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The Commoner.
.VOLUME 10, NUMBBE 38
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MANY PROGRESSIVE republicans wore dis
appointed becauso Mr. Roosovolt did not
"say a good word for LaFollette prior to prihiary
oloctlon day. Tho Minneapolis Journal prints
this editorial: "Arriving in Milwaukee on tho
day following Senator LaFollotto's victory at
stho polls, Colonel Roosovolt was bound to say
fiomothing about it. What ho said can not bo
'construed as an enthusiastic indorsement of
Senator LaFollotto. It amounted merely to this,
that it would bo a1 shameful thing not to ratify
'the choice of tho people. But, as Colonel Roose
velt when president said tho samo thing about
.the election of Senator Chamborlaln in Oregon,
'this indorsement can bo construed no further
than was tho Oregon indorsement. In each case
Colonol Roosovolt stood for tho right of the
people to mako their own selections and the
duty of tho legislature to ratify tho samo. "Why
Colonol Roosovolt did not go further and say
something in praise of Senator LaFollette is
his own secret. But it is no secret that the
ultra-progressives expected it and are disappoint-
ed that it did not come. Colonel Roosevelt has
indorsed warmly suclufionators as Dolliver and
Bristow, who work hand in hand with LaFol-
letto, but ho has not warmed up to LaFollette
, himself."
MRS. BELLAMY , STORER is taking a hand
against Mr. Roosevelt. The Springfield
(Mass.) Republican prints a letter from Mrs.
Storer written in Franco, Septembor 6, review
ing tho controversy between tho Storers and Mr.
Roosovolt concerning tho former president's al
leged authorization of tho former ambassador to
Austria-Hungary to visit Pope Pius X. aiid ask
him as a personal favor to tho president of tho
United States to mako Archbishop Ireland of St.
'Paul a cardinal. Letters written by tho arch
bishop in 1003 and 1904; hitherto unpublished,
aro quoted by Mrs. Storer to show that at re
peated intervals in tho fight between tho arch
bishop and the president, Mr. Roosevelt ac
knowledged that ho had commissioned Mr.
.Storer to act as his personal envoy at the Vatican
in behalf of the archbishop. Mr. Roosevelt has
hitherto publicly denied that Mr. Storer was ever
Authorized to represent him in this manner, and
the Ireland letters now published by Mrs. Storer
ihavo tho effect of making much sharper the
issue of veracity between the Storers and the
ex-president. Mrs. Storer's letter to the Repub
lican also seeks to prove, on the testimony of
Archbishop Ireland, that President Roosevelt
promised to make Mr. Storer United States am
bassador either at Paris or London and there is
included still another letter, allegod to have
been Written by Mr. Roosevelt to Mr. Storer, just
after the presidential election of 1896, in which
Mr. Roosevelt asked Mr. Storer to see President
elect McKinley and urge him to appoint Mr.
Roosevelt assistant secretary of tho navy. This
last letter seeks to refute a recent assertion that
Mr. Roosevelt never sought a public office except
when he sought a presidential nomination in
1904.
cally for tho election by direct vote of the people
of all federal judges fr specified terms. Tho
strength of Roosovelt lies in the belief on tho
part of a majority of the people that he repre
sents and embodies opposition to special privi
lege, which has seized control of every branch
of the federal government, including its judicial
branch, That the popular estimate of Roose
velt's sincerity is a mistaken estimate the writer,
in common with the World, is firmly convinced.
But the fact remains that his popularity is bot
tomed on a' popular belief that he is a champion
of tho rights of man as opposed to the greed of
vested wrong. No utterance he has made on
his western trip is more popular in the region
where he made it than his outspoken criticism
of tho hair-splitting, wire-drawn reasoning pro
cesses of the supreme court of the United States.
What atmosphere of holiness surrounds a group
of judges to render them immune from making
tho same mistakes or yielding to the same im
proper influences as other men? Why are they
not subject to the same temptations and as likely
to commit the same errors as other men? Are
they not, in common with the policeman on his
beat, mere public servants, liable to the same
free criticism as the policeman for any departure
from tho strict line of duty? Is not 'bench
worship' out of place in a republic?"
THE SAN FRANCISCO Star says: "Several
months ago Mr. Bryan offered the sugges
tion that if the government is to hire ship
owners to sail ships so that it may have? ships
to use in event of war, it might find it more
profitable to build and operate the ships itself.
Tho idea is not now. Wo have used it as an
argument against ship subsidy. The idea of
the government using its transports and colliers
in time of peace to carry merchandise is not
wholly without merit, says the Milwauke Jour
nal. It might not be a bad idea if the entire
navy could b.e put to some useful service and
carry the flag and exports of coal oil and other
commodities to remote places. When Mr. Bryan
made the suggestion, of course, it became 'so
cialistic' and extremely visionary. It was ab
surd that he should pretend to be a Jeffersonian
democrat and hold to such undemocratic ideas.
How little those who extol Jefferson most know
of what he really said and urged and advocated
in his long and active life! The idea, it happens,
was original with Jefferson and is something
over a century old. In a letter to Richard Henry
Lee on the building of an American navy Jef
ferson wrote: 'I would be happy to hear con
gress thought of establishing packets of their
own between New York and Havre. Could
not the surplus of the postoffice revenue be ap
plied to this?' So we see that Jefferson enter
tained the socialistic idea that the government
should own and oper.ate merchant ships which
belong to tho navy. Jefferson, of course, was
not a practical man or there would . not have
beeff a surplus in the. postal revenues."
I
AN "IOWA DEMOCRAT" writes from Sioux
City to the New York World to remind that
newspaper that Thomas Jefferson, as well as
Theodore Roosevelt, had some distrust of courts.
This Iowa democrat says: e "Inasmuch as the
, World is a democratic newspaper, I suggest that
it read and digest Thomas Jefferson's opinions
concerning tho sanctity of courts and tho in
fallibility of judges before it ventures too far
.in condemnation of Colonel Roosevelt's 'assault'
upon our august supremo tribunal. What
Roosevelt said is mild and gentle compared with
tho openly expressed abhorrence with which tho
patron saint of the democratic party viewed our
whole federal judicial system. Condemnation
of Colonel Roosevelt's remarks concerning the
supremo court has been confined almost exclu
sively to journals published east of the Alleghany
'mountains. Western newspapers know that
Roosevelt echoed western feeling. Tho real
sentiment of tho ordinary voter of tho middle
west, which now holds tho balance of power in
presidential and congressional elections, was
voiced in tho platform recently adopted by the
republicans of Kansas, which declared specifi-
THE SITUATION looks blue for the republi
can party. The Kansas City Star, a repub
lican newspaper, says: "Representative Mur
dock's prediction that the next congress will be
progressive is borno out by the political events
of tho summer. It may even be democratic, if
the revolt proves as far reaching as the out
come in Maine indicates. In the house the re
publicans started with a majority of forty-seyen.
With a loss of two votes in the Cape Cod dis
trict in Massachusetts and the Rochester district
in New York this was reduced to a majority of
forty-three. The loss of two more in Maine
reduces it now to thirty-nine. But with the
further losses in the general elections that are
thus foreshadowed including five seats in Mis
souri there is hardly a republican leader who
fails to admit privately that the house is 'gone
Of the thirty retiring senators, nine are removed
from the possibility of Succeeding themselves.
These are Aldrich, Burrows Flint, Hale, Piles
and Warner, regular republicans; and Daniel,
Money and Taliaferro, democrats. Burrows
probably will be succeeded by Townsend, pro
gressive; Warner by a democrat; Flint and
Piles by either progressives or democrats, and
Hale presumably by a democrat. Aldrich's suc-
cessor presumably will be a regular. A demo
crat, temporarily appointed from North Dakota,
is likely to be succeeded by A. J. Grtfnna, pro
gressive republican. It is believed that nine
of the thirty members who ask for re-election
aro leading forlorn hopes. These are Beveridge
of Indiana1, progressive; Burkettof Nebraska,
near-progressive; Bulkeley of Connecticut, Car
ter of Montana, Depew of New York, Dick of
Ohio, Kean of New Jersey, Nixon of Nevada,
and Scott of West Virginia, all regulars. In
the event of a landslide year, Clark of Wyom
ing, DuPont of Delaware and perhaps 'Suther
land of Utah might go. If Maine forecasts a
general landslide, there is a possible loss of six
teen republican votes in the senate and a gain
of one a net loss of fifteen. The republican
majority of twenty-six would then be trans
formed into a minority of four. A republican
loss even of six which is regarded as practi
cally inevitable would give the balance of
power to the progressive republicans. Evi
dently it is distinctly within the range of possi
bilities that President Taft may have to- work
with a democratic house and senate for the last
two years of his administration."
RUSHING TO the defense of the much abused
"preachers' sons," theDmaha (Neb.) Daily
News says: "Other men commit crimes and
there is no special reference made to their fath
ers' occupation, "but let a preacher's son make
a mistake, and the gossipers are set going at
once. 'What can you expect from a preacher's
son?' is so easily asked by those who seem to
expect preachers and their children to be im
maculate specimens of human beings. It must
not be forgotten that while your minister is
doing a thousand and one things for the spiritual
comfort of the members of his congregation on a
salary that most bricklayers would despise, his
children must necessarily be neglected to that
extent, and that they have each the same temp
tations to struggle against that your boy and
girl face The next time it occurs to you that
preachers' children 'are no better than they
should be,' read over this list of preachers' sons:
Oliver Wendell Holmes, author; Edward Everett
Hale, statesman and author; John Hancock, first
signer of the declaration of independence; Jona
than Edwards, theologian; Increase Mather,
former president of Harvard; Cotton Mather,
author and scholar; George Bancroft, states
man and historian; Louis Agassiz, naturalist;
Henry Clay, statesman and orator; Ralph Waldo
Emerson, essayist and poet; David Dudley Field,
jurist; Stephen J. Field, justice United States
supreme court; Cyrus W. Field, founder of the
Atlantic Cable company; John B. Gordon, soldier
and statesman; Henry Ward Beech er, preacher
and reformer; Samuel F. B. Morse, artist and
inventor; James Russell Lowoll, author and
diplomat; Francis Parkman? historian; Grover
Cleveland, twice president of the United States;
David J. Brewer, former justice of the United
States supreme court; Jonathan J. Dolliver,
senator; Henry James, novelist; Richard 'Wat
son Gilder, editor and poet; Lyman Abbott,
preacher and editor. There are others, too many
to enumerate, enough to prove that were all
men's sons up to the average made oy preachers'
sons there would be a much higher average."
REV CHARLES STELZLE, the "union labor
preacher," has prepared what he calls "an
every day creed." Here it is: "I believe in my
job. It may not be a1 very important job,' but
it is mine. Furthermore, it is God's job for
me. He has a purpose in my life with reference
to his plan for the world's progress. No other
fellow can take my place. It isn't a big place;
to be sure, but for years I have been molded in
a peculiar way to fill a peculiar niche in the
world's work. I could take no other man's
place. He has the same claim as, a- specialist
that I make for myself. In the end, the man
whose name was never heard beyond the house
in which he lived, or the shop in which he
worked, may have a larger place than the chap
whose name has been a household word in tw.o
continents. Yes, I b'elieve in my job. May I
be kept true to the task which lies before me
true to myself and to God who intrusted me
EE 'tJM
