Show feodol t f i ve 1 M mendacious wIda cious journalism jo U I 1 reprinted from an article by theodore roosevelt in the outlook by special with the outlook of which theodore roosevelt it I 1 Is contributing editor altor copyright 1910 by the 0 outlook u alook company all rich t a reserved I 1 in 1 0 the new york evening post of oc fri friday day august 25 there appeared in an editorial article the following statements 1 I will make the corporations come to time shouted roosevelt to the mob but did he not really mean that he be would make them come down with the cash to elect him as aa he did before for a man with mr roose belts proved record it la Is simply disgusting alg humbug for him to rant about the corporations upon whose treasur ers era he be fawned when he be was president and wanted their money tor for his campaign does he think that nobody has a memory which goes back to the life insurance investigations and that everybody has forgotten the taken from widows ani and orphans and added to theodore Roosevel ts political corruption fund did he not take a big check from the beef trust and glad to get it and now he Is going to make the corporations come to time one can have respect tor for a sincere radical for an honest fa fanatic natle for an agitator or leveler who believes bel levea that ho he la Is doing gods gode will but it la Is hard to be patient with a man who talks big but acts mean whose eye Is 13 always to the main chance politically and who lots no friendship no dpn no principle no moral scruple stand for a moment between himself and the goal upon which he has set hla his overmastering ambition this champion of purity this for political virtue Is the man who was for years when in political life hand in glove with the worst political of his day who goaded to platt who praised quay who paid court to hanna under him as president aldrich rose to the height of his power always on good terms with roosevelt it was roosevelt who tn in 1906 wrote an open letter urging the election reelection re of speaker cannon against whom mutterings rings had then begun to rise it was roosevelt who asked har raman to como come to the white house alouse secretly who took his money to buy vot votes da in new york and who after wards wrote to my dear sherman yes the same sherman reviling tho the capitalist to whom ho he had previously written saying you and I 1 are practical men the evening post Is not in itself sufficiently important to warrant an answer but as representing a class with whose hostility it is necessary to reckon in any genuine movement for decent government it Is worth while to speak of it thero there are plenty of wealthy people in this country and ol of intellectual hangers on of wealthy people who are delighted to engage in any movement for reform which does not touch the wickedness of ce certain great corporations and of certain men of great wealth people of this class will bo be in favor of any aesthetic movement they will favor any movement against the small grafting politician against the grafting labor leader or any man of that stamp but they cannot be trusted the minute that the reform assumes sufficient clent dimensions to jeopardize so much of the established order of things as gives an unfair and I 1 improper in proper advantage to the great cor and to those directly and indirectly responsive to its wishes and dependent upon it the evening post and papers of the same kind and the people whose views they represent would favor attacking a gang of small bosses who wish to control the republican party but they would as the evening post has haa shown far rather seo see these small bosses win than see a movement triumph which alms not merely at the overthrow of the small pol political lUcal boss but at depriving the corporation of its improper influence over politics depriving the man of wealth of any advantage beyond that which belongs to him as a simple american citizen they would be against corporations only after such corporations had bad been caught in the crudest kind of criminality I 1 have never for ono one moment counted upon the support of the evening post or of those whom it represents in the effort for cleanliness and decency within the republican party because the evening post would support such buch a movement ony only on condition that it wis not part of a larger move ment for the betterment of social conditions dit ions but this Is not all in the struggle for honest politics there la Is no more a place for a liar than there Is for the thief and in a movement designed to put an end to the dominion of the thief but little good can be derived from the assistance of the liar of course objection will be made to my use of this language my answer Is that I 1 am using it merely cally and descriptively and because no other terms express the facts with the necessary precision in the ar la which the evening post comes to the defense of those in present control of the republican party in new york state whom it has baa affected to oppose in the past the evening post through whatever editor personally wrote the article practised practiced every known form of mendacity probably the evening post regards the decalogue as outworn but it if it will turn to it 11 and read the eighth and ninth commandments it will see that bearing false witness Is condemned as strongly as theft itself to take but one instance out of the many in this article the evening post says it was roosevelt who asked harriman Harrl man to como come to the white house secretly who took his money to buy votes in new york and who afterwards wrote to my dear sherman yes the same sherman reviling the capitalist to whom he ha had bad previously written saying you and I 1 are practical men not only Is every important statement in this sentence false but the writer who wrote it knew it was false As far as I 1 was concerned every man visited the white house openly and mr harriman Harrim nn among the others I 1 took no money from mr harraman Harrl man secretly or openly to buy votes or for any other purpose whoever wrote tho the article in the evening post in question knew that this was the foulest and basest lie ile when he be wrote the sentence for he quotes the same letter in which I 1 had written to 0 o mr harriman as follows what I 1 have to say to you can be said to you as well after election as before but I 1 would like to see you some time before I 1 write my message I 1 am quoting without the letter before me but the quotation to Is substantially if IE not verbally accurate that statement in this letter to harraman Harrl man Is of course on its face absolutely incompatible with any thought that I 1 was asking him for campaign funds for it is of course out of the question that I 1 could tell him equally well what I 1 had to say after election it it referred in any possible way to getting money before election this Is so clear that any pretense of misunderstanding la Is proof positive of the basest dishonesty in whoever wrote the article in question As a matter of fact when mr harrl man called it was to complain that the national committee would not turn over for the use of tho the state campaign in which he be was interested funds to run that campaign and to ask me to tell cortelyou to give him aid tor for the state campaign mr cortelyou la Is familiar with the facts in other words the statement of 0 the evening post Is not only ohly false and mall mali clous cious Is not only in direct cont contradiction of the facts but Is such that it could only have been made by a man who knowing the facts deliberately intended to pervert them such an net act stands on a level of infamy with the worst act ever performed by a corrupt member of the legislature or or city official and stamps the writer with the same moral brand that stamps the bribe taker I 1 have seen only a telegraphic abstract of the article apparently containing quotations from it practically every statement made in these quotations Is a falsehood to but one more shall I 1 allude the article speaks of my having attacked corporations and referring directly to my ohio speeches of my having sought to inflame the mob and make mischief in those speeches tho the prime stand I 1 took was against mob violence as shown by the labor people who are engaged in controversy with a corporation my statement was in effect that the first duty of the state and the first duty of the officials was to put down disorder and to put down mob vl violence olence and that after such action had been taken then it was tho the duty of officials to investigate the corporation po ration and it if it had done wrong to make it pay the penalty of its wrongs and to provide against the wrongdoing in the future it la is but another instance of the peculiar baseness the peculiar moral obliquity of the evening post poat that it should pervert the truth in so BO shameless a fashion THEODORE ROOSEVELT cheyenne Che yenn wyo august 27 mo 1910 |