The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1912-06-07

An Invocation to Civil War.
The result in Ohio makes 1t GER
tain that the voters of the United
States will have to reckon with
Theodore Roosevelt next November
at tic polls
1t will matter not whether he ap-
pears under the emblem of regu-
lar Iarty nomination, or as an In
surrecto, appealing to all parties,
unless he breaks down under the
strain and is taken into a Lunatic
Asylum, he will be a candidate for
President.
There car be in his name and per-
son but ore issue; life-tenure in the
Executive Office and a civil fabric
imperial in everything except it's
nomenclature.
Thus our system OF Representa-
tive Government laid in Consthu-
tionai checks and balances, having
achieved the battle for Independent
existence, and survived the. several
nrdeals of foreign invasion and in
ternal conflict, the disputed success
sion and the strife of sections and
factions, must face the final and yet
greater peril of mad ambition, sup
ported by corrupt and corrupting
millions, playing upon the restless,
the unknowing and unthinking, the
purchasable. the brutal and the vile.
The hideous spectacle of an ex-
President, tawling like a drunken
harlot from one end of the land to
the other, dragging Republicanism
through an ocean of filth to the hor-
ror Of Americans having any sense
of decency and the alternate delight
and disgust of the enemies Of Re-
publicanism all over the world,
gives us foretaste of the infamies
before us.
There il nothing which this mad
man will not dare to attempt under
the excitement and the passion of
the state CT war he has stirred up In
his own mind and in the minds Of
the crazy mobs that follow and ap-
plald. That he was able to draw
man like Taft into the cesspool at
tests the cruel injury and wrong
maniac armed to the teeth may &C
complish, for Taft is not only the
President Of the United States, but
he In gentleman of upright, self
respecting character. Being such,
he has proved wholly unequal to the
bloody fray and the dishonorable
warfare forced upon him. 1t is
clesr now that he had better remain
ed in the White House, leaving the
frenzied paranoiac the field to bim-
self.
That the institutions alike of rea-
son and freedom will rise triumph
ant above the assault made upon
them by insane ambition undisguis-
ed we truly believe. However low
cred our political standards may
have beccne-however commercial.
lied the spirit of the age may be
however vitiated certain parts of the
electorate may seem-the warp and
wool of American manhood are still
equal to dealing with such crisis.
The whole Roosevelt vote in any sim
gle State--in the aggregate Of all the
States he has carried-will not ex-
coed, If it reaches, one-fourth of the
ordinary Republican party poll, and,
by consequence, not more than one
ninth Of the total poll Of all parties. !
This makes it quite sure that, when
the ssue Of Republican Government
against that of Life Tenure and a
Dictator, is fairly joined, the would
lie Supreme Being and Master Of All
will not carry a State in the Union.
The hop. of the country rests now !,
with the Democratic party. Let the
leaders of Democracy realize that 1t ;
is no longer a party battle they will
organize to meet and to fight, but a !
battl for liberty and law, for the ,
government of and for and by the
people, which has come down to US
sanctined by the blood and the wis ,
dom of the fathers. OF this there
can be NO mistake
II.
The country has reached another !,
parting OF the ways. From the exit
of Washington to the death Of Nc
Kinley the citizens selected for
Presidents of the United States were
levelheaded and well-balanced men,
about whose mental integrity there
had never been tn slightest question.
Some were commonplace, others
we're brilliant, and three or four
Il