The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-09-08
PRESS COMMENT
What the Newspapers Of Vermont
and Other States Are Saying
About Topics of Interest 10
Journal Readers.
ROOSEVELT'S ATTITUDE.
(SpringDelu Union.)

trip and his spectacular tour Of
Europe declared that he wished to ire
regarded not as a former President,
Hor as candidate for any office, but
as private citizen AS such he in
timated that he would assume only
such activities as any other private
citizen might take on. His present
course is decidedly at variance with
his declared intentions. AS private
citizen, with distinguished past and
years of great usefulness before him,
he has an entire right to accept invi-
tations to address this or that body,
to sit at tne banquet board, to so
sightseeing, to visit old friends AMI
acquaintance, to do in short, what
any other citizen of prominence might
feel himself under more or less obi.
CATION to do. Furthermore, he has tho
right, of course to do exactly what he
is doing; to stump the country aft,f
the manner of candidate seeking Of
fee, and make for himself political
capital to be drawn upon at some flu
ture occasion. This is a free country
and there is no denying to Mr.. Roose-
welt the privilege of speech and action
| that every other citizen enjoys, within
such reasonable limits as society has
| imposed for it's own protection. But
the friends and admirers of the form
er President may well question the
propriety of the course he is pursuing.
| Indeed, they may do more; they may
well express the telling that he is
making an undignified exhibition IF
himself and nat giving to President
Taft the square deal that he has pratt
ed so much about.
Nobody can Guido us in our appre-
citation of Theodore Roosevelt We adj
mire his virile qualities, his courage,
his wonderful versatility, his untiring
energy, and we believe that the Amer
lean people owe to him deep debt
of gratitude He has done more than
any other man since Lincoln to Gre
ate a great political and moral issue,
that of honesty in business and in
politics. and he has accomplished an
awakening of the public conscience
that bodies well for the future of this
Republic. We are, then, most kind
and friendly critic of Mr. Roosevelt
1t is not with the speeches he has
made on his Western tour that we find
fault. not even when he shouts conf
mands and makes threats just as if ne
were still Presidet. The thing that
, most rankles us is that in all his
speech- making, in all that he has said
, since his return from the African
! Jungle, he has not once spoken good
word for the man he personally select
ed to carry out his policies, William
Howard Taft. The nearest he has
come to saying anything for the MY
idear William" of his White Hous.
DAYS was when he expressed a small
, degree of satisfaction with the Pres
ident's letter appertaining to the New
York situation. That was an occa'
sion that gave Mr.. Roosevelt every
excuse. if excuse he needed, to ap'
prove warmly the course that Mr.. TAT
had taken. But no, the supreme
dictator" could only find words to sa!
that the letter pleased him.
If Mr.. Taft did not merit Col
Rosevelt's Endorsement the case would
be entirely different But he does, fo'
there is the record TO prove it. my
policies" have been his policies. There
has been no noise in carrying then
out, but they have been carried on
! Just the same. In what respect, foi
instance, does Mr.. Taft's conservation
policy differ from that of his prede'
cessor? If there be any difference II
his policy toward the trusts it lies
only in the fact that there have beer
more actual prosecutions under Mr.
Taft than under Mr.. Roosevelt. The
railroad policy of the present admin
istration is all that Mr.. Roosevelt
was. and more too. AS for tariff
policy, Mr. Taft actually has one, bat
if Mr. Roosevelt has any thoughts or
the tariff he is carefully keeping then
to himself The tariff was a live is
sue during the last two or three years
of the Roosevelt administration, but
it was entirely ignored If Mr. Rose
Welt feels that the so-called reaction
aries, Aldrich, Hale, Cannon and the
rest. have ha dtoo much say in the
Taft regime, he will have TO explain
why his relations with this same ele-
ment were so cordial Certainly Sen
ator Lodge, who was closest to Mr.
Roosevelt, had not at that time, nor
has he since manifested any insurgent
tendencies.
What then. we would ask, is the
matter with the Taft administration
from the Roosevelt standpoint? In
what respect has it failed to keep the
faith. True. Mr.. Taft has done nj
preaching and he is of different
Temperament, but his heart beats just
as warmly for the cause of the peo-
pie as does Mr. Roosevelt's, and IN
vital accomplishments his admins