Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1910-09-15


In the New York Evening Post Of
Friday, August 26, there appeared in
an editorial article the following state
ments:
at 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-
velt's proved record it is simply dis
gushing 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-
icaI 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
cere radical, for an honest fanatic, for
an agitator or Ieveler who believes
that he is doing Gods will; but it is
hard to be patient with 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 fer 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
1906, 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
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.
| teal men
The Evening Post is not in itself sui.
| ficiently important to warrant an an
| swer, but as representing 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 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
| ieopardize so much of the established
| order of things as gives an Unfair and
| improper advantage to the great cor
! poration, and to those directly and in
| directly responsive to it's wishes and
| dependent upon it. The Evening Post
and papers of the same kind, and the
| people whose views they represent
| would favor attacking 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 a
| 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 simple
American citizen. They would be
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 condition
that it was not part Of larger move
ment for the betterinent of social con
ditions. But this is not all. In the
struggle for honest politics there is NJ
more a place for liar than there i:
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 tt
my use of this language. My answe,
| is that l am using it merely scientifi
| calIy and descriptively, and because
no other terms express the facts witt
the necessary precision. IN the ar
ticIe in which the Evening Post comes
Doubtful Proposition.
"The Bohemian life is the one tina
is frank and sincere" said the mai
with the artistic temperament.
Perhaps" replied the practica
youth. But I can't help having m,