The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-05-13

come back to worry the patient public with his dreary platitudes, to lead the mob, aided and abetted by his old friends of the harvester trust and steer trust, who are footing the bills of his wild campaign for the office to which
 he was solemnly pledged, so far as any of his pledges could be called solemn, never again to aspire under any circumstances" What definite promise does he make touching any of
 the Issues in which the people are In- terested, except that he will take the office of President if he can get 1t, in spite of the fact that he declared three
 times. in the most unnaistakable way that he would never take it again? He says that the people should rule. and
 he Is the people" He says this is not representative government, or rather than we should have a direct mocracy--practically that our laws should be made by the people in mass meeting assembled instead of by de- Lucrative bodies chosen by the people to look after their interests; that the whole American scheme of government Is out of touch with tn edemands and necessities of this age; that there should be frequent changes in the con situation so that we shall have no established order that. when the courts construe any law adversely to the in- terests of certain percentage of the voters, there should be an election to determine whether the judgment of the courts shall stand or whether the in- depreciation of the polls shall be re- garded as the true interpretation of the law In the recent primary election in New York city, the votes cast for MT. Roosevelt cost the harvester trust and steel trust, and the other financial packers of his present campaign, $4 each; they would doubtless be willing to pay a good deal more if by judi cious financiering they could in the case of decision adverse to their interest buy enough votes to reverse the finding of the courts. There is q painful lack of defniteness in every thing MT. Roosevelt has laid down as the policies he thinks should be pur- sued in the administration of our af- fairs. He has said nothing that would not bear double construction; all he Is after is the presidency not in life public interest, which he signally failed to serve when he had seven years in the office. but in his own behalf and, as Henry Watterson has picturesquely described 1t, If he gets into the White House again he will never come out until he comes out feet foremost
 This is not my affair I am a dem ocrat, but I am at the same time an fAiltIitdH anu UttDly interested in the maintenance of American insti- tutions. What was good enough for George Washington and Thomas Jeff ferson and Andrew Jackson and Grover Cleveland Is good enough for me. If the democrats cannot elect Harmon or Underwood or Marshall, or some other democrat who Is faithful to the teach ings and principles of the fathers of constitutional government in the United States. | alOnld like Mr. No fa reelected, believing as 1 do that the interests of the nation would be safe In his hands. The question Is a great deal bigger than any political party. That is why l am interested in 1t in no partisan sense, but as law-abiding citizen who holds that the country is greater than any political party. iThe supreme issue of 1912" as Nicholas Murray Butler expressed it in his speech at Rochester, being the preser- yatlon of our institutions from the hands of the despoiler