Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1912-10-15
We kHoU schdt ,ce are, but knoao not rhGt ICE
mag be.-Shakespeare.
AMERICA SAVED FROM BITTER SHAME


Indeed, it is not at all improbable that the
man who fired revolver at the colonel in an
attempt to cut short the career of the third-term
candidate is the man who will elect him.
Prone to sympathy, quick to sense the dra-
matte and to appreciate it vociferously, the
American people will do more than sympathize
with Roosevelt and applaud his iron nerve in
finishing his speech before he would yield to ex-
animation by physicians Thousands upon thou
sands of them will vote for him..
It was the bullet of an assassin that put
Roosevelt in the presidential chair. 1t may we'll
be another assassin and another bullet that will
place him there again.
The first reports received in Honolulu were
indefinite as to the extent of the eolonel's in
juries The next reports sweresthat his injuries
we're slight Early this morning the Associated
Press cabled this paper that the wound is much
more serious than first supposed, though the bull
let apparently did not strike any vital organ.
The roughriding colonel, however, must aban-
don his campaign.
In the opinion of this paper, he will not lose
any votes by his inability to speak. His recent
tour, the longest ever undertaken by any presi-
dentiai candidate, has been far from popular
success. Enormous crowds greeted him every
where, but in many cities he left dissatisfaction
behind him, particularly among local leaders OF
the Bull Moose movement. His speeches during
s the past month have been particularly denun-
ciatory His language has often been so vim
dictiye and so ill-chosen as to be unseemy in any
presidential candidate Some of the colonels
best newspaper friends have acknowledged that
he was injuring his own cause.
But the colonel on campaign platform ram
page and the colonel suffering from the bullet
Of crazed political crank are entirely different
persons There is no denying that Roosevelt
was near to death, or that he bore himself with
extraordinary courage, the kind of daredevil,
leonine courage that appeals irresistibly to the
melodramatic instinct so strongly implanted in
American breasts. He is again the hero of San
Juan; again the idol of his picturesque COW
boys; again the man of action And it is that
kind of a Roosevelt who first won the American
people to him as no. other president ever won
his people.
Roosevelt met an extraordinary situation,
and with his marvellous aptitude for doing the
dramatic thing, for saying the pungent sentence,
the sentence with the punch he turned
the situation to extraordinary account. This
mornings messages brought the news that when
photographers flashlight exploded in his face,
he exclaimed, "Gosh! Shot again. and this
humorous comment as he walked into hospital
with bullet in his shoulder will be seen in a
thousand headlines, viii figure in thousand
campaign speeches
1t is peculiar and yet characteristic of Amer
ica's regard for Roosevelt that as soon as it was
learned his injuries were only slight and that
he had insisted on finishing his speech, many
people were ready to declare the entire incident
strained up. If So it would be the greatest
press agent "stunt" ever attempted. OF course
this idea is farfetched almost unthinkable In
Honolulu the idea is freely expressed, but prob
ably not really believed. But how typical it is
of our estimation of Roosevelt!
Beyond all politics and above all partisan
ship, the American people should greatly rejoice
that another has not been added to the list OF
our martyred presidents. John Sehrenk mar
rowly missed claim to the red notoriety of Czol
gosz. He seems to have been of the anarchistit
type of the man who assassinated Mckinley
Yet this is not a country of anarchists; not q
country of unbalanced mentalities 1t is coun
try where law is reyered; where administration
of the law are respected. Milwaukee, it is true
has been for some years a hotbed of socialism
but socialism is not anarchy. Only, it too Otter
happens that weak minds grow unbalanced from
long brooding over vague theories of govern
ment; respect for all law is lost; and from thu
chaos of unbridled thought there is evolved ,
wild resentment against society, and an obses