Imperial Valley press., 1912-10-21
ROOSEVELT GIVES AN INTERVIEW ON HIS RISE TO PROGRESSTESM


TO pass decent law knocked my laissez faire
theories into cooked hat. However you might
work it out in theory it was failure in practice.
Could those poor fellows get out and do some
thing else? Practically The frontier was
gone, and in the condition to which they were
reduced they weren't the kind of people to go
pioneering. 1 think got here my first glimmerin
idea of real social service. l wanted to do some
thing for people like that-something for men.
That's the set of ideas which l brought with
me into the civil service commission and the
police commission. And by that time 1 on
the road to a real understanding of social service
1t Jacob Ris who the right track
had read his stories about real conditions in New
York; and said to him, Let's get in and work
together. Let's do something to make this real.
1T was fight, fight all the time, that police
commission job But after all, 1 was fighting
only the professional graftersbloated, fat thieves
who got their money as they could, and spent it
on champagne baths and debauches up the Hudson
such Tweed used hold. l didn't have much
support when struck out to do something
those fellows, the
other a sappy lot of ideasts who couldn't be got
understand l didn't understand much myself
went thinking that the grating professional
politician was the real menace OF democracy ant
that got a business administration everythins =
would be all right. Still, the other thing il
the back of my head all the time. You L ha,
come out of college with the educated head, bu
hadn't yet the educated heart
After that l went down to Washington. 1 we
busy reorganizng the navy, which a bust
job and didn't bring up against the real
Riders There was lot of the Jack Hazard
stuff still in mel that W. 1 remember
that when l first in Washington 1 used 10
tell my New York acquaintances with great
thusiasm about" (here he mentioned tn,
of rich and self-made piratical politician
of the old SCHOOL, "and Bob LaFolette in tn
breath. 1 praised them both equally
virile who had up tn
ranks by their efforts. That's the subtl
point wonder if you it? They looked alik
to 1 couldn't draw any distinctioI--yet.
Il became governor of New York. There was
where 1 began to light. L against what
used to call the money You know
I'd heard that phrase all my life, and laughed
When Bryan it, l thought as
he Vaporng of windy demagogue. Take the
Lou Payn Incident can't remember exactly
whether that the franchise tax bill the
first in order. l fighting Payn's appointments
insurance commissioner. 1t a question
il l could get another appointment through the
legislature. A respectable young gentleman came
Ip from New York, representing one of the insur
ance companies. He said: Wed support some
other man, if you could put him
through, but were afraid of opposing Payn, for
fear he may take it out in he wins.
| said, Legislature legislature I'll stick
it If they don't confirm my man, then II
try another, and it won't be Payn.' H said, In
that we'l support your appointee. We can
deliver four senators and three assemblymen. The
next day, the president of that company gave
statement endorsing Payn. 1 sent down to find
out what it meant. He said, oh, that's all right,
were only guarding ourselves in Payn should
go in. Wen deliver out senators and assemblymen
just the same DO you get? Four senators and
three assembly blymen-not bought casually theS
used to buy in the Legislature during my time
but the servants of the corporation
But that a teaparty compared to the
franchise tax bill. At every stroke I cut into
some interest. l saw their power; began to
how they worked. After it all and Ii
jammed the bill through Tom Piatt wrote mt
a letter. .4Ez<
Here Mr.. Roosevelt hesitated
publication" hF
said finally. But it's long past Tom Plat
said I've heen hearing for a long time that yot
to admit that it is true. He wasn't trying to BE
humorous, either. 'Altruist with him the
same anarchist communist.
"As look back on it now, 1 must have gone
pretty far, unconsciously, before l down TO
Washington vice president and president Pretty
far for those times, mean. | wasn't far from
the right idea, after all Look up my letter
acceptance and notice that after the
even then. Ny growth is in all my successive
messages l was looking them over the other day
and realizing how I went from point poin
in years.
when 1 started to clean up the postoffce de
partment, for example | found that every tim
| into anything, l struck big interest doing
som ethng crooked and unfair Then there
the matter of judges | appointed them just is
/ Cleveland and Mckinley had done. Cleveland and
They only -conscientiously-that men Were
appointed who wouldn't disturb the conservative
and orderly course of business. used to follow
something the system. I picked my judges
on the recommendation of bar associations and
chambers of commerce and all that. Then we
broke into that land graft situation in the West
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