The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1912-05-16
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ROOSEVELT, OLD AND NEW. F..
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(From Kansas City Journal.)

worshipful regard for the will of the
majority, and this biographer went
so far as to say, in discussing the
matter:
Although not SO bad as many or his
school, he (Benton) had yet gradually
worked himself up to a belief that it
was most impious to pay anything but
servile heed to the will of the MAORI
ty, and was quite unconscious that to
surrender ones own manhood and
judgment to belief in the divine right
of kings was only one degree more ig-
noble, and was not shadow more
logical and but little more defensible,
than it was blindly to defy a majority
not of the whole people but merely
of small fraction consisting of those
who happened to be of certain sex,
to have reached a certain age, to be-
long to a certain race and to fulfill
some other conditions. In fact, there
is no national or divine law in the mat
ter at all; how large a portion of the
population should be trusted with the
control of government is question of
expediency merely
That biographer was not Aldrich,
or Ballinger, or Gallinger, or Joe
Cannon, or Matt Quay, or Tawney Of
Minnesota. The biographer was Theo-
dore Roosevelt.
There was once published very Sc
we're arraignment of the platform
adopted by the Bryan convention of
1896, and regarding the assaults on
the supreme court made by that plat
form this critic wrote:
THE Chicago convention attacked
the supreme court. Again this repre-
sents a species of atavism-that is, of
recurrence to the ways of thought of
remote barbarian ancestors. Saw
ages do not like an independent and
upright judiciary. They want the
judge to decide their way, and if he
does not they want to behead him.
The Populists experience much the
same emotions when they realize that
the judiciary stands between them and
plumber"
The critic was not William Howard
Taft, or Murray Crane, or Penrose of
Pennsylvania. The critic was Theo-
dore Roosevelt.
There was once a distinguished
publicist who denounced the election
of John P. Altgeld as governor of
Illinois, and in commenting upon the
culpability of those who elected him
these words were used:
"If the government generally got in
to the hands of men such as Altgeld
the republic would go to pieces in a
year; and it would be right that it
should go to pieces, for the election Of
such men shows that the people elect
ing them are unfit to be intrusted with
self government"
The distinguished publicist was
not Guggeheim, or Evans of Colorado, |
or Cox of Cincinnati, or John Dalzell, |
or Shelby M. Cullom, or any of the
who are now listed as
bosses and political despots aligned |
with the president in the alleged |
fight between the people and special
privilege" The distinguished publ
cist was Theodore Roosevelt.
These quotations and others that
might be made furnish an illumi-
mating example of the difference be-
tween the old and the new Roosevelt.
There is hardly a word Roosevelt
wrote in the quotations given which
has not been said in substance and
effect time and again by President
Taft, being an expression of the sane
md necessary principles for which the
president stands today. There is
hardly word which Roosevelt is say
ing today which does not express the
theories for which Bryan and Altgeld |
and other defamers of the courts stood
when Roosevelt wisely and forcibly
attacked them.
1t is Roosevelt who is assailing ana
'illifying the courts now. 1t is Roose-
1elt who is proclaiming that the pop
liar majority is sacred and can do no
wrong, that it wisely elects whomever
t elects if the successful candidate
'epresents the peoples wishes at the
moment, regardless of whether those
are safe and sane or not 1t is
Roosevelt who has gone back TO the |
'opulism and the political rowdyism of
ixten years ago and has added some
II his own private Populism to make
lp platform of principles which en-