The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1916-03-02
Roots Service to Nation.
Time Someone Spoke the Truth, Says New
York Tribune Highest Praise for Former
Senator's Address from the Metropolitan

senator's Address from the metropolitan
Press.
New York Tribune: In his long ant
distinguished career Elihu Root has rem
oered no greater service to his countr.
and to his party than that which hi
speech constitutes. He has told thu
truth, the simple, sober truth, but tina
truth which SO many politicians have
shrunk from telling lest they nigh
thereby offend the American
vote. Save for Theodore Roosevelt, NJ
american statesman has spoken with the
irankness which was employed by one Of
the greatest of our Secretaries of State
Mr.. Roosevelt himself has not more
clearly, more emphatically, indicated the
meaning to America of the Belgian in
1amy than did Mr.. Root in his address
before the Republican State convention.
Inc issue of the next national cam.
palgn Will not be the tariff. 1t will not
even be Mr.. Wilson's Mexican policy.
II Will be Americanism versus cowardice.
1t Will be the American ideal and the
American tradition, challenged as these
nave been by the mean, sordid, ignoble
thing that has been the course of the
of the present Admin stration.
This is the issue of the next election
and of all elections until America is re-.
stored to its old rank in world of ma
tions which serve justice, liberty, hu-
manity- nationally and internationally.
Mr.. Root has seen this and said it. Here
after it will be hard for the weak man
and the little man, the party boss and
the party machinlst to work in silence
and darkness. Thanks to Mr.. Root. we
are to have a campaign based upon a
great issue and supreme national ques-
ton. We are to decide what, after all,
American citizenship and American ex-
istence mean. We are to decide whether
this nation is a factory or a shrine;
whether the America of today is the
America of yesterday and of all the
days since the beginning, or whether it
is new, vile thing; whether our country
is the single portion of the worlds sur
face which shelters men who have no
thought for honor, for liberty, for moral
or spiritual considerations and care, simp-
ly to live in comfort through days and
nights prolonged by the betrayal and the
desertion of all that men elsewhere in
the world love, live for and are willing
to die to preserve.
New York Times, Dem: Mr.. Root
spoke upon the tariff, upon Mexico.
We may discount, disregard, dismiss all
that. The Republicans will never win
the campaign on the issues of protection
and Huerta. But when he took up-and
that was the greater, the important part
of his speech-the things the Admins
tration has done or left undone or has
not succeeded in doing in respect to the
grave and urgent questions forced upon
NV ba n
self boldly upon the battle-ground where
done. In this choice of the party posi-
ton he displayed the highest skill of
craftsmanship and of politics he did not
seek to make an issue for the Republi-
cans, he chose an issue that is already
made in the hearts of the people.
We all know that the American people
will defend their country's honor, their
own rights and property. They will ap-
prove any sound policy that will put
them in readiness for defense. If the
Democrats in Congress are of different
opinion, if they persist in stitf-necked
opposition to the popular will the people
will respond to Mr.. Roots appeal, to
the Republican appeal, by terminating
the trust they have misused.
With this warning, confronted by
formidable foe with such challenges, it
is imperative that the Democratic Ad-
ministralion and the Democratic Con-
gress reexnine their positions. Blum
ders, if there have been blunders, must
not be repeated. Isolation and lnditfer-
ence to public opinion will be fatal. Self
righteousness and superior smile will
not allay dissatisfaction; they do not win
elections. The Democratic chieftains
Will find it necessary to inform them
selves as to what the people are thlr k
ing about, and what their thoughts are.
They cannot afford to make any mis-
takes about that.
New York Sun: Elihu Roots speech to
the Republican State convention was a
terrific arraignment of the Administra-
ton of Woodrow Wilson, and in most
particulars, in our opinion, it was a just
arrangement. With precision and dig
nity of phrase matchless in contemporary
American oratory, and with that sure
ness of perception of essentials which
only great natural gifts of mind and
wide experience of affairs can impart,
the man whom Theodore Roosevelt once
described as the ablest statesman of the
present generation in this or any other
country marshalled the facts of perform
ance and non performance on which the
people are to pass judgment in Novem-
Der. The indictment, we say, is terri
BILE in its general verbal restraint and
compelling power of specification; and
put as nearly as it is possible for human
prescience to forecast the verdict of his
tory concerning President Wilson's
character, deeds. words and failures,
that, we believe, Elihu Root did last
night in Carnegie Hall.
To summarize or paraphrase here this
mastery address would indeed be super
fluous. Every word of it will be read as
eagerly by Republicans waiting for the
keynote of attack as by Democrats
searching for flaws on which to build de-
fence. It is all there: the self-compla-
cent destruction of business by utilities
of theory; the shameful chapter of in
reference in Mexico for the one pur-
pose of overthrowing Huerta; "the
death and outrage, the suffering and
ruin of our own brethren, the hatred and
contempt for our country and the dis
honor of our name in that land," for
which, in Mr.. Roots scathing words,
"the Administration at Washington
shares responsibility with the inhuman
brutes with whom it made common
cause" the policy toward Europe since
July, 1914, of extreme and belligerent ex
preston, unsupported by resolution; the
e A.