East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1908-06-11
SOME REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL
Possibilities THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Washington, June 11.-Theodore
Roosevelt, youngest president of the
United States, will be only few days
over so years of age on election day
Probability no man living or dead
| has done a greater variety OF big
things than he in half a century-or
has broken more precedents. His
every act, official and private, has
been a contradiction Of established
usage, yet every time he has Knocked
some moss-grown precedent into the
proverbial cooked hat, the world has
| declared, as soon as 1t has regained
its breath, that the Roosevelt way
was best and has wondered why no
one else thought of doing It that way
years before.
Roosevelt was scarce out OF col
lege before he claimed the center OF
the stage, and the spotlight of pub
licity has been following him around
ever since. In the legislature of New
York state, as civil service commits
sloner, as police commissioner Of the
metropolis, as assistant secretary OF
the navy, he plunged into the midst
OF events--or, II there were no events
IN reach worth mentioning, he made
them.
When the police force of New York,
inefficient from dry rot and cancer
GUS with vice. came under his control,
he shook it up until its old bones rat
tied and gave the grafters a scare
/ that they remember to this day. He
didn't quite convert the force into
band of evangelists, but he made the
Tammany Tiger shiver in its lair and
caused the name of II. Roosevelt to
be known throughout the land.
Made Dewey Hero.
once upon a time. when he was
second in command to that dear
good. peaceable secretary of the navy,
John d. Long, his chief happened to
be away from Washington for a few
DAYS Buzz. Bing! Before the Sc
date bureau chiefs in the department
knew the day of the month, he had
issued orders that dispatched ship
loads of ammunition to the Asiatic
squadron and prepared George Dew
ey for the day that made him famous
and sent the Spanish hulks to the
floor of Manila bay.
He was the something's
politician. He told his political enc
1T ,,nlftiaa1 frinnn de
the truth. He wore his heart on his
sleeve. It was unheard of. Before
his day. to be a politician was to be
liar. He became the greatest poll
tician of the age by telling the truth
He was the something-doing SOL
dier as well as the something differ
ent politician. When he went to Gu
ha, If there wasn't any fighting to
be done. his men found that there
was work to do. They dug kitchen
sinks, they drilled, they got ready,
and they stayed ready; so. when the
time for action came, the charge up
San Juan hill was a mere picnic to
tf ose bronco-busters and grizzly-eat-
ers.
Roosevelt loves a fight better than
nine Irishmen out of 10, and the
strain of Dutch in his blood makes
him "stick" when once he mixes in.
Like the Irish, he doesn't know
when he is licked, and many's the
time he has won out after he had
apparently been beaten to a finish.
Sticks to Friends and Foe.
He sticks to his friends as grimly
as he sticks to his foes, and the same
logged determination that makes him
fight to the last ditch for what he
telieves is right, places him at the
back of the man he claims as a
friend. no matter If there be a stack
of affidavlts as high as the Washing
ton monument to prove the man UNI
worthy. Just to show his friendship
and his faith in human nature,
Roosevelt has appointed more than
one man to office whose record
reached back to the door of the pen
ltentiary. But it should be said in
the same breath that he has shown
his uncompromising fairness by turn
ing upon men found unworthy of his
trust and has overwhelmed them with |
his wrath.
There's nothing halfway about |
Theodore Roosevelt. He likes a man
with all his heart and soul and vigor |
II he doesn't like him he hates the |
ground he walks on, hates his family |
his relatives, his ancestors, and his !
birthplace. What Is more, he is not |
al all slow to let the fact be known.
Much as he loves a fight he loves |
peace better. But he makes no bones |
of saying that he's ready and willing |
tc fight for peace. He wants the |
United States to build the biggest |
navy in the world so that peace shall |
be universal. He wants the gun
pointers of our navy to be dead shots |
at five miles. If they are so known,
what nation would war with us? II |
they are so recognized, what power |
would go to battle with another If
Uncle Sam should say, Let there be
peace?"
Lover of Work.
Roosevelt loves work, and the |
harder the work the better he likes
1t. He also loves play after work and
.t.... I,,a4 n, l,orJ nc ba ,unrlc