The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-04-25
A Boss Endorsed by the Colonel

Col. Roosevelts most interesting testimony
so far that on Friday relating to political
bosses. He agreed that many of the men with
whom he had been associated in politics were
bosses, and that he had found no particular faul,
with them their bosssm, long they CO.
operated with him or followed his suggestions He
was unqualified in his statement that Speaker Can.
non boss of the House OF Representatives
until he overthrown, and the inference might
be drawn from the remark that, while it took a
long time to overthrow Mr.. Cannon, the Colonel
would have been pleased to that accomplished
earlier or Mr.. Cannon prevented from ever be-
coming a boss. That inference would do the
Colonel injustice. While the testimony at SYRIA
cuse was definite only the point that Mr.. Can
non was boss of the House of Representatives,
Col. Roosevelt did, while he was President, ex-
press his approval of that boss in the most en-
phatic and public manner
In the campaign of 1906 President Roosevelt
wrote letter to the Hon. James f. Watson, of
Indiana and sent copy OF that letter to the Hon.
James S. Sherman, who the chairman of the
Republican Congressional Committee to have it
given the widest possible publicity as political
document and to have it made a feature of the
campaign textbook. In that letter dated Oyster
Bay. August 1s, 1906, Mr. Roosevelt said: aft
contest | should hesitate to say anything pub
licy in reference thereto. But do not feel that
such is the case. On the contrary, I feel that
all good citizens who have the welfare of
America at heart should appreciate the immense
amount that has been accomplished by the present
Congress organized it is, and the urgent need
of keeping this organization in power. With Mr..
Cannon as Speaker. the House has accomplished
Ohepomco,1 sc t.
has shown a courage, good sense and patriotism
such that it would be real and serious mis-
fortune for the country to fail to recognize To
change the leadership and organization of the
House at this time means to bring confusion
upon those who have successfully engaged in the
steady working out of a great and comprehensive
scheme for the betterment of our social indus
trial and civic conditions. Such a change would
substitute purposeless confusion a violent and
hurtful oscillation between the position of the
extreme radical and the extreme reactionary for
the present orderly progress along the lines of
a carefully thought out policy"
Again President Roosevelt said in that letter:
II speak with historic accuracy when l say that
not in our time has any other Congress done so
we'll in many different fields of endeavor as
the present Congress has DONE" And again he
said: perhaps the peculiar merit of these laws,
enacted by that Congress, is best shown by the
fact that while they have aroused the deepest
anger of the reactionaries of the men who make
a fetish of wealth, they have not satisfied the
unwise extremists; and the present Congress, in
achieving this merit, has acted in the exact spirit
of Abraham Lincoln, who was never to be-
frightened out of going forward by the cries of
those who feared progress nor yet to be hurried
into preeipitate advance by the demands of the
crude-thinking, though often well-meaning,' men
who arc not accustomed soberly to distinguish
between phrase-making and action"
There are other strong endorsements of the
Speaker and the Congress over which he was
boss, but these will suffice to show that the
Colonel, when he said at Syracuse that Mr. Can
non the boss until he was overthrown. did
not mean that he had disapproved that bossism
or sought to have it overthrown.