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Show Mendacious Journalism Reprinted from an article hy Theodore Roosevelt In The Outlook, bv special arrangement with The Outlook, of which Theodore Roosevelt Is Contributing Editor. Copyright, 1910. by The Outlook Company. All RIslits Reserved. to the defense of those in present control con-trol of the Republican party in New York state, whom it has affected to oppose in the past, the Evening Post through whatever editor personally wrote the article, practised every known form of mendacity. Probably the Evening Post regards the decalogue as outworn; but if It will turn to it 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 to 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 had previously written, saying: say-ing: You and I 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 was concerned, every man visited the White House openly, and Mr. Harriman among the others. I took no money from Mr. Harriman secretly se-cretly or openly to buy votes or for any other purpose. Whoever wrote the article in the Evening Post In question knew that this was the foulest foul-est and basest lie when he wrote the sentence, for he quotes the same letter let-ter In which I had written to Mr. Harriman Har-riman as follows: 'What I have to say to you can be said to you as well after election as before, but I would like to see you some time before 1 write my message." I am quoting without the letter before me, but the quotation is substantially, if not "verbally, "ver-bally, accurate. That statement in this letter to Harriman is of course oh its face absolutely incompatible with any thought that I was asking him for campaign funds, for it is of course out of the question that! could tell him equally well what I had to say after election if it referred in any possible way to getting money before election. This is so clear that any pretense of misunderstanding is proof positive of the basest dishonesty in whoever wrote the article in question. As a matter of fact, when Mr. Harriman Harri-man called it was to complain that the national committee would not turn over for the use of the state campaign cam-paign in which he was interested funds to run that campaign, and to ask me to tell Cortelyou to give him aid for the state campaign. Mr. Cortelyou Cor-telyou is familiar with the facts.- In other' words, the statement of the Evening Eve-ning Post is not only false and malicious, mali-cious, is not only In direct contradiction contradic-tion 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 act stands on a level of Infamy with the worst act ever performed by a corrupt member of the legislature or city official, and stamps the writer with the same moral brand that stamps the bribe-taker. T have seen only a telegraphic abstract, ab-stract, of (he article, apparently containing con-taining quotations from it. Practically Practical-ly cverv statement made in these quotations is a falsehood. To but one more shall I allude. The article speaks of mv having attacked corporations, and, referring directly to my Ohio speeches, my having "sought to inflame the mob and make mischief." In thoee speeches the prime stand I took was against mob violence as fhown 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 violence, and that after such action had been takf c. then it was ihe duty of ofPcials to investigate the corporation, cor-poration, ar.d if it had done wrong to make it pay the penalty of its wrongs End to provide against the wrongdoing wrongdo-ing in the future. It is but another Instance of the peculiar baseness, the peculiar moral obliquity, of the Evening Eve-ning Post thnt it should pervert the truth in so shame'ess a fashion. j THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Cheyenne, YVyo.. Aupust 21. 1S10. j In the New York Evening Post of Friday, August 26, there appeared in an editorial article the following statements: state-ments: " T will make the corporations come to time,' shouted Roosevelt to the mob. But did he not really mean that he would make them come down with the cash to elect him, as he did before? For a man with Mr. Roosevelt's Roose-velt's proved record it is simply disgusting dis-gusting humbug for him to rant about the corporations upon whose treasurers treasur-ers he fawned when he was president and wanted their money for his campaign. cam-paign. Does he think that nobody has a memory which goes back to the life Insurance investigations, and that everybody has forgotten the $50,000 taken from widows and orphans and added to Theodore Roosevelt's political polit-ical 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 for a sincere sin-cere radical, for an honest fanatic, for an agitator or leveler who believea that he is doing God's will; but It is hard to be patient with a man who talks big but acts mean, whose eye is always to the main chance politically, and who lets no friendship, no generosity, gen-erosity, no principle, no moral scruple stand for a moment between himself and the goal upon which he has set his overmastering ambition. " 'This champion of purity, this roarer roar-er for political virtue, Is the man who was for years, when in political life, hand in glove with the worst political corruptionists of his day; who toaded to Piatt, who praised Quay, who paid court to Hanna; under him as president presi-dent Aldrich rose to the height of his power, always on good terms with Roosevelt; it was Roosevelt who, in 1906, wrote an open letter urging the re-election of Speaker Cannon, against whom mutterings had then begun to rise; it was Roosevelt who asked Harriman Har-riman to come to the White House secretly, who took his money to buy votts in New York, and who afterwards after-wards wrote to "My Dear Sherman" yes, the same Sherman reviling the capitalist to whom he had previously written saying: "You and I are practical prac-tical men.' " The Evening Post is not in itself sufficiently suf-ficiently important to warrant an answer, an-swer, but as representing a class with whose hostility it is necessary to reckon reck-on in any genuine movement for decent de-cent government, it Is worth while to speak of it. There are plenty of wealthy people in this country, and of Intellectual hangers-on of wealthy people, peo-ple, who are delighted to engage in any movement for reform which does not touch the wickedness of certain great corporations and of certain men of great wealth. People of this class Will be in favor of any aesthetic movement; move-ment; they will favor any movement against the small grafting politician, against the grafting labor leader, or any man of that stamn: but they cannot can-not be trusted the minute that the reform re-form assumes sufficient dimensions to jeopardize so much of the established order of things as gives an unfair and imprnner advantage to the great cor-povaMon. cor-povaMon. and to those direetlv and in-direet'v in-direet'v responsive to its wishes and dependent upon it. The Evening Post and papers of the same kind, and the peon'e whose views they represent, would favor attacking a gang of srall bosses who wish to control the Re-publicin Re-publicin party: but they wou'd, as the Evening Post has shown, far rather see these small bosses win thap see a moverrent triumph which aims not merely at the overthrow of the small political boss, hut at depriving the corporation of its Improper influence over polities, depriving the man of wealth of any advantage bevond that which belongs to him as a simple American citizen. They would be against corporations only after such corporations had been caught In the crudest kind of criminality. I have never for one moment counted count-ed upon the support of the Evening Post or of those whom It represents In the effort for cleanliness and decency de-cency within the Republican party, because be-cause the Evening Post would support such a movement only on condition that It w-s not part of a larger movement move-ment for the betterment of social conditions. con-ditions. But this Is not all. In the struggle for honest politics there is no more a place for a liar than there Is for the thief, and In a movement designed de-signed to put an end to the dominion of the thief but little good can be derived de-rived from the assistance of the liar. Of course objection will be made to my use of this language. My answer Is that I am using It merely scientifically scientifi-cally and descriptively, and because j no other terms express the facts with I the necessary precision. In the ar- . tlclo In which the Evening Post comes |