The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-08-21
.ROOSEVELT'S GUNS
 GET INTO ACTION Bill Vines Comments on His
 Boston Speech THE GREATEST FAKIR Calls Attention to Sentence of Boston Speech to Be Remembered When
 He Comes to Alabama
 to Speak
THE GREATEST FAKIR
By BILL VINES

By BILL VINES
 Washington. August o.-fSpecial)- fight is on. Teddy the Terrible has opened his campaign for reform and righteousness in the east and as usual he is proving to be star attraction. Another Paul Revere has come to Mass achusetts and is shrieking the woes of the oppressed into the listening ears of thousands The way to political liberty and the cure Of political ills and the dis sipation of political evils lie only in him.
 He alone can restore equity and jus tiee in the relations of the manufac- turer and the man who tolls. He does not explain why he failed to accomplish all these great reforms while he occupied the White House He does not explain why in seven years that he was the chief executive he did nothing to lower the cost of living or throw the slightest ob- stacle in the Nay of grinding fnonopolies which he would now so ruthlessly trod under his iron heel He makes no apolo- sy for the fact that when he was in augurated President there were only 149 trusts and combinations in the United States with a capitalization Of $3, ,7S4, ,00O. = eVO and the day that he turned the ad- ministarticn over to Taft there were 1O.- 02O, with capitalization of $31, ,672 000, ,000, of which large per cent was water, a period of the greatest trust growth and the greatest trust prosperity ever in the history of the country.
 With this record so plain and so we'll known he comes as the ''cure all, of po- ptlcal diseases and complaints and still we are not happy. He comes with Per- kins and Finn and Medill Mccormick. and Munsey and other feverish and am iaole patriots, dissimilar from Aldrich and Archibold and Hartman in name only.
 What about Perkins?" a rude person asked the colonel at one of his addresses in Massachusetts T am delighted to tell you about Mr Perkins, he replied. I'll satisfy everybedy's thirst for informa- tion. MT. Perkins is a rich man" he said. 'He came into this movement not at my request, but of his own initiative felt the same curiosity as that man in the crowd felt"
 Sure he did. A curiosity about how much Perk would put up, curiosity that he soon satisfied along that line. prob ably after he had satisfied Perks curi- osity about some other matters
 The prime reason why I am with you" says Perk, lis because I have chil- dren." That's it. Perlz has children That is a good and substantial reason for being for Roosevelt. Any man with children certainly ought to be for the colonel, especially if he is rich and con nected with one or two of the biggest inonopolies in the world, and if he wants these children to grow up and inherit his wealth and keep it growing under the roof of a protective tariff so that he
 
 which he cheerfully sells abroad for Sls.G2 and at home for sS0. and cooking stoves that he charges his fellow patriots $20 for and sells to the English peasant for Sl5 and baby carriages which the poor man who has children in this country gets for $1267 and the poor devil in Europe buys for $9.50, and various and sundry other reasons equally as potent. That is why Perkins has come to the conclusion that this country won't be a good place for his children" unless the colonel is again put in power and the Infant in- dustries" given another chance to grow
 We progressives," says the colonel, propose to give the 'peepul the power to rule their own nominating conventions and to control their own party organza- uons just as we propose to make them the real and not the nominal masters of their own public servants
  the way, who controlled the first progress sive convention? Who worte the plat form at said convention? Were there any bosses there? Who controlled the repub- iican convention of 1908? Who invented the steam roller? Did the "peepul'' do any real Master stunts during the years of 1901 to 1908? In some way the public is mixed up on all these questions. and the colonel makes such satisfactory Nrr.1.. ,nf fof,c 1a F1aftr while he is about it.
 Ours is a movement of genuine prog ross; we who at the moment lead it are to represent the hopes the desires. the high enthusiasm of the earnest men and women of this country whose purpose 1t is to smite down the wrong that sits in high places and to bring nearer the day when Justice shall be done alike to the great and small the land. The first essential In securing the right of the 'peepul to rule is to secure the unsparing condemna- ton of dishonesty in nominations and elec'ions'
 There he is right back at the starting point. The very beginning of the pro-| gressive party. the failure of the repub- licar convention to nominate him in Chl-l cago. Suppose the 60 "nigger, delegates had Topped from Taft and voted for the
  get them to do? Would there have been a progressive party? Would the colonera have been tainted? Would he rave accepted it? Would there have been all this "holer' about the wrongs Of the 'peepul7" Wouldn't the grand old republican party been the answer? We wot not but we believe sight about it.
 The colonel is going to carry his per- sonal campaign all over the country, and when he gets to Alabama it might be we'll 10 remember a sentence in his Beverly speech. He said We invite into our ranks men and women entirely without regard to tleir former political affilia- tions, to their cfeeds. to their birthplaces. or to the color of their skins
 He did not add that this invitation is confined to Massachusetts. or to the eastern and northern states. he did not say that we will have to cut out that "color of their skins" business down south when we issue the general invita- ton to jump into our band wagon. He's a smooth takir and he can certainly come nearer getting away with it than any of them.
 He begins by trying to make every body that he can feel that they are op- pressed. anl he then appeals to the op- pressed. He is without doubt great ac- ter.