The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1908-10-23
MR.. TAFT AND THE
ROOSEVELT POLICIES
President Roosevelt's Battle Won,
His Policies Have Reached
the Constructive Stage.
NO BACKWARD step POSSIBLE

as the Needle is to the Pole
Under His Regime Will BE Har-
mony, Prosperity and a Long
Period of Development of En-
terprisc and of National and In
dividual Progress.
When Washington gave up COM
mand of the army because there was
no more fighting to do, and turned
over. to others ,he continuance along
peaceful lines of the work which he
had carried on amid the thunder OF
cannon and by bayonet charges, it
was not pretended that there was any
change in the purposes which actu-
ated the American people or their
leaders. The aim of all was to es-
tablish on an indestructible footing
the independence of the United States
and to make the Republic united and
respected abroad and at home. When
hostilities ceased methods were
changed, but the policies were the
same, although they now assumed a
constructive form.
When President Roosevelt took the
stand that no person, no corporation,
was above the laws of the United
States, he aroused an opposition hard
ly less formidable than war with a
foreign enemy, and he had to take
measures to compel obedience to law
which seemed more strenuous and
aggressive than they really were be-
cause of the clamor raised by those
who were forced to take their choice
between surrender to the require
ments of law or legal punish ment for
disobedience. 1t is a well known
fact that a wrong long perpetrated
with impunity comes to be regarded,
by the offender at least, as a right,
and disturbance in his lawbreaking
is, in his view, the greater wrong.
Such was the attitude not only OF
powerful wrongdoers, but also of a
large part of the public who had so
long endured fraud, eXtortion and
oppression at the hands of law-defy-
ing corporations that they had
learned to accept these evils as mat
ters of course, out of the reach of
legal processes that applied to or
dinary lawbreakers. To change all
this required supreme courage, a firm
resolve, and an Indifference to un-
Just criticism and studied misrepre-
sentation.
Present conditions more than JUS
tify the so-called Roosevelt policies.
1t can be said without fear of re-
sponsible contradiction that there is
not in the United States to-day cor
poration of importance enough to be
within public view that openly defies
the law. Rebating is unknown, or
where carried on, is conducted with
the same secrecy as counterfeiting,
or any other crime, the perpetrators
of which look for prompt punishment
to follow detection. The orders of
the Interstate Commerce Commission
are obeyed, where not suspended by
appeals to the courts. There is evil
dence that former offenders have gen.
orally come to the conclusion that 1t
is best for them, from every point Of
view, to be in the right, so far as COM
pliance with the law is concerned, and
most important of all-the public
have been fully aroused from apa-
thetic Indifference to lively interest
in the enforcement of law against
"malefactors of great wealth."
Mr.. Taft will face an entirely diff
ferent situation from that which con-
fronted President Roosevelt. The
Roosevelt policies are now in the
constructive stage, and Mr.. Taft, as
he has shown in the Philippines and
at Panama. and in his varied duties
as Secretary of War, is eminently q
constructive statesman. There will be
no going backward; no reaction to-
ward the toleration of offenses which
President Roosevelt has justly made
odious; but there will probably be
little occasion for severity now that
those who defied the law have been
chastened into the conviction that 1t
does not pay, that neither the Gov
ernment nor the people will stand for
unlawful methods in business, and
that, as the old saying has it, honesty
is the best policy.
Mr.. Taft, as President, will be as
loyal to the Roosevelt policies as the
needle to the pole, but he will not
have the same problems to confront,
or rather, not the same phase of the
same problems. He will be in a po-
sition not dissimilar from that which
he took when he went to administer
the Philippines, after the hard fight
ing had been done, and the battle
won. But if any corporation, or in
dividual, however powerful and
wealthy, should dare to raise his hand
in the same spirit of defiance that
once prevailed, against the laws OF
the United States, that corporation or
individual would find in Taft another
Roosevelt.
Indications all point, however, to
harmony and prosperity under the
Taft regime, to a long period of de-
velopment, OF enterprise and of ma
tional and individual progress. The
Roosevelt policies" will bear rich
fruit in the achievements resulting
from the impulse given to individual
effort and fair competition by the
proof that those policies were not
merely for day but for all time, and
that every citizen is to have equal
opportunity in the pursuit of wealth
and happiness. The election of Mr.
Taft will give assurance and stimulus
to every form of legitimate business,
because everyone will feel secure IN
the possession OF those legal rights
which President Roosevelt has striven
so manfully to vindicate, and which
President Taft will not less manfully
defend.
Mr. Roosevelt caused 1t it to be
denied that he WOuld 20 On tha