Perth Amboy evening news., 1912-05-21
ROOSEVELT AND THE FACTS.

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Democratic candidate for president, neither will they vote 70
Democratic delegates to go to the Baltimore convention.
The Republicans have their hands full in their own party
They are to express their preference between Taft, Roosevelt ant
La Toilette as presidential candidates and are to elect delegates t
the Chicago convention pledged to one or the other Of these mer
Thus, while the Democrats are choosing between Wilson men ant
jim Smith men, the Republicans will be choosing between Taft ant
Roosevelt, for La Toilette will hardly count here in spite of tn
fact that he has delegates running in the third district.
In giving some facts about Woodrow Wilson yesterday we quot
ed Hearsts New York journal as saying, "You judge a man b.
what he does. Only facts count Hearst meant this to be apphet
against Wilson, just as he means it to be applied against Roose
welt. But its application to the latter shows Roosevelt in just a
favorable a light as did the application to Wilson. We can judg
Roosevelt even better than we could judge Wilson because Roose
welt has already been president and we know just what kind of
president he makes. We believe the great mass Of American PEG
pie like the kind and it is evident from the way the various stat
primaries have been going, especially in the great Republican
states, that the Republican voters are determined to have Roose
welt as their candidate for president this year.
But what are the facts about ROOSEVELT
In the first place, he is an honest, fearless, straightforward
shoulder American. He quickly decides what he thinks is RICH
and then throws his full strength and wonderful energy toward &C
compishing it. He cares nothing for rule or precedent. He care
not whether there is any law permitting him to act. AS long a
there is no law prohibiting such action, he goes ahead. No poWe1
on earth can stop him. Because of this aggressiveness in all things
his enemies have tried to make the people believe that he is dan
gerous. But such a man as Roosevelt never was and never coulc
be dangerous because his power consists always of the affection
and the faith of the mass of his countrymen. That power could no
be gained save by one working always for the right and the go(
of the country.
When Roosevelt became president through the death O
William Mckinley he announced that he would continue the Nc
KnIey policies through the remainder of that administration. H
did so. Upon his own election, however, he established the famou
Roosevelt policies which the people are now SC anxious to see con
tinued. 1t was because Taft promised to carry out these policies
that he was elected in 1908, and it is because he has utterly repudi
ated those policies that he is now % unpopular with the great mas
of voters.
1t was President Roosevelt who first made the Sherman anti
trust law effective. He saw othe business of the country being con
centrated into the hands of a few. He also soon saw that t.
be good for anything the Sherman law needed amending so tina
the government could control big business and not necessarily de
sr0v if If WAS under ROOseyeltis administration that one Of the
subsidiary concerns of the Standard Oil Company was fined 500,
100000. This fine was declared confscatory by q higher court, ye
later this same company declared dividends amounting to exactl!
1920 000-a pleasing gift to the stockholders gained through
defiance of the law.
Roosevelt did more for irrigation of the great waste lands OF
the west than any other president, bringing millions of acres under
cultivation, thus increasing the wealth of the nation beyond all com
putation. He made the Panama canal a reality even to the extern
of bringing a new republic into existence, when he became con
WINGED that there was no other way. While his enemies attack hin
for his treatment Of Columbia IN this regard, Roosevelt saw only
the great good to mankind that the canal would bring about anc
he refused to have so important an accomplishment held up by
petty differences and unjust demands of an insignificant nation
Having declared a thing was right, Roosevelt did it regardless o
what had to be sacrificed in order to bring 1t about.
Sending the Atlantic feet around the world, giving the nation
of the earth an object lesson of Americas sea power was anothe
idea that originated in the active brain of Roosevelt. 1t was h
who brought about the conference between Russia and Japan tina
ended the greatest war between nations of modern times. AS
president Roosevelt was always establishing new presidents. Hi
enemies called him inconsistent and he gloried IN it. lie care'
nothing for what he had done or for what anyone else had don
in the past. He was living in the present and looking toward tn
future, always with the one object in view of serving the peopl
of his country.
Perhaps that for which Roosevelts administration was mos
noted was his policy of conservation. He succeeded in awakening
the people to the value of the country's great national resources
He held that the untold wealth Of the federal lands in the west am
in Alaska belonged to the people and should not be given away
cunning fnanciers for little or nothing. 1t was in connection wit
this conservation policy that the governors of all the states wer
called together for the first time for a conference at the Whit
House. This became known as the House of Governors and ha
Roosevelts original idea been carried out, great good would hav
been accomplished.
1t was the continuation of this conservation policy that cor
cerned Roosevelt most when he stepped out of the office of pres
dent and, as he sailed away to bury himself in the heart of. Afric
for fifteen months in order that Taft might have a free hand with
out any embarrassments he left but one request. He desired tn
retention in the cabinet of James R. Garfield, a young man who b
knew was honestly, unselfshly devoted to the good new doctrin
of conservation.
This request was denied. The Morgan Guggenheim syndicat
needed Balinger. Taft was an easy prey. Roosevelt's policy wa
ignored and the downfall Of Taft began with the advent of Ballin@
erism. 1t is recent history how, one after the other, the Roos