The Republican journal., 1912-11-14


brought the party to defeat. Perhaps
he takes pride in his achievement, con-
scious that
The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian
dome
Outlives in fame the pious fool that raisd it.
But in the eyes of the world such fame,
melancholy exchange for the universal
admiration for man who, after exercis-
ing the highest power in the Republic,
great services, retired to private life
commencing to TIE people the wisdom of
the tradition which forbade that he
should again be President. New York
Tribune.
BIT THE HAND THAT FED HIM.
The expe cted has happened. A house
divided against itself cannot stand. The
Republican house was divided by the
Roosevelt secession. The result is the
triumph Of the Democratic party in the
nation, the election of Democratic
President and House of Representatives,
and probably the winning of enough
Legislatures to make the Senate Demo-
cratic. In word it appears to be a
repetition of the clean Democratic sweep
of 1892. Whether the parallel is to be
continued remains to be seen. For the
first time in the history of the Republi-
can party it has lost the State of Maine
in Presidential election. And the party
has lost State after State hitherto almost
invariably Republican. Woodrow Will
son receives a large majority of the
electoral vote.
The cause of this revolution? Theo-
dore Roosevelt. To use one of his own
expressions, he has 'bit the hand that
fed him." Because he failed to get the
Republican nomination at Chicago, which
he vehemently desired and was ready to
take on the platform adopted, he led his
followers into revolt and started new
party with him as the nominee. The
Republican party was good enough for
him until it turned down his candidacy.
Then he turned upon it with fury and
tried to rend it. 1t then became to his
inf1amed imagination all that was vile
and villaicous. Of it's leaders there was
nothing too bad for him to say. In ira
ducing them he exhausted the dictionary
of explosives.
All this for revenge, the revenge of
disappointed ambition. If he could not
control he would destroy. All the poiti-
cal honors he has enjoyed-and he has
received many and some of the highest
he has received at the hands of this same
party, which he has now sought to throw
down. To compass the destruction, or
if not destruction then the greatest pos
sible injury, he has stopped at nothing.
He has been false to friendships and has
broken his word. Having declared that
because Of "the wise custom" that limits
a President to two terms he would under
no circumstances be candidate for or
accept another nomina ton, he disregard
ed his pledge and became candidate for
third term. He has fouted tradition
al policy that had come to have the force
of law. He turned upon his best friends
who could not follow him in this strange
path and abused them shamefully. His
violent and unmeasured attacks upon the
President of the United States exceeded
anything ever known.
In all this he has been able to draw
after him large number of men, hun
dreds of thousands of intelligent citi-
zens, victim of the strange Roosevelt
obsession, hynotized by a personality,
deaf to facts, blind to the prodigious
faults of their hero, devotees to hero
worship, filled with zeal, impervious to
reason, swallowing the most outrageous
misrepresentation. 1t is the most as
tonishing political phenomenon of our
times, and its spirit is perfectly express
ed in one of the Roosevelt hymns:
Follow, follow, will follow Roosevelt,
Anywhere, everywhere, will follow on.
Follow, follow, will follow Roosevelt,
Anywhere he leads me will follow on.
And to what end? Rule or ruin. If
he could not be elected himself, he would
cause the defeat Of the Republican party.
He has accomplished that He has Wreak-
ed revenge. But he has not won third
term. What Washington would not have
and Grant could not have, Roosevelt can
not get. The country has defeated the
third term aspiration, and defeated it for
all time, it is to be hoped. Nor is that all.
The country has rejected the strange
new doctrines of the new movement,
subversive of our institutions and involv-
ing personal government and one-man
rule. Even at cost of Democratic
triumph it is worth the price. The coun-
try is safe from that danger at least, and
after the experience that is coming to it,
it will have recovered its balance four
years hence.
President Taft has made good Presi-
dent, able, prudent, sagacious, safe, sane
and progressive. He deserved better at
the hands Of his countrymen. He is the
victim of misrepresentation. He has
been horribly traduced and belied. No
other public man of modern times has
suffered such treatment. Posterity will
do him justice and place him in the list
of best Presidents. Portland Press.