The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1912-06-15
LATEST VAIL FROM ROOSEVELT.
Colonel Discusses naked Issue of
Right and Wrong"

II
Naked Issue Of Right and Wrong"
made public tonight, and to appear
In the current issue of the Outlook
Mr.. Roosevelt says in part:
| The contest for the Republican
nomination has now narrowed down
to a naked issue Of right and wrong;
for the issue Is simply whether or not
We shall permit a system of naked
fraud. OF naked sheft from the peo-
pie. to triumph.
! i have made this contest on two
great principles. First. the right of
the people to rule. and, therefor, in
the exercise of their deliberate judg-
ment to control their Government and
their governmental agents; and, sec-
ond, their duty SD to rule as to bring
about not only political but social
and industrial justice.
II have endeavored everywhere to
appeal. not to the politicians. but to
the people themselves. and to get
their Judgment. stating scores Of times
that l would do my best to convert
them to my ways of thinking, that
should adquiesce as matter of
course. in their judgment If it was ad-
verse. but that If their judgment was
favorable, do not intend tamely to
submit to any effort by the politicians
to throw aside the verdict Of the peo-
pie and substitute fake verdict of
| their own. This Is precisely what
Mr.. Barnes, Mr.. Mckinley and their
associates and representatives on the
national committee at Chicago are
now attempting"
After discussing the primary re-
suits by States. Mr.. Roosevelt con-
tinues:
ITO recapitulate then. In the Re-
publican States, which have had di-
rect primaries. nearly two and a half
million Republicans have voted and
Of these nearly two-thirds have voted
against Mr.. Taft. In the other Re-
publican States where the primaries
have been such as to give the peo-
pie. not an entire chance, but some
small chance to express their will, the
showing has been almost as heavily
against Mt. Taft.
I'm the aggregate the vote was
nearly two to one against him and in
some States 1t went as high as five
or six to one against him. The other
States in the North. which sent Taft
delegates. were States in which the
Republican voters had no chance to
vote. Ohio went by over 10000 ma
jority against Mr.. Taft at the prmar-
les, but the Taft managers had re-
fused to permit a vote to be taken
at the primaries for the delegates at
large. and In the State Convention.
by adroit political trickery, they sent
six Taft delegates to vote at Chicago
for the man whom his own State had
just repudiated by thirty thousand
majority.
II fail myself to see how an honor
able man can profit by or take part
In such a piece of trickery as this
Ohio State Convention victory. In
the same way. i fail to see how an
honorable man can profit by or con-
| nive at or approve of the farcical
'ew York County primaries. But the
a 40 70 tn, lit
Indiana and in Michigan. In many OF
these cases the Taft delegates repre-
sent absolutely nothing but fraud as
vulgar. as brazen and as cyncally
open as any ever committed by the
Tweed regime in New York forty odd
years ago."
Mr.. Taft cannot be nominated un-
less he gets an overwhelming ma
jority OF the rotten borough States,
which never cast Republican cleo
toral vote. and in which the delega-
tions represent only the officeholders
Even If he gets practically all the
delegates from these States; he can
not be nominated unless by deliberate
fraud. i'm such States as Indiana. Mich
igan and Washington. not to mention
others. the Republicans are defraud-
I'd Of their rights to express their
Preference as to who - to get their
votes lie can he nominated only 10y
disreSarding the expressed will Of an
overwhelming majority of two and
IA half millions of Republicans who,
from Massachusetts and Pcnnsyl-
vania to Illinois and California, have
Under such circumstances his nomi-
nation would represent the ovcrrid-