The Owyhee nugget. ([Silver City], Idaho) 1905-1984, 1908-12-18


trainload of ice it could not have pro-
duced more pronounced chill in con-
gress. representatives and senators
were ready with their overcoats, for
they wanted to emphasize unmistak-
ably the frigidity Gifts reception. They
would have no doubt left in the public
mind as to their impotence with and
their disregard for the man who would
call them to account for their manifest
and manifold shortcomings. So they
bundled themselves in their great coats
of callousness and sneered-pusillani-
nous pigmies darting arrows of malice
at Jovel
"The congress of the United States
and particularly the senate has long
been the bulwark of the crushing in
terests from whose clutch President
Roosevelt woud release this country.
There has been two things only the
majority of the members have been in
terested in: Continuation of condi-
tons that further enrich the rich and
keep the others in status quo, and their
reelection. Really, the two PROPOSE
tions are SO closely related they might
be combined.
THE president invoked what meagre
law YVES available to curb the operations
OF predatory wealth the congress hamp-
cred him at every point, either directly
or through efforts to discredit his adj
minlstration by attacks on his forestry
or other policies. The president has
attempted to improve the condition of
labor; the congress pigeonholed beneh-
clal measures aud enacted, if anything,
unconstitutional ones; the president
urged III the name of civic decency and
of out ragged justice that our court pro-
cedure be remodeled or that the judges
get up on higher plane; the congress
told the ju ges TO stay down, and legal
process remained as abortive as before.
"For years President Roosevelt has
carried on this fight for the people.
Practically his final official utterance
was voiced in his recent message to
congressman congress sneered and
gave it chilly greeting.
1T may be, though, that the chill was
not selt-induced and that the smeer may
be likened TO the whistle of the boy
passing the graveyard. The day of
reckoning is coming The demands of
the great majority who find they can
not get ahead under the present
state of affairs-W ho discover the in
crease in the price of those things they
bny setting the pace for their wages
are aroused, and in time their voice,
and not exclusively the voice of mono
poloy aud corporate greed, will be heard !
in the halls of congress in majority
chorus"
Walter Wellman, in the Chicago Rec
ord Herald, says in part as folsws
One of the ablest and most vigorous
of all the messages of the president was
the one Mr.. Roosevelt has just sent to
congress- It is the last OF his annual /
to that body and the !,
one of his series thai is Iikily to have
the least effect upon legislation. The
king is Dead He is at least approach
ing the end of his reign. He speaks in
thunder tones, and the parliament
hears him not. Ii it hears it will not
heed. But The people will hear, aud
the friends of Mr.. Roosevelt predict
that his words of to-day will live; that
they will be kept alive by public opin-
ion. Aud it is sure that many of the
legislative acts recommended by him
will be taken up by his successor in
the White House, be made part of
the policy of the new administration
and yet have chance to reach the stat
ute books.
Congress received the message in
GOODNESS, but the histo ian will give it
high place. 1t marks the beginning of
the end of Theodore Roosevelt as head
of the nation, but it is not the end of
Rooseveltism. A good part of his work
as reformer is to go on after he has re-
tired to private life. His era, the epoch
in our national affairs which bears his
name, is not yet finished Roosevelt
goes, but Taft comes
"Congress was cold enough in all con
science. 1t treated the message almost
with contemptuousness. The docu-
ment was read in both houses, but re-
ceived scant attention. In the senate
not more than dozen of the states
men were on the floor during the read