The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1908-12-11

offered any sort of an apology when
the falsity of their story was proved.
THE PRESIDENTS ENCOUNTER.
Two newspaper men have just been
added to the Annanias club by Presi-
dent Roosevelt. Delavan Smith, pub
Usher of the indianapolis News, and
William NJ Laffan of the New York
Sun, are the latest persons to incur
the chief executives wrath. Both are
referred to in terms even more burn
ing than the undesirable citizen"
phase. "Abominable SANDER and
falsehood," lies" and 'mendacity for
hire" are some of the choicer expires.
sons.
The president wrote his letter to
/ William Dudley Foulke of Indiana.
Mr.. Foulke is the same man to whom
the president wrote some time ago
declaring that federal patronage was
not being used to further the Taft
campaign
Foulke had written the president en-
closing a clipping from the Indiana
polls News as follows:
The campaign is over and the peo-
pie will have to vote tomorrow with
out any official knowledge concerning
the Panama canal deal. 1t has been
charged that the United States bought
from American citizens for 100000
! property that cost those citizens only
$12 100000 Mr.. Taft was secretary
of war at the time the negotiation
was closed.
There is no doubt the government
paid $4O,O00OOO for the property. But
who got the money? We are not tC
. know The administration and Mr.
Taft do not think it right that the peo
pie should know. The presidents
; brother-in-law is involved in the
, scandal, but he has nothing to say
The candidates brother has beer
charged with being a member of the
syndicate. He has, it is true, denied
, it. But he refuses to appeal to the
5 evidence, all of which is in the pos
, session of the administration ant
wholly inaccessible to outsiders.
IOl "V'ho tIlo SNuIluul llttS DIth Dt
5 fore the people. The records are il
records. But the people are not tc
see them-till after election, if then
The president denies the charges o.
graft and then flays the two editors
for things that their papers said The
: two editors briefly replied Laffan de
L oil nin tn tntn ntrnNy nrcN
with the president because he sale
Roosevelt had too light regard fol
truth in a controversy. Smith sale
= the trouble with Roosevelt was tina
that paper declined to burn incense
under the nostrils of man greedy foI
incense fumes.
The language used by the presiden
is pretty strong. 1t seems regrettablt
o that he should have thought sucl
1 words essential to maintain his stand
ing among the people of this country
AS a general proposition the Ameri
can people hold the view that thu
. dignity of the presidency should b,
maintained at highest possible leve
- and that bitter personal encounter
y between the president and private
Il citizens, in which the president take
> the aggressive and resorts to bite
= epithets, should come only as an eH
Q IRENE measure. A president ca
- hardly take the time to fly into
- rage and enter the public prints ever
time his administration is criticised
If the criticism be untrue, 1t will di
of its own weight and the papers i
question in this instance were hardl
o entitled to the compliment of so niue
= attention from the White House.
= The people of the country woul
:, have taken no stock in the charge c
~ graft in the Panama purchase, eve
-. without these attacks. The middl
. west did not even realize that thes
charges were being made until tn
president brought the matter to the
attention. The public has too niue
faith in Roosevelt's integrity to max
such personal attacks from the Whit
House at all necessary in refutin
- these charges.
n @ NTNN m ~