The Green Forest tribune., 1912-04-26

CT line. Right after the first fight we got down to nothing but hard tack and salt pork. Now, 1 never coddled my men. I expected that they would take anything that came and grin about it, and that they want ed a picture as near the flash of the guns as 1 could get them, and l got it for them; but I also took all the care of them that I could. I don't thing that a colonel is fit to be a col onel if he does not take care of his regiment. I did not think much of hard tack and salt pork, so I got about 40 of my men one day and marched them down to see if we could not find something to eat. We found where they were unloading supplies for the officers and army, and among other things l saw a great mass of beans being unloaded, so l put in a request for HOO pounds of beans for my men. He showed me some rules where it said that beans were only for the officers mess and said I couldn't get any for my men.
 
 tack, officers and men ate alike. from the colonel down. I then asked if I could have some beans for my off cers, and he said, "Yes, how much do you want" Well" I said, q want HOO pounds of beans." Why" he said, your officers can't eat HOO pounds of beans." I told him he didn't know what appetites they had. He said that it would have to be re- ported to Washington and that he would warn me that it might be taken out of my salary. I said, "All right, just so I get the beans" So l got 100 pounds of beans. And, now, gentleman, I don't regard that as act ing unconstitutional. I was simply taking care of my men, and I am go- ing to take care of my men.
 Well, when I was president, and found that Uncle Sam needed HOO pounds of beans, I got them for him. One of the most important instances of that was the Panama canal When I became president I found that nego- tiations for the canal were going placidly on, as they had been going on for some 70 years at Washington. The isthmus had been discovered four centuries ago by the Spaniards and they at once said how nice it would be to dig a canal across it, and there has been four centuries of con- versation on the subject, and I Iol fI1rT1 conversation into action. I did my best to persuade Columbia to come to an agreement, but l made Up my mind finally that she intended to blackmail us and that was all there was to it, that it was just as useless to try to come to an agreement with Columbia as it would be to nail cur rant jelly to the wall. You can't do it. It is not the fault of the nail; it is the fault of the jelly. So I had two alternatives before me. In the first place, I could have sent an able report to Congress on the subject, in which case Congress would have held series of masterly debates on the able report and we would have had half a century more of conversation, and the canal would have been 50 years in the future still. So I thought I would adopt the second course. You see, gentlemen, I was partly raised in the COW country, where you have to be a little sudden in your motions. So I adopted another course. I took the isthmus and started the canal and then let Congress, instead of debat- ing the canal, debate me. The canal is now within a couple of years of being finished and the congressional debate about me goes cheerfully on and I dare say it will outlast my life. We got the canal and Congress got the debate, and instead of debat- that did not make any difference to anybody, least of all to me. And so you see, of course, I had to act quick ly.
 I did nothing from the standpoint of the nation that I would not have [ done as a private individual. I do not admit that there should be any difference between the international and private standards of morality, but I insist that the nation should act toward other nations as one of us older men (and I am in the grand father class now, I want to tell you) would wish his son to act. We would wish the son to act with scrupulous honor and gentleness to every visi- tor; we would hate to see him a bully, but we would also expect him to hold his own. Uncle Sam has got to take care of his own rights and I was scrupulous when I was president to see that the nation neveractedi n to see that the nation ever acted in any way dishonorably toward any other nation, and also that it never permitted another nation to wrong it..
 Friends, I believe that in this con- test we have a right to appeal to all our people, because, friends, I have been again and again in every state in the Union. I know our people, and the thing that has impressed me is not the trivial differences among them, but the fundamental likenesses among them. A good American is a good American everywhere. A de- cent man is a decent man anywhere and crook is a crook anywhere. I hold that we are fighting for the fun damentals of good citizenship and for the right of the people to rule them. selves.