Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-01-18


in the White House which would have
delighted the heart of his admired Alex
ander Hamilton Mr.. Willett of New
York, in the House of Representatives
today. made one of the most bitter at.
lacks on the executive ever head in that
body.
Mr.. willett took for his theme The
Passing of Roosevelt In a speech OF
great length he dealt with. numerous OF
the Presidents acts since he came into
office and scathingly denounced them.
"Not an Unmixed Nuisance"
After declaring that. in the face of all
sorts of conditions, Americans were pos
sessed of a universal sense OF humor. Mr.
Willett said that to such people lit
must be confessed chief magistrate
who has himself no sense of humor. NOV
ing like a householder over the bayfield,
of American activities. stirring up
every drying blade of once green
grass to let 1t fall dryer than before.
ouarreling one day with the practical
politician, then with the part-your- halr-ln-
the-niddle reformers. then with the so
cialists, then with the great industrial
corporations, wrestling in agony OF spirit
with Noah Webster and our glorious
English tongue. taking fall out or ma
ture takers. exhorting our women to
avoid race suicide, cannot be an I'M
mixed nuisance.
HE plays tyrant. to be sure. but ne
is a tyrant who fears the carnival ticker.
He sees things that have a bad smell,
but the fresh air of Capitol hill
doesn't let the odor linger.
"He tries our patience. but he is always
good to laugh at. Thank heaven for the
things that make us laugh! Without
them we might easily become raw. un.
tanned Anglo-Saxons, making much or
Magma Charta, believing about an effete
bill of rights, or even ready to tight To-
freedom of thought. freedom of speech
d 6Ifr n.
civilized ancestors at Lexington and
Bunker IIill,'
Mr.. Willett gave a brief biography of
Mr.. Roosevelt's life, beginning with his
experiences as a cowboy. down 10 tne
present time. and accused him. in his
early manhood. of having had preposter-
Gus notions. of having "knifed' Secretary
Long of being "a warrior alone in Cuba.
of having won the governorshlp OF New
York by a mere huke when the false
halo of San Juan Hill was above his
head: the beneficiary of assassination;
and. last and browning piece of luck. the
nominee for President when all the ag-
gressive elements of the opposition want
ed to see their own candidate defeated
The Mammoth Jocularity has got laugh
with every appearance; the Gargoyle has
been funny from the hour it left its native
quarry.
''Solecism Sui Generis."
Continuing, Mr.. Willett said:
"And, Mr.. Chairman. should the gentle
men who view this curious figure with
feigned admiration ask me how any son
Of Adam can be at the same time a Hay
tedder. Jocularity and a Gargoyle l can
only answer that this particular hero is
an eccentric exception to all rules, sole
ciSm sui generiS, a mixed metaphor
vivant, an impossibility. a comet that
roves at will regardless of the limitations
nj -nI lnrr hot n M
moon. to stars and planets.
HE boasts of Irish blood. But no his
toric Irishman would have treated an ally
as he treated Mr.. Hartman.
''He exults in strain of the old
Huguenot. But the French gentleman
doesn't fly into passion and lash the
horse of a tin1id young girl whose only
cffense Is inadvertently passing the royal
party in a public highway.
Even Louis XIV was not that sort OF
q tyrant. And Henry Nv. Henry of Ma
varre. the great Huguenot king, Wore the
white plume of nobiesse oblige.
''He tells US that southern aristocrats
were among his polyglot ancestors. But
] can inform him that If the wife Of a
Robert Toombs or Of a Jefferson Davis
had been treated by him as Mrs. Minor
Morris was. he would have been called
out or branded as a coward il he had
been a thousand times President.
He is proud to insist that the family
whose name he bears comes from Hol-
land But his ready surrender to the poll
ticians of his own party makes it clear
enough that fat burghers who put up
their shutters at the first beat Of the war
drum must have been his progenitors. He
beats the Dutch, however. as even his
severest critics must confess.
Fountain of Billingsgate.
Are you shocked that a chief magis-
trate should justify such characterize
ton? 1 am shocked, too. Do you say
that the place he holds should make us
all dumb before him? Hear what this
fountain OF Bllingsgate has said of his
predecessors in that high Office. and own
that no mans tongue should be stilled by
such a consideration
He quoted from President Roosevelt's
books, in which the President is alleged
to have attacked Washington. Jefferson
Monroe. Jackson, Tyler, Pierce and
others. and said that the President had
federation only for the Adamses. who
mration for Alexander Hamilton, the de-
feated champion of limited monarchy"
"Of course said Mr.. Willett, these
condemnations roar as gently any COO
ing dove when compared with his denun-
citation of John Paul Jones as a pirate:
of Napoleon the Great, as utterly un-
serupulous'; of Nee Englands ido1ized
Wendell Phillips as always either mis-
of Thomas Paine. the first champion of
American liberty. as a.'filthy little athe-
list: of miracle believing Roman Catho-
lies, as persons of arrested mental devel-
opment: Of Quakers, as quite as unde-
sirable citizens dueiistS.
But he has been frank enough in abus-
ing other Presidents 10 shut the lips of
his defenders on the dignity of the pres
idential Office"
Mr.. Willelt declared that Consistency
IS jewel which the Gargoyle is always
throwing to the swine
No king" he said lin any limited mon
archy was ever half so exigeant or ever
half so implacable.
For a precedent" he added you must
go back to Napoleon the great, the old
est member of the Gargoyle's Ananias
Club. who used to ask the wives of his
thrifty favorites whether they could only
afford one gown year: who said once to
the wife of one of his fighting marshals,
Your dress is dirty and who insisted on
doing all the matchmaking In his official
circle"
Characters Of Predecessors.
& The democracy of Lincoln, he said, the
bluff Amertcanism of Grant and Cleve-
land, the equally American suavity of
Arthur and Mckinley. had passed into
history along with the joviality of Gar
field and the non-conformist thrift OF
Rutherford B. Hayes"
I'VE have a king and a court now" MIR.
Willett exclaimed, las good an imitation
OF the real thing known to the nobility Of
1nonarchical countries as the scion of a