The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1912-01-12
PRESIDENT AT HIS BEST

the subject in such happy vein and
manner as in his recent
address to the Economic Club in New
York. The president did not have a
prepared address. He spoke from
notes and said just what he thought,
giving number of illustrations in
plain language which everybody can
understand Speaking of force and
the code duello for the settlement of
personal disputes in former times, the
president said
'If you had signed bond and were
not able to pay it, and your muscle
was larger than your pocket and your
skill greater than your assets, and
you were summoned into court to an
swer and to pay, you might come in
and demand wager of battle and then
the judges could draw out their
swords and arrange a twenty-four foot
ring, and the plaintiff and defendant
went at each other, and if the plaintiff
knocked the defendant out, or cut, off
his head, or his arm, and disabled
him, that proved as a matter of Eng
lish law that either you had never
made the bond, or that you had paid
it.
Nov, my friends, l would like to
have you answer me and tell me what
is the difference in the logic that set
ties international controversies today
by the present method of war and
that which obtained in English courts
of justice 200 years ago?
81 like to remind my friends, the
senator's" said Mr.. Taft, that it does
not dignity the powers of the senate
to call them prerogatives."
Much has been heard during the
past few months about the infringing
on the prerogatives of the senate.
No One-Sided Treaties
The matter of making treaties I'M
der which we will go to arbitration
when everything is in our favor was
taken up by the president, who declar-
ed in the most emphatic manner:
NOW, gentlemen, either this is a
serious business, or it isn't. If we
are going to play heads l win and tails
you lose with arbitration-if we are
going to make a great TODD about our
peaceful intentions and our desire to
arbitrate on the platform and in res
olution and elsewhere, and then insist
on having a string so that we can pull
ourselves out of any arbitration that
we think we are going to lose-then
let's not fool any more about it; let's
give up arbitration altogether"
Pictures a Domestic Scene
The delay of year in which ma
tions may calmly consider acute dis
putes, the president believes, is one of
the best things in the treaties, and he
illustrated his idea by a suggestion
that goes home to many men in this
world.
81 do not know" said the president,
with one of his beaming smiles,
whether you have ever gone home
with a sense of injustice and a feeling
of anger that you cannot get over,
that makes you nervous, so irritated
and everything that when you meet
that lady who ought to control every
thing you do she finds you in con-
dition where she tells the children
that papa is not feeling very we'll and
they had better not disturb him.
Then you get rocking chair, and
you rock forward and back, you hope
you are wearing out the carpet, and
you see your good wife walking
around in another room and keeping
away from you, and finally it begins
to dawn on you that you are making
an ineffable ass of yourself. That is
the effect of time on anger. 1t is de-.
liberation; and l venture to say that
if this clause of this treaty were en-
forced in every international dispute
so that nothing should be done for
year of hostile character after the
occasion for dispute had arisen, we
would have mighty few wars
Here is the way the president put
plain truth in an emphatic manner:
1T is the common people of the
world that are interested in this bust
ness. They know that when we have
war it is they who have to bear the
burden. 1t is their sisters and moth
ers and daughters that have to wait
trembling for news from the battle
field, to know whether their dear ones
have bitten the dust.
at is the great mass of the slain
people that Lincoln loved so we'll that
stands the brunt of war. They do not
have the glory of coming home with
gold lace and feathers that falls to
the leaders. They are not elected