Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1910-09-21

In the New York Evening Post of
Friday, August %, there appeared in
an editorial article the following state
ments:
"T will make the corporations come
to time shouted Roosevelt to the
mob. But did he not really mean
that he would make them come down
with the cash to elect him, as he did
before? For a man with Mr.. RoOse-
velts proved record it is simply dis
gusting humbUg for him to rant about
the corporations upon whose treasur-
ers he fawned when he was president
and wanted their money for his cam
paign. Does he think that nobody has
a memory which goes back to the life
insurance Investigations, and that
everybody has forgotten the $4,000
taken from widows and orphans and
added to Theodore ROosevelt's pOlit-
zeal corruption fund? Did ne not take
a big check from the Beef trust, and
glad to get it? And now he is going
to make the corporations come to
Gimei One can have respect for sin
cere radical, for an honest fanatic, for
an agitator or leVeler who believes
that he is doing Gods will; but it is
hard to be patient with a man who
talks big but acts mean, whose eye is
always to the main chance politically
and who lets no friendship, no gen.
erosity no principle, no moral scruple
stand for a moment between himself
and the goal upon which he has set
his overmastering ambition.
This champion of purity, this roar
er for political virtue, is the man who
was for years, when in political life,
hand in glove with the worst political
corruptionists of his day; who toaded
to Platt, who praised Quay, who paid
court to Hanna; under him as presi-
dent Aldrich rose to the height of his
power, always on good terms with
Roosevelt; it was Roosevelt who, in
1905. wrote an open letter urging the
reelection of Speaker Cannon, against
whom mutterings had then begun to
rise; it was Roosevelt who asked Har-
riman to come to the White House
secretly, who took his money to buy
votss in New York, and who after
wards wrote to my Dear Sherman
yes, the same Sherman-reviling the
capitalist to whom he had previously
written saying: you and are prac-
teal men"
The Evening Post is not in itself suf-
ficiently important to warrant an an
swer. but as representing a class with
whose hostility it is necessary to reck-
on in any genuine movement for de-
cent government, it is worth while to
speak of it. There are plenty of
wealthy people in this country, and Of
intellectual hangers-on of wealthy peo-
pie, who are delighted to engage in
any movement for reform which does
not touch the wickedness of certain
great corporations and of certain men
of great wealth. People of this class
will be i'm favor of any aesthetic move
menL they will favor any movement
against the small grating politician,
against the grating labor leader, or
any man Of that stamp; but they can
not be trusted the minute that the re-
form assumes sufficient dimensions to
5eobardize so much Of the established
order Of things as gives an unfair and
improper advantage to the great cor
poracion, and to those directly and in
directly responsive to its wishes and
t7epeudent upon it. The Evening Post
and papers of the same kind, and the
people whose views they represent,
would favor attacking a gang of small
bosses who wish to control the Re
publican party; but they would, as the
Evening Post has shown, far rather
see these small bosses win than see
movement triumph which aims not
merely at the overthrow of the small
political boss. but at depriving the
CORPORATION of it's improper influence
over politics, depriving the man OF
wealth of any advantage beyond that
which belongs to him as a simple
American citizen. They would De
against corporations only after such
corDorations had been caught in the
crudest kind Of criminality
/ have never for one moment count
ed upon the support of the Evening
Post or Of those whom it represents
in the effort for cleanliness and de-
cency within the republican parry, pS-
cause the Evening Post would support
such a movement only on condition
that It was not part of larger move
ment for the betterment Of social con-
ditions. But this is not all. In the
struggle for honest politics there is no
more a place for liar than there is
for the thief, and in a movement de-
signed to put an end to the dominion
Of the thief but little good can be de-
rived from the assistance of the liar
OF course objection will be made to
nv. use of this language. My answer
is that l am using it merely scientifi-
caHy and descriptively, and because
no other terms express the facts with
the necessary precision. In the ar
tiele in which the Evening Post comes