The Alaska citizen., 1910-12-19

'44t SPItlt tI pti Sblldl IlSDlS mas been too large. the domain of nome rule and state government too com prehensive. They propose, there fore. to strip from us these great and precious personal rights. 10 destroy our state government, in which both the judicial and the legislative branches shall be subordi- nate to the executive. and in which the President shall be the omnipo- tent dictator. the universal boss and the irresistible meddler with the af- fairs, properties and persons of the people of the United States of Amer ica. The marvellous business pros perity of the country has been built up on the basis of freedom The highly centralized government pro posed by cur revolutionary doCtrin aries in despotsm of the purest wa ter. And such a Gespotism would be the destruction al once of the busi- ness prosperity of our country and of the free democratic institutions which have made our republic the hope Of mankind"
 He had reference directly to The odOre Roosevelt In his words We have condensation of the phil osophy underlying the effort of the Courier-Jeurnal to bring the people to "a realizing sense" as 1t were. Mark the sequel. After President Schurman's speech a straw vote was taken at Cornell. which gave Roose- welt 6p6 against Taft's foo for Pres ident in 1912. This illustrates the numeriC strength of the crude and minimizing, not only among the col lege students of the rising genera tion. but of the younger voters of that generation. at the same time that it gives some indication of the force of the spectacular not to say the Teddy-bear influence em- anating from the nursery upon which the New Nationalism might re | ly in the event that it's author should core directly before the country as candidate for the chief magistraCy The young men of the present day seem singularly lacking in a sense of things formative, of things doc trinal, in political affairs. Happily, | they did not pass through times that tried mems souls. They take their government for granted. Flee IiCns come and go, parties rise and fall, the will of the majority to them represents merely the relative popu- larity of two antagonistic policies, or of two opposing aSpirants. That there is any danger of the usurpa- ion of power. CT a revolution of es sentials, is furthest from their bought.
 If they have read history they do not apply it certainly they do not take it home to themselves. If they have been taught some of the rudiments of the constitutional sys- tenn under which they live they dc not assimilate them to current af fairs, or associate them with prevail ing conditions, further than to assume that since they have endured hun fred years they will last a thousand and that they need no particular at tention. To them the reminder that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" has little meaning They hold it simply demogogic clap-trap.
 Of course they have studied hu- man nature not at all. Nothing could be surer or plainer than that he return Of Theodore Roosevelt to power, commissioned to carry out he terms of his declared program, would be the substitution of arbi- rary rule for the restraints Of es- tablished law, to every intent. IL would mean life tenure and autocra- cy, such as the French had under Louis Napoleon and as the MeXicans have under POriirio DiaZ. Yet not one of the Ga6 who voted at Cornell for Roosevelt could be made to see or understand this, tWithstanding he splendid exposition of Dr. Schur- man, their beloved and learned mas ter
 It was his conception of this which lured Theodore Roosevelt into an untenable attitude to perpetuate a gigantic blunder. He did not take into account the Republcanism of the Republican party, the underlying re- publicanism of a great majority of his countrymen, being in point of fact a patrician at heart, and not in his nature a man of the people. He was born to pedigree, clad as child In silks and satins. reared to every kind of refinement A deli cate lad, he was yet possessed by the spirit of the aristocrat and the cav alier. He chafed against the affec- tiOn and solicitOus restraints of the sweetest homes and the fondest of mothers. He put himself forward as Cock of the Walk at school He came West and set up for a cowboy. At length he loomed at the front in time of war as Rough Rider. Ali fectations mainly; for he is actually fine gentleman, highly cultivated and highly gifted since Napoleon Bonaparte the most acute minded and active bodied man in all the uni verse - to whom the airs of bully ing he gives himself and the slangy words he uses, come merely as springes to catch the woodcock; de vices to keep up the boyish illusion of Teddy Bear; democratic refrains to conceal the scholarly elegance and the condescending spirit behind them.
 He has shown genius for af- fairs rivaling that of any potentate who ever ruled over despotism. He has carried himself, when appearing in his real character as a king of men, resplendently. His good for tune has kept him company whilst his play continued expert as it most ly has been. There is point how ever, beyond which it is not in mortal kind to go
 As one who, perhaps unconscious ly to himself, menaced the institu- tutes of his country, Theodore Roose- welt may be declared no longer dan nnIy :, nt