The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-02-06
PREACHERS AND PHARIsEEs.

And now comes the Rev. A. c. Dix
on, pastor of a big Chicago church,
who declares i'm an interview that
Roosevelt is like unto the Prophet
Isaiah crying the nations sin. Later,
in prayer meeting, Mr.. Dixon uplifts
the president another notch and puts
him in the class with John the Bap-
fist, the forerunner of the Redeemer
While he was at his comparisons ne
might as well have run the whole gam
ut from Elijah 10 the Nazarine and
give him the attributes of divinity
itself.
President Roosevelt may be, as the
preacher declares, the first president
to apply uninterrupted Christian prin-
ciples to every day life; certain it is,
Roosevelt is the first president to call
attention in megaphone tones to the
uninterrupted moral activity. Wash
ington showed some indications of ap-
piled Christianity in his service TO the
nation. though he missed innumerable
opportunities to speak of his own good
very death itself, paralleled in public
service the self-sacrifice, the moral
leadership. the inevitable end of the
Savior of mankind-yet we do not re-
cali a word of the great president
which suggested any comparison with
his greater prototype or reflected on
the wickedness of others in a day of
wickedness.
To the lay mind, Rooseyelt's weak
ness is his evident belief that he is
one of the few men in public life or
private prominence as leaders who is
above human weakness, whose opinion
is final, whose dictum is above the law
because it is so much better than the
law He has accomplished much of
gOod-his enemies concede that; he has
smitten some of those in high places
who deserved punishment; he has
achieved following that worships him
foolishly. and ne has worked overtime
in pursuit of his own desires.
Yet. if one desired to be historically
accurate in comparison, Roosevelt
would remind one of jeremiah and his
lamentations much more readily than
of any other biblical character. Dreams
of woe, visions of disaster, sorrow that
all others are so sinful, pathetic re-
greet that after him there may posi-
bly, be no good left in the nation
these weigh upon him and pervade his
utterances.
Talk about John the Baptist.
wouldn't Bryan do better for the mod
ern voice in the wilderness? Isn't
Roosevelt applying the program Bryan
outlined in 1906? In 1904 wasn't
Roosevelt supporting Cortelyou in his
raid on the corporations for campaign
funds? In 1900 didn't Bryan refuse to
accept contributions from these same
Interests" while the party of Roose-
welt was fairly wallowing in the cash
they had shaken out of the corpora
tons for the election. among Others of
Theodore Roosevelt? And isn't it
curious fact that preachers of the
Dixon type have never been able to
discover that Bryan aroused the public
conscience to a degree that enabled
Roosevelt to accomplish the only great
features Of his program in spite of OPP
position in his own party?
This may be the day of prophets in
the Republican party. and Roosevelt
may be a second John the Baptist. but
the critical ill believe rather that it Is
the day of Pharisees who thank the
Lord they are not as other men; who
play politics with one eye on the gall
lery and the other on the delegates to
the next national convention; who are