The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-02-19

MESSAGE

warm about.
The town is stin talking of the cleve
way in which the President bIanketet
the Hughes speech. OF course tn
great reading public can stand onl.
Just about so much mental pabulun
per diem. They read the biggest thinI
in the morning papers. They talk dur
ling the day about the biggest thing
that has happened. A President, es.
pecially President Theodore Roosevelt
turning himself loose on Congress and
swatting everybody in sight who dis.
agrees with him, is much more of q
popular attraction than Gov. Charles
E. Hughes of New York, making a
speech before the Republican Club OF
the Metropolis and thereby trying tc
read himself into the Republican pres
idential running. The President was
hot stuff, the man in the street would
say. And he would describe Gov.
Hughes as three lead dimes in com
| parison.
/ Therefore President Roosevelt got
the center of the stage. His message
occupied a more prominent place on
the first page of the newspapers than
the Hughes speech got: Furthermore
the papers printed the message entire
a column or two.
The President did some clever ma
neuvering to get into the limelight at
such an opportune time. He saw that
| it was important to get that special
message to Congress Friday, not nee
essarily Thursday, which would be a
little too far ahead, but Friday. Con-
gress meets at noon. If he sent in the
! ma % of he 4
forthwith. The afternoon papers would
be full of it. The corps of Washington
correspondents would load down the
wires with leads and comments. That
would set the people to talking in
every populous center about what the
President had done and whet the pop
ular appetite for more the next morn
ing, when there would have to be more
powerful editorial leaders. more Wash
ington dispatches and more newspa-
per space generally.
If the old leaders of Senate and
House had not been caught mapping it
might have been different and the
President would not have gotten his
message before the public on Friday
They have been kicking themselves
all over the lot'' that they did not.
tumble in time.
The Senate has been adjourning from
Thursday over to Monday. There is
little work to do and Senators are not
fond of overworking themselves this
early in the session when social and
other functions are occupying a lot
of their time. They were likely to
adjourn over from Thursday last week.
The leaders had figured it all out that
way. The President knew it and that
was why he telephoned for his person
al friend and spokesman, Senator Hen
ry Cabot Lodge, to drop in at the White
House offices on the way down town
Thursday morning. When Senator
Lodge left the White House offices he
looked grim and forbidding, but under
his crown he had some very interest
ing information. He proceeded briskly
to the Capitol. He sought out num-
Der of Senators who, he thought,
might like to bring some measures be-
fore the Senate, especially Senator
Weldon B. Hepburn, of Wallace, Idaho,
who is struggling along to get a
penal code bill passed. He sought out
every possible Senator who might like
to have the Senate in session Friday
and then he went to the steering COM
mittee and suggested that it would be
are an easy going lot, except when
they sniff a plot. This seemed limo
cent enough. They preferred to please
Senator Lodge in matter that seemed
so simple. Senators did not have to
attend the session Friday any way. 1t
would not last long probably anyway.
And so the Senate met.
That made the receipt of the Pres
ident's message possible, for while he
could have forwarded it if only the
House were in session, he would not
have liked to do so. And in the mean
time the White House had telephoned
Thursday to the Speakers room at the
Capitol to ascertain whether the House
would be in session Friday. Ordinarily
it does meet Friday but Speaker Can
non. after the little game had been
made apparent, swore by the nine gods
he would have adjourned. the House
over Friday had he stopped to think
what that inquiry from the White
House was for.
Then as soon as the Senate and
House had adjourned Thursday night
and there was no preventing a session
Friday and thus no way of preventing
the delivery of the special message
the Presidents friends let it leak out
to the newspapers that there was a
barrel of hot stuff due for the next
day at noon.
All in all it is regarded as one of
the best executed and most effective
coups that Washington has seen in the
political line for many, many moons
and as the result of it Congress starts
on another week in great stress of
mind over the Presidents message,
rather than about the nomination of a
Republican candidate for the presi-
dency.
ERNEST G. WALKER.