The courier-index., 1918-12-06
AN OPEN LETTER TO
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The following open letter to the greatest pest in the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. appeared in the New York World, October IT.
 Dear Sir: In the face of this mornings message from the Presi- dent to Germany, l feel impelled to write this public letter to you. If withhold my name from publication it is only because a long friendship with members of your family makes me loath to wound them by a per sonal note and because l am con vinced that l speak for a very large and unanimous constituency. The admiration for you which 1, along with hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans, have felt in the past has been gradually undermined by your failure tc he loyal to anyone but your self.
 Both presidents who have follow ed you in the occupation of the most onerous and responsible position in the world today have suffered rom your attacks, both insidious and open the one an old frien1 .nu political comrade. the other a political oppon- ent charged with task beyond the power of any human being to per form to the satisfaction of a crltlcal and necessarily uniformed country, has never received from you even a suspension of comment, generous thought or a helpful word. l nave read your public utterances faithful ly and I cannot recall one occasion on which the winning of the war has been put before politics, or any eVl' dence of loyal support of your cou.i- try in it's travail has bene shown, or has called forth that eloquence and force of speech which you have not hesitated to employ to attack, to weaken, to try to destroy.
 The poison you distill is often demonstrated. Based upon your IT, responsible fulminations mistaken opinions are formed, doubts are ere ated faith shaken, In the household of your friends and family, who looK unon you as an oracle in much the same attitude of mind which insplr- es the entourage of the kaiser, Ialr estimates of the accomplishments oi the administration is impossible to attain. Incorporate language, the results of conclusions drawn from ln- sufficient data and transformation IS all one ever gets. They reflect you and YOU. apparently, are not capable of a just judgment. Your vision IS clouded by partisan prejudice and ig' noble jealousy that the great war " drawing to a close successfully TOT our army without and even Tn spite of your efforts You are reported 'h the public press as having said Tn d late speech at Oyster Bay that the presidents diplomacy was worse than secret diplomacy. it was almost treacherous diplomacy All who read those words must have burned with rage and shame. Your sons have gone to the war. They went like countless other brave young men. You gave" them only Tn a sense that you were proud and glao to have them go Theirs was the gift. not yours. How many other narents do you think have done the same and said nothing?
 Rut it is impossible for you to say nothing about anything In this last fact lies perhaps the one thin, which renders you harmless and powerless excepting to exasperation. We have been so long and so per sistently innoculated by small doses of your vernon. some times fevered and distressed by it, that when we are exposed now to the disease or Rooseveltism we do not take Il. we remain uninfected and healthy. Only we do protest that such utterances as the one have cited are preiudic- ed. ignorant, unpatriotic and disloval. and we ask that for your own sake, and to preserve the remnant Of re spect which as a farmer president we should like to retain you desist from such offenses.
 am, sir. yours with