The Washington times., 1912-08-08
THE CONFESSION OF FAITH.

Theodore Roosevelts address, which he charac-
terized as his Confession of Faitn," is the most
notable contribution to politics and society that has
been made in many year. We venture it will be
many another year before anything of equal import
will be offered 1t will provoke discussion through
out the campaign and will be the charter for all
constructive legislation for the next generation.
The address is optimistic. 1t sees the evils
of the day, but it also sees the remedies, or tine
direction in which to search for the remedies. 1t
is denuncatory but not destructive for the denuncia
tion is Immediately followed by tangible, workable
plan of reforming the evils or replacing bad methods
with good ones.
Plainly, it is not the platudes of the standpatter,
who sees no harm in existing institutions but great
danger IN leaving the beaten path. Equally plain, it
is not the vagaries of the pseudoreformer who feels
that he must agitate in order to give the appearance
of progress and embraces and advocates fantasies
that have no place in real world
Roosevelt's analysis Of the evils of our times is
KEEN logical, and practical. AS he we'll said toward
the close of the address, he spoke not as parlor
reformer neither as recluse Of the library or class
room He brought to his subject not only exceptional
literary attanments and full reading but, what is of
far greater importance in these times, mind that
is intensely practical and an experience born of
thirty years of strenuously successful life in a
world of men and cold facts.
He knows whereof he speaks. His remedies are
not hgments of the imagination like the sxteento-
one theory of Bryans-but propositions that have
been tested by various communities or nations and
found to afford relief.
He is the first American to catch up with the
advanced thought and practice of nations that are
a quarter of century ahead of this nation in social
and industrial legislation, and to have the courage
60 tbeyS should he nt0 Droctice n fhiS
country if we are not to undergo period of stagna
ton and depression followed by revolutionary
reaction.
He does not stop to unite the Gordan knot, a.
which minor statesmen and smootn-bore politicians
are fumbling He cuts it, For this he will be
denounced as dangerous; as an anarchist; as
menace to the perpetuiy of the nation; as enemy
of free government; as one who would wipe out al
wealth and supplant orderly government with the
mob.
But his recommendations for advanced labo
lawsa his recommendations for more direct govern
rrent by the people, his recommendations for more
rigid accountability of the courts to the people wht
created them and whose servants they are; his rec
concentrations regarding constructive laws that will
regulate great combinations of capital but not DESTROY
any good that exists in them, but will, on the othe
hand destroy all wrongs in any business, big O.
little; MS proposals relalVe 10 the tarln and, above
all, his champoning the cause of women and cnil
dren whose lives, and health, and welfare arr
affected more and more by our social and industra
customs-al these propositions will bear the brun
of bitter attack and shine the more clearly by virtue
of contact with error and prejudice.
Roosevelts Confession of Faith, emphasized b.
his candidacy and the platform that will be givel
MIN to stand on, makes it very clear that there is on
one Progressive party and only one Progressive
candidate in this campaign. His is the party; he i
the candidate.