The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1910-09-07
Mr.. ROOSEVELTS
MEASURE TAKEN
BY An Independent News
paper Critic.
SIZES HIM UP ABOUT RIGHT
The COlOneI'S Political IncOn-
SiStency is Pictured in
Vivid COlOrS.
BOLD BRAGGART IN STIRRUPS

But laughter cannot help passing
into anger and a sense of gross out
rage, when the real significance of
MIR. Roosevelt's car-end harangues is
fully taken in. For here is a private
citizen assuming that he has supreme
political power. Here is an EXPIRES
fdent showing aside the actual Pres
ident as if he we're a truckman. Here
is a man who forever chatters about
the square deal, yet who treats his
own friend and the chief of his own
party with absolute unfairness,
pushes himself forward as the only
true fountain of justice, announces
what 81 will do" just as though his
being elected President next time
were already settled, and bears him
self throughout as a peculiarly re-
pellent combination of demagogue
and dictator.
The thing goes beyond a display
of bad taste. AS such it is shocking,
but il is, besides. an exhibition of
moral impudence. Il 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.. Roosevelt's proved
record, it is simply disgusting hum
bug for him 10 rant about the cor
porations upon whose treasurers 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 or
phans and added to Theodore Roose-
velt's political 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 corpo-
rat.ons come to time! One can have
respect for a sincere radical, for an
honest fanatic, for an agitator or
leveler who believes that ne is do
ing 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 generosi-
ty, no principle, no moral scruple
stand for a moment between himself
and the goal upon which he has set
his overwhelming ambition.
Such wild and whirling words as
Mr.. Roosevelt uttered yesterday are
a curse to public life They arouse
passion without directing it. They
give no one a clear idea of what the
speaker meant, except that he sought
TO infame the crowd and make mis-
chief. He Eliminates against crook
ed men. He is going to "cinch" the
crooks. Why not be specific? Whom
does he mean? Even Mr.. Roosevelt
cannot intend us to understand that
he will be detective, police, magis-
get after every burglar and sTindler
in the land. No; his crooks aie po-
litical crooks. What he wants the
crowd to understand is that ne is
with them in their present wrath
against men who go into politics to
make money, or who advance by
political corruption, or who are no
toriOus as INSCRIPTIONS machine pol
iticians.
Yet this champion of purity, this
roarer for political virtue, is the man
who was for years, when in public
life, hand in glove with the worst po-
litical corruptiOnists of his day: who
toadied to Plat, who praised Quay,
who paid court to Hanna; under him
as President, Aldrlch arose to the
height of his power, always on good
terms with Roosevelt; it was Tot Sc
welt who, in 1906, wrote an open let
ter urging the reelection of Speaker
Cannon, against whom mutterings
had begun to rise; it was Roosevelt
who asked Hartman to come to the
White House secretly, who took his
morey to buy votes in New York,
and who afterward wrote to MY
Dea fSherman"-yes, the same sher-
mah-revilinG the capitalist to whom
be had previously written, saying:
"You and | are practical men" If
Roosevelt is the great cincher Of
crooks, why didn't he cinch them
when he was shaking hands with
them?
1t is no pleasant duty to say these
things of Mr.. Roosevelt. We mad
hoped that time and reflection had
sobered him and that his Western
speeches would show him capable OF
taking an elevated political leader
ship. But whatever he may do in his
set addresses, it is plain that ne