, 1922-03-10
wHAr RoosEvELr THOUGHT AND SAID.

Since our Democratic friends insist upon dragging
the Ford-Newbeuy skeleton from the Michigan attic
and the southern b~rgadiers who have profted by dis
franchssement OF legal colored voters insist upon pa
riding the said skeleton up and down the aisles OF the
American Legislative halls and dragging it through the
columns Of their party newspapers, it is well to turn
70 what the greatest American citizen of his time had
10 say to Commander Newberry at the time the whole
matter was news and before Henry Ford and his paid
agents so confused the case in the public mind.
Here is what Theodore Roosevelt thought and said
TO Mr.. Newberry in October, 1918:
81 congratulate you on your nomination, but far
more do 1 congratulate Michigan and all our people.
It was my good fortune to have you serve under me
as secretary of the navy, and / can testify personally
to your efficiency and your disinterested and single
minded zeal for the public service. To a very peculiar
degree you have stood for that kind of government
which puts the interest of the people as a whole first
and foremost, and treats all other considerations as
negligible when the public veal is involved. The rec
ord made by you and your two sons in this war is
typical of your whole attitude as a public servant.
Both your boys at once entered the navy, and are now
on the high seas. You sought employment abroad;
when that was refused you, You accepted any position
that was offered in which you could render public
service.
'The nomination of Mr.. Ford makes the issue
sharp and clean Il Is not primarily an issue between
the Republican party and the Democratic party, for
Mr.. Ford does not seem to have any firm political con-
victions, and was content to take the nomination on
any ticket without regard to what the general prin-
ciples of the men supporting that ticket were; and
his memory about past politics is so hazy that although
he has mentioned a Republican candidate for presi-
dent for whom he thinks he once voted, it does not ap-
pear that this is possible, unless he is in error as to
his own age.
'The issue is infinitely more important than any
merely political issue. It is the issue of straight
Aincrcanism, of straight patriotism, and of prepared
ness for the tasks of peace and war, as against a par
sicularly foolish and obnoxious type of pacifsm
preached in war. This is the first time in the history
of our country in which a candidate for high Office
has been nominated who has spent enormous sums of
money in demoralizing the people Of the United States
on a matter of vital interest to their honor and well
fare. The expenditures on behalf of pacihsm by Mr..
Ford in connection with the peace ship, and in connec-
ton with his great advertising campaign in favor of
the McLemore resolution and of the pacifst and pro-
German attitude against our participation in the war,
was as thoroughly demoralizing to the conscience of
the American people as anything that has ever taken
place. The failure of Mr.. Ford's son TO go into the
army at this time, and the approval by the father of
the sons refusal, represent exactly what might be ex-
pected from the moral disintegration inevitably pro-
duced by such pacifst propaganda. Your two sons
have eagerly gone to the front They stand ready to
pay with their lives for the honor and the interest of
the American people, and while they thus serve Amer
lca with fine indifference to all personal cost, the SON
OF wealthy MIR. Ford sits at home in ignoble safety.
and his father defends and advises such conduct.
Michigan is facing the test, clear-cut and without
shadow Of a chance for misunderstanding, between pa
trlotism and Americanism on one side, and on the
other pacifism and that foolish sham cosmopoIitapism
which thinks it clever to deride the American flag and
to proclaim that it would as soon be a Hindu or Chi
raman as an American. II there should be Mt anv
time IN the future a Hindu senate, and it shouId
choose, in a spirit Of cosnopolitanism to admit out
siders, there is no reason why Mr.. Ford should not
aspire to membership therein, but he would be SIGNAL.
ly out of place in the American senate so long as aha,
body is dominated by men who zealously believe in
the American ideal and faithfully endeayor to serve
the American people"