Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-14
ROOSEVELT ON TAFT.

|
He doesn't promise what
he can't perform.
He will protect the rights
of rich and poor alike.
His record on the bench
shows his wisdom and moral
courage.
President Roosevelt has written to Mr..
Conrad kohrs of Helena, Mont. letter
supporting the candidacy of Judge Taft.
Mr.. kohrs is an old-time Montana cattle
man. He and the President came into
close relationship more than twenty years
ago when they were both members of the
Montana Stock Growers Association, the
President being at that time the represen-
tative of the Little Missouri stock grow
ers in the association. The intimacy has
been kept up ever since. Mr.. Kohrs is
one of the pioneer citizens of the northern
Rocky Mountain region and one of the
men who has taken a leading part in it's
great development.
The Presidents letter was called forth
by Mr.. Bryan's statement that he (Mr.
Bryan was the Presidents heir and natu-
raj successor
THE PRESIDENTS LETTER.
| The President says:
SYCAMORE HILL,
OYSTER BAY, n. Y, September 9, 1905.
| My Dear Mr.. Kohrs:
1 have received your letter about the
candidacy of Mr.. Taft, the man who
| feel is in an especial sense the representa-
tive of all that in which 1 most believe in
| political life.
| Every good citizen should desire to see
both prosperity and justice, prosperity
and fair and righteous dealing as between
| man and man. obtain permanently in this
great republic. AS a people We are justly
proud of our business industry, of our
energy and intelligence in our work; and
| it is entirely right that we should ask our
selves as to any given course of conduct,
will it be profitable ~ But it is also no
less emphatically true that the bulk of
our people. the plain people who found in
Abraham Lincoln their especial champion
and spokesman, regard the question us
this morally right?" as even more impor
tant than the question, rs this profitable?"
when applied to any given course of con-
duct. Indeed, in the long run our people
are sure to find that in all dealings, alike
in the business and the political world.
what is really profitable is that which is
morally right.
The last few years have seen a great
awakening of the public conscience and
the growth of a stern determination to do
away with corruption and unfair dealing,
political, economic, social,
Healthy Reform Movement.
1t is urgently necessary that this great
reform movement should go on. But no
reform movement is healthy if it goes on
nv If IL iC nv of
frenzied advance, followed, as such
periods of frenzied advance must always
be followed. by equally violent periods of
reaction. The revolutionary and the re-
dictionary really play into one another's
hands, to the extent that each by his eX-
cesses necessarily tends to arouse such
disgust, such a feeling of revolt. in the
minds of quiet people. as temporarily to
restore the other to power To permit the
direction of our public affairs to fall al
ternately into the hands of revolutionaries
and reactlonaries,, of the extreme radicals
of unrest and of the bigoted conservatives
who recognize no wrongs to remedy,
would merely mean that the nation had
embarked on a feverish course of violent
oscillation which would be fraught with
great temporary trouble, and would pro-
duce no adequate good in the end. The true
friend of reform. the true foe Of abuses. is
the man who steadily perSevereS in right
ing wrongs, in warning against abuses,
but whose character and training are such
that he never promises what he cannot
perform; that he always a little more
than makes good what he does promise,
and that, while steadily advancing, he
never permits himself to be led into fool
| ish excuses which would damage the very
cause he champions.
Taft's Attributes.
In Mr.. Taft we have man who COM
| bines all of these qualities to degree
| which no other man in our public life
since the civil war has surpassed. To a
| flaming hatred of injustice, to a scorn of
| all that is base and mean, to a hearty
sympathy with the oppressed, he untes
| entire disInterestedness, courage both
moral and physical of the very highest
| type. and kindly generosity of nature
| which makes him feel that all of his fell
low-countrymen are in very truth his
| friends and brothers, that their interests
are his, and that all his great qualities
are to be spent with lavish freedom in
| their service. The honest man Of means,
| the honest and law-abiding business man,
| can feel safe in his hands because of the
very fact that the dishonest man Of great
| wealth, the man who Swindles or robs his
| fellows. would not so much as dare to de-
| fend his evil-d doing in Mr.. Taft's presence.
| The honest wage worker, the honest la
| boring man, the honest farmer, the honest
| mechanic or small trader, or man of small
means. can feel that in peculiar sense
| Mr. Taft will be his representative be-
cause of the very fact that he has the
| same scorn for the demagog that he has
| for the corruptionist, and that he would
| front threats of personal violence from a
| mob with the unquailing and lofty indif-
! ference with which he would front the
| bitter anger of the wealthiest and most
| powerful corporations. Broad though his
| sympathies are, there is in him not the
slightest tinge of weakness. No con-
| sideration of personal interest, any more
| than of fear for his personal safety,
| could make him swerve a hairs breath
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