intereAt him." The
tariff and finance are largely unintel-
interest and energies on problems that
he considers still more important, and
toward the solution of which Nhis mind
runs. He knows these old Mactical
problems are really important and that
people will bestow most of their Stten-
ton upon them, but he has dealtAwith
them only in the most perfunctory Nay,
has paid as little attention to Il EN-
as possible, because his talent q les
not run in their direction; he is fRt
interested in them.
But the president is.right, and III
shows self-knowledge, when he saysA
MY problems are moral problems,
and my teaching has been plain moral
ity." Here indeed he has been strong
even if often commonplace, yet it is
curious that he cannot see that the
tariff, considering its operation and
results, is itself a moral problem.
Plain morality in a public man of high
degree should rise in opposition to both
the principle and the practice of a
high protective tariff, for. as was said
long ago, 1T is no less robbery because
done under the form of law
But the president has undoubtedly
taught plain morality" and honesty.
| and sturdy uprightness. and true pa
| triotism, by numberless prece pts
| and often by example, and the
country. spite of his apparent incon-
| sistencies, has been vastly benefited
| thereby. He has been the source of a
great moral uplift in our civic life,
and his instruction will be bettered in