The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1912-09-26
CAREFUL AND COMPLETE SUM
MING UP OF HIS PROVEN
QUALIFICATIONS.
Declares Him to Be "In an Especial
Sense the Representative Of All in
All That in Which ! Most Believe in
Political Life"

weighing lHc NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. "a e"S
presidential candidates and making up
their minds for whom they will VOTE
the people of the United States are
giving greater consideration, In all
probability, to those important mat
tiers this year than they ever have. The
following letter. written by Theodor
Roosevelt in 1908, giving his opinion
of William Howard Taft, will be found
not only interesting but instructive to
those who have not had the opportun-
ity to study and know Mr.. Taft as Mr.
Roosevelt studied and knew him:
Sycamore Hill, oyster Bay, N. Y, Sep
TENDER 3, 1908.
Mr.. Conrad Kohrs, Helena, Mont
NV Dear Mr. Kohrs l have receiv
ed your letter about the candidacy Oh
Mr.. Taft, the man who l feel Is In an
especial sense the representative OF ali
that In which most believe in political
life.
Every good citizen should desire to
see both prosperity and justice, pros
perity and fair and righteous dealing
as between man and man, obtain per-
manently in this great republic. AS
people we are justly proud of our bust
ness industry, Of our energy and INTEL
ligence in our work; and it is entirely
right that we should ask ourselves as
to any given course of conduct, viii
II be profitable?" But it is also no less
emphatically true that the bully of our
people, the plain people, who FOUND IN
Abraham Lincoln their especial cham
pion and spokesman, regard the ques-
ton, rs this morally right?" as even
more important than the question, rs
this profitabe?" when applied to any
given course of conduct. Indeed, in the
long run our people are sure to ind
: that in all dealings, alike in the busi-
ness and the political world, what Is
really profitable is that which Is NOR
ally right. The last few years have
seen a great awakening of the public
conscience and the growth of stern
determination to do away with cor
ruption and unfair dealing, political,
( economic, social 1t is urgently neces-
sary that this great reform movement
should go on. But no reform move-
ment is healthy if 1t goes on by
spasms: if it is marked by periods of
frenzed advance, followed, as such
periods of frenzied advance must al
periods of reaction.
The revolutionary and the reaction
airy really play into one another
hands, to the extent that each by his
excuses necessarily tends to arouse
such disgust, such feeling of revolt,
in the minds of quiet people as tempo
rarily to restore the other to power.
TO permit the direction Of our public
affairs to fall alternately into the
hands Of revolutionaries and reaction
aries Of the extreme radicals of unrest
and of the bigoted conservatives who
recognize no wrongs to remedy, would
merely mean that the Nation had en-
barked on feversh course of violent
oscillation which would be fraught
with great temporary trouble, and
would produce no adequate good in
the end. The true friend Of reform,
the true foe of abuses, is the man who
steadily preserves in righting wrongs,
IN warning against abuses, but whose
character and training are such that he
never promises what he can not per-
form, that he always little more than
makes good what he does promise, and
that, while steadily advancing, he never
permits himself to be led into foolish
excuses which would damage the very
cause he champions In Mr.. Taft we
have man who combines all of these
qualities to a degree which no other
man in our public life since the Civil
War has surpassed. To a flaming
hatred Of injustice, to a scorn of all
that is base and mean, to hearty
sympathy with the oppressed, he unites
entire disinterestedness. courage both
moral and physical Of the very highest
type, anu a hHAuiy 6OhSiOSieS VI hAs"'S
which makes him feel that all of his
fellow countrymen are in very truth
his friends and brothers, that their in
terests are his, and that all his great
Qualities are to be spent with lavish
freedom in their service. The honest
man Of means, the honest and law
abiding business man, can feel safe in
his hants because of the very fact that
the dishonest man OF great wealth, the
( man who slvindles or robs his fellows,
would not so much as dare to defend
his evil doing lii Mr.. Tafts presence.
rho honest wagcworker. the honest la
boring nlan, the honest farmer, the
honest mechanic or small trader, or
man of small means, can feel that in a
peculiar sense Mr. Taft will be his rep
rtsentative because Of the very fact
that lie has the same scorn. for the
deInagogue that he has for the cor
ruptionist, and that he would front
threats of personal violence from
mob with the unquailing and lofty in
difference with which he would front
the bitter anger Of the weolthiest and
most powerful corporations. Bread
though his sysnpathies are there is II
Alu, not the slightest tinge Of weakness