The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1910-09-17

Editor. Copyright 1910. by The outlc
In the New York Evening Post of
Aiday, August rs, there appeared in
N editorial article the following state
ments:
"I will make the corporations come
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 man with Mr.. Roose-
veit's 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 $50000
taken from widows and orphans and
added to Theodore Roosevelt's polit-
ical corruption fund? Did he 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
timei One can have respect for q sin
cere radical, for an honest fanatic, for
an agitator or leveler who believes
that he is doing Gods will; but 1t Is
hard to be patient with q 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
bwer, always on good terms with
Roosevelt: It was Roosevelt who, In
1906. wrote an open letter urging the
reelection of Speaker Cannon, against
whom mutterings had then begun to
rise; 1t was Roosevelt who asked Har-
riman to come to the White House
secretly, who took his money to buy
votes 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 l are prac-
tical men"
The Evening Post is not in itself suf-
fciently important to warrant an an
swer, but as representing class with
whose hostility it is necessary to reck-
IN, 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 in favor of any aesthetic move.
ment; 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
jeopardize so much of the established
order of things as gives an unfair and
Improper advantage to the great cor
Doration, and to those directly and in
Arectly responsive to its wishes and
Vpendent upon 1t. The Evening Post
and papers OF the same kind, and the
people whose views they represent,
would favor attacking gang of smal!
bosses who wish to control the fe-
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 tie overthrow of the small
political boss, but at depriving the
corporation of its improper influence
over politics, depriving the man OF
wealth of any advantage beyond that
which belongs to him as simple
American citizen. They would De
against corporations only after such
corporations 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 party, be-
cause the Evening Post would support
such a movement only on condlt1on
that 1t was not part of larger move
ment for the batterment 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 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
my use of this language. My answer
is that am using 1t merely scientln-
cally and descriptively, and because
no other terms express the facts with
tie necessary precision. In the ar
l. - I6acf comes