The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-09-22
AS IT WAS BEFORE.

When Colonel Roosevelt was Prcsi-
dent before, he paid very little atten-
tlon TO constitution or laws. aud when
the courts declared his propositions
unconstitutional, he took it out in abus-
ing the courts. He is now running on
platform which calls for the recall
by popular vote Of decisions of the
courts where those decisions relate to
constitutional questions; a proposj-
ton, the working Of which in practice,
If his hopes could be carried out of re-
versal of supreme Court decisions by
popular vote, would soon reduce us to
condition of chaos absolutely insup-
portable.
He has declared that he would not
wish to be a king, because kings do
not have power enough, He is there
fore running to be dictator Of this
country, and not to be its President.
Those who are supporting Colonel
Roosevelt this year find it hard TO take
this view Of the case. They resent
this charge of absolutiSm as some
thing wholly unreasonable and out OF
the question. Which shows that the
present generation has forgotten the
lesson of the great War Of the Rebel
lion.
When the rumbline. Of that war
were FIRST hard, the loyal people of the
country, both North and South,
secuted the idea Of an actual civil
war. Those of the North especially
found it impossible TO believe that the
descendants of men of the South who
had so patriotically and heroically
fought in the War Of the Revolution
would consent TO treason against the
Union and an attempt at its disrup
ton. Even after the war had ac
tually begun it was hard for the peo-
pie of the North to realize that 1t was
going to be much of a war. Mr..
Seward, the great New York states
man, predicted in a reassuring speech
that the war would be over in ninety
days. A prominent gentleman OF the
Northwest began the raising of regi-
ment of cavalry on the theory that
this regiment would cross tho Missis-
way to the Gulf through the series of
States west of the river and be every
where acclaimed as restorers of peace
and vindjcators Of the Union. The idea
that the Southerners really intended to
fight against the Union and to estab
lish an independent Confederate Gov
ernment was quite commonly 6outed
with scorn; aud even In the North,
after the stress of the war began Sc
verely to be felt, there were societies
of Copperheads, Knights of the Golden
Circle, and other aggregations hostile
to the Government, doing all they
could to hamper it's operations and to
help the rebellion.
If any one had in 1860 gravely IN
dertakep to foretell these things and
to say that they were inevitable, he
would have been denounced as
lunatic. and if he had persisted would
probably have been run out Of any
town in which he lived.
And so, while those who have no
memory Of those awful times scout all
danger from Roosevelt now, just as
the people generally secuted all danger
of slav avehoders' war then, and be
little and scout the idea Of danger
from the Roosevelt menace, those
who passed through those terrible
times are not so easily reassured. They
have seen political agitation drag
this country into mighty war, the
cost Of which has not yet been paid,
and they distrust the desperate plead
ings OF desperate men who are engaged
in political buccaneering. They do
not forget the lesson of 1860 and 1861,
and are more inclined to take political
protestations at their face value and
plain meaning, than to say that they
mean nothing, and to count the cost
of an outbreak, than are those who
enthusiastically now, as the most Of the
people optimistically then, declared
that there was no danger. Roosevelt
ism now, so far es 1t goes, is as direct
menace to the Republic ss secession
was in it's day. There Is always
danger in Republic when the
tendency Is to invoke 4 one-man sway,
and dictatorial programme; and we
do not forget that It Is precisely
through this tendency that republics
throughout ths history Of tho world
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