The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-08

The message which President Roose- welt sends to Congress today may be the last historic utterance he will make as President of the United States. There is, of course, possibility that he will follow the lead of George Washington and Andrew Jackson, both of whom issued farewell addresses to the country, but barring such a deiiv- erance, today's message will probably be his last that will live in history. Mr. Roosevelt has proved himself to be the champion message writer in the history of the American presidency. His messages to date are greater in mum ber-aImost two to, one-than those written during both Cleveland administrations, and far exceed any or the earlier two-term presidents Not only has he eclipsed every other rec ord in the number of messages. but when measured by aggregate length and by range of vocabulary he has even c greater lead over all his prede- cessors. In fact. 1t is asserted that If the vocabularies of all other Presidents were boiled Idown into one composite whole and compared with his 1t would be found that he had employed a great CT range of words in expressing his views than all the other Presidents to- gether.
 Being literary person" in the strictest sense, MT. Roosevelts mes sages, as a whole, possess standard of literary excellence up to which those of no other Pre5fdent can measure. Probably their closest rivals are the messages of the scholarly John Quincy Adams. One message which takes high rank as a state paper of literary merit is that of Andrew Johnson-who had fewer educational advantages than any other man who has been President of the United States. It is his first mes- sage. In the Library of Congress there is an envelope carefully filed away which explains this. It Ia, the original draft of the Johnson message, and MT. worthington Ford, of the man uscript division, has declared that it Is In the hand writing of George Ban- croft, the historian. There are few unimportant additions and references added to the original in the hand of President Johnson, but the body of 1t is entirely in the Bancroft hand-writ- ing.
 One might believe there was some error about this conclusion but for the presence of a confirmatory letter from Bancroft to Johnson. This letter Is dated November 9, and asks few days grace for the completion of the work in hand, stating that as no one else knew what he was doing, 1t was necessary that he write the document with his own hand. This message was we'll received throughout the country and its literary excellence widely conn mended by the press. Even the ens- mics of Johnson, who thought him an Ignorant boor, were robbed of their criticisms.
 The presidency seems to carry with It tha right of A sort of literary emi- nent domain. He who holds it may make or take phrases without let or hindrance. MT. Roosevelt and Mir. Cleveland exercised the right more than have any other Presidents. It is said that Lincoln Stenfens once sub mitted the proof of an article to Pres ident Roosevelt in which he used the passage about the rich man whose son was a fool and whose daughter was the wife of a foreign prince, and that when the next presidential message was read