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Show ROOSEVELT'S DRIVE. That a movement exists to place Roosevelt at the head of war, activities iu Washington cannot be doubtod when we begin to collect the facta. As soon aa Senator Chamberlain introduced intro-duced his bill for a munitions board a very necessary board, perhaps the friends of Roosevelt began to suggest ' liira for head of the board. The editor of Leslie's Weekly quickly penned a word in the colonel's behalf and got : : it into last week's issue. I Some there be who complain that the , j services of our big men are not being j utilized by President Wilson in the war I work. There may be justice iu the com-j com-j plaint, but we must keep some salient facts in mind. Wherever Roosevelt goes, he is a trouble-maker. Named j head of the munitions board or of the ! super-cabinet, he would become perniciously per-niciously active in antagonizing the president and in aggrandizing himself. If it were proposed that former President Taft should head a munitions board, few would be heard to object. ; Mr. Taft is au able administrator who ouco was secretary of war and who would be no novice iu war work. But if a munitions board is created it probably prob-ably would be much better that some other man should bo selected as its chairma.it and Mr. Taft be named secretary sec-retary of war. The president's opponents in the senate sen-ate seem desirous of increasing the senate's sen-ate's power over the administration of war affairs. Evidently there are senators sen-ators who feel that the American "house of lords" has been thrown too much into the background, and in order to get it into the "front lines" they j aro so presumptuous as to think that they cam take away some of the war powers conferred upon the president by the constitution. The war cabinet, as pianued by Chamberlain and perhaps by Colonel Rooseveltclearly would infringe in-fringe upon the president's constitutional constitu-tional prerogatives. We are not questioning the ability of Colonel Roosevelt. If he could submerge sub-merge his personal prejudices and his j superheated political animosities, he i probably would make a good executive j in some kind of war work, but no one I who has watched his career would trust him to take a commanding position without trying to displace the president, presi-dent, who is now the commander-in-chief of the army and navy. Such a situation would quickly become intolerable intol-erable to the American people.' If the services of Mr. Roosevelt are essentia to the winning of the war, be should be kept as far from Washington as possible. He should be put to building build-ing ships he was once assistant -secretary of the navy or he should be given some other executive position that would afford him no opportunity to stir up his witch's cauldron of political hatreds. Colonel Roosevelt, we are inclined to believe, is taking advantage of the inevitable in-evitable bitterness against the president presi-dent aroused among the big interests by radical war measures. The colonel's political weather-vane has informed hint that he can strengthen himself with the interests by becoming a rival of the president. In other times such maneuvering would be deemed mere political po-litical strategy, but in a war crisis it is something immeasurably worse. Today To-day Mr. Wilson is not simply the president; presi-dent; he is the commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and anyone who pits himself against the president cannot can-not justify himself solely on political grounds. He must be absolutely sincere sin-cere in his criticisms and iu his actions. ac-tions. His opposition must be the unimpeachable un-impeachable opposition of a leader who really believes that the war is being be-ing mismanaged and whose only purpose pur-pose is to put the war machine into perfect operation. We have no faith that Mr. Roosevelt's opposition is of that character. On the contrary, his actions however carefully camouflaged appear to us to have their origin in a desire for revenge. Such desire should find expression at this time rather against the country's foes than against the commander-in-chief of our army and navy. |