Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-02-27
President in Official State
ment Declares He Never
Said People Were Not Fit.
ted for Self Government.
ROOSEVELT BROUGHT
FORTH STATEMENT
Friends of President Be-
lieye Colonel's Statement
in Columbus Speech In
spired Taft Correction.

Washington, D. c., Feb 24.-Presi-
dent Taft today denied emphatically
that in speech in New York on Lin
coins birthday he said that the peo-
pie are not fitted for self government"
In the first official statement of this
kind that the white house has ever
issued during the Taft administration,
the president called the circulation OF
this story ''falsehood."
The white house statement follows:
Among the falsehoods that are now
being assiduously circulated by per-
sons and papers opposed to the presi-
dent is one that in his Lincoln day
speech the president argued that the
people are not fitted for self govern
ment.' President Taft said nothing on
that occasion which possibly could be
tortured into any such construction.
'The speech in which the president
made reference to popular govern
ment was delivered at the banquet OF
the State Bar association in New York
on the. night of January 20. What be
then said on this subject and it was
correctly quoted in the newspapers
the following day is this:
Popular government We, all &C.
lieve in. There are those of us who do
not believe all people are fitted for
popular government. The fact is we
know they are not. Some of us dare
not say SO, but do, and the question
whether a people is fitted for popular
self government so as to make that
government best for the people is
determined by the ability of the ma
jority of that people to place on itself
the restraint by which the minority
shall receive Justice from the ma
jority. 1t is the question of self-im-
posed restraint that determines
whether a people is fit to govern It.
self
Statement Answers Roosevelt.
While it is not admitted by any one
at the white house who has authority
to speak for the president that his cor
rection of the Interpretation placed by
some people upon his New York
speech included Mr.. Roosevelt, politi-
cal leaders here believe such to be
the case. @..e ~
Many of President Tafts friends
have asserted that Col. Roosevelt had
Mr.. Taft in mind when in his Collin
bus speech he said: s "A
Many eminent lawyers who more
or less frankly disbelieve in our
entire American system Of gov
eminent, for, by and Of the
people, violently antagonize this
They believe, and some
times assert that the American people
are not fitted for popular government
and that it is necessary to keep the
judiciary independent Of the majority
or of all the people; that there must
be no appeal to the people from the
decision of court in any case; and
that, therefore, the judges are to be
established as sovereign rulers over
the people. take absolute issue with
all those who hold scuh a position
In the same connection Mr.. Roose-
welt also said:
eff the American people are not fit
for popular government and if they
should of right be the servants and
not the masters of the men whom they
themselves put in office, then Lin
coins work was wasted and the whole
system of government upon which this
great democratic republic rests is a
failure"