OCR Text |
Show POT AND KETTLE. In his preliminary pronunciamento, Theodore Roosevelt is both felicitous and unfortunate. All his criticisms of tho Democratic administration have the ring of truth and tho sprightliuess of Kooseveltian phraseology. 1 It is true' there is a wide apprehension apprehen-sion among the people; that the pinch of poverty is felt in many households: house-holds: that the cost of living has not been reduced: that not the slightest progress has been made in solviug the trust question; that it has been shown that the reduction of the tariff in no shape or way helps toward this solution; solu-tion; that economic conditions are such that business is in jeopardy and that the small business man. the farmer ami the industrial wage worker are all suffering suf-fering because of these conditions. The ituhappy condition of business which Roosevelt describes is due to the fact that the business men of the coun-trv coun-trv fear a blundering Democratic administration. ad-ministration. They fear it almost as much as thev feared a strenuous administration admin-istration which produced a national panic bv its assaults upon industry. Who is Theodore Roosevelt that he sb"u!d criti'-ise Htiv administration because be-cause of hard times? Has he so soon forgotten his own panic cf lfi''7? Roosevelt has always cultivated a peer political memory. He has remem-ered remem-ered onlv those things to his own benefit bene-fit and has stud'ously forgotten all his public acts which can be used acainst ' him. Wrapped in a mantle of egotism as thick as the hide of a rhinoceros rhi-noceros he laughs at the barbed shafts j of criticism and trusts to the devotion of his followers. After pointing out the manv ills which have resulted from Democratic administration he dr;-:ws the con. 'Insion that was expected of bim. Had the American people but a-'cepted him and his progressive pla'form. which includes in-cludes all the isms and reforms that the Democratic, party failed to appropriate, appro-priate, the counfrv would be enjoyini: a prosperity which all couM shcre. Nothing is so case in the woi-ld as to 1 J 1 1 nili'Ct b-''' e bet;. The i ' n 11 n t howe-.er, is able to u.-e a lutie lnjic itn-i to f'i'-M irs opiuiotis nut oil what niibt ha", e t -i-n. put nn what has been. When Mr. Kmh-.h .-I: -ens resident we iii'd a .i-a: t .-c.i.? i unie. Voder the Ueeioi-ra'i'i a i 'u : ni -1 rat i'5 we are experiencing ex-periencing mis a depresi'1!). A s j ioug as Ron-cwdt adhered to the pol-b'ies pol-b'ies of I're. ident Vi Kirfley the cruin-try cruin-try enjoyed the prosperity that had continued t hrii.i,yh'.i't tlie .McK'nloy ad-riiiui-tratiiin. As sen as he begun his ii-saults upon busine-. a .;ii.ir v.n s pre-ripitatcd. pre-ripitatcd. I'rn.-perkv was restored under un-der President Taft and the hard tunes bean again as snou as Wil-ou was elected. elect-ed. Perhaps Mr. ilson cannot be blamed for the herd limes which ciunmeuced at the close of Mr. Taf t 's admiui.-tra-tion, hut Republicans are of the opinion, opin-ion, and the evidence J us t i Pi . s them in the opinion, that the depression began because the business men of the country coun-try could not .summon any coiilideuce in the approaching Democratic rule. Nothing the Democratic administration has done to date has changed this opinion. As Mr. Roosevelt points out the revolutionizing revo-lutionizing of the tariff has not solved the trust question. The Democratic administration has turned "Big Business" Busi-ness" into small business without eliminating those evils which are supposed sup-posed to go with monopoly and restraint re-straint of, trade, and yet for years the Democrats contended, with the ardor of fanaticism, that the chief protection of the trusts was the tariff and that as soon as the tariff was radically revised re-vised downward the trust question w-ould largely solve itself. Manifestly Manifest-ly the reduction of the tariff to the Democratic standard has pu-oduced nothing but disaster. It has not helped the big business man nor the little business man. Its evil effects are felt in all ranks of society. In view of these facts the political trend in this country should be back to the sanity of republicanism, and there are many evidences, such as the registration in Pennsylvania and Oregon, Ore-gon, as well as the voting in New England, Eng-land, that the people long for a restoration restora-tion of the good old days of prosperity which they enjoyed under successive Republican administrations. |