The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-08-18
political oblivion.

detail. His ambition and his weak ness merely an incident in the evo- lution of things. The time is at hand when he will be as little inn portance in American history as Boulanger once expected to be the Napoleon of his day became in the history of France. The story of hu- man ambition and especially the story of political ambition is usually a recital of sordid failure near the closing of the story. Its closing chapters are not even interesting reading.
 But because Roosevelt's rise and his collapse have shown ;he measure of political things, it can obtain a passing importance and deserves a passing attention.
 Political happenings are mani festations of economic forces which give rise to those political activities, and it is with those economic forces that we must deal if we are to dis cover a key to any question that arises.
 Roosevelt came at a time when the struggle of the little business man against Big Business became desperate or little short of desper- ate. Little Business adopted a very noble and uplifting tone. It dealt at length in the details of the cor rupting methods which Big Business employs. It enlists the services of | so called muck rakers. It has in- yestigations, probes, inquiries. It | tabulated and piled up statistics. It l left it's mark in literature and it sloganned purity in politics ann hol- loaed for democracy.
 While thus active in one sphere, it was super-active in another. It made trust prosecutions a political asset of the government. It exalted the judges who were immune from trust influence and it damned those who were not. It tore the country with an agitation against consolida- tions which drove the little fellow to the wall, and it clamored for the glorious days when the little fellow was the life of trade with his tin horn competition.
 Upon this wave of idealism, founded upon the much sterner re. ality of the struggle of Little Busi- ness for an existence, ambitions saw their opportunity. And that being so why should a conscience less, insincere but perfectly self con- fident ambition, the most dangerous of all, be denied? The breach was ready for the man and Roosevelt sprung over the head and shoulders of more earnest workers to raise the standard of Bull Moosedom. He trampled over sincere and earn est men like La Toilette. He shouldered aside men like Cummins and Borah, willing enough that they should be his aides providing he was their general.
 Sncerer men stood aghast at his change of front. They knew him to have been the friend of Platt, of Root, of Penrose. They knew that throughout his long term of office not once had he done any of the things that he now demanded should be done.
 But Roosevelt the ambitious and the self confident knew that his spectacular career from Tea Kettle Hill to the Panama Canal was such as would cover up any of the short comings Sincerity of Purpose might demand. And he judged rightly He was seized with exclamation and although the most recent recruit be- came the hero and leader at Arma- geddon.
 But what Roosevelt did not know was that he was boosted into office | by Little Business and since those days, Little Business has lost its fight These are days of re-construc- tion. The cry has gone up to let the Trusts alone. Humidity has silenced Little Business. And only Labor, discontented, witless of its power and slow to rise in it's might still sleeping giant, is left to oppose predatory wealth. The trust agita- tion has gone far enough. The cry Io4 ai,,lx n, rIllQO