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Show Mendacious Journalism Reprinted from an article hy Theodore Roosevelt In The Outlook hr special arrangement with The Outlook, of which Theodora Roosevelt la Contributing Editor. Copyright. 1910. by The Outlook Company. All Rights Reserved. In the New York Evening Post of Friday, August 26, there appeared in in editorial article the following state-Bents: state-Bents: " 1 will make the corporations come o time,' shouted Roosevelt to the mob. But did he not really mean that he would make them come down pith the cash to elect him, as he did before? For a man with Mr. Roose-relt's Roose-relt's proved record it is simply disgusting dis-gusting humbug for him to rant about 'ie corporations upon vhose treasur-ira treasur-ira he fawned when he was president and wanted their money for his campaign. cam-paign. Does he think that nobody has I memory which goes hack to the life Insurance investigations, and that everybody has forgotten the $50,000 taken from widows and orphans and added to Theodore Roosevelt'B political polit-ical corruption fund? Did he not take t big check from the Beef trust, and Jlad to get it? And now he is going to make the corporations come to time! One can have respect for a sln-oere sln-oere radical, for an honest fanatic, for in agitator or leveler who believes 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 ilways to the main chance 'politically, ind who lets no friendship, no generosity, gen-erosity, no principle, no moral scruple Itand 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 -i was for years, when In political life, hand in glove with the worst political :ormptionists of his day; who toadcd to Piatt, who praised Quay, who paid xiurt to Hanna; under him as presl-flent presl-flent 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 Har-rlman Har-rlman to come to the White House secretly, who took his money to buy votes 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 Bmall grafting politician, against the grafting labor leader, or any man of that stamp; but they can not he 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 Improper advantage to the great corporation, cor-poration, and to those directly and indirectly in-directly responsive to its wishes and dependent upon It. The Evening Post md 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 Re-publican party; but they would, as the Eyening Post has shown, far rather Bee these small bosses win than see a movement triumph which alms not merely at the overthrow of the small political 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 igainst 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 uch a movement only on condition that it was not part of a larger move- mem 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 no other terms express the facts with the necessary precision. Probably the Evening Poet 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 Harrlman 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. Harrlman among the others. I took no money from Mr. Harrlman 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 let ter In which I had written to Mr. Harrlman Har-rlman 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 I 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 Harrlman is of course on 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 I could tell him equally well what I bad' 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 bf the basest dishonesty In whoever wrote the article In question. As a matter of fact, when Mr. Harrlman Harrl-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 mall-clous, mall-clous, is not only in djrect 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. I have seen only a telegraphic abstract ab-stract of the article, apparently containing con-taining quotations from it. Practically Practical-ly every statement made m these quotations is a falsehood. To but one more shall I 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 the prime stand I 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 violence, and that after such action had been taken, then it was the duty of officials to investigate the corporation, cor-poration, and If It had done wrong to make It pay the penalty of Its wrongs and to provide agalnBt the wrongdoing wrongdo-ing in the future. It 1b but another Instance of the peculiar baseness, the peculiar moral obliquity, of the Evening Eve-ning Post that it should pervert the truth In so shameless a fashion. THEODORE R008EVELT. Chayenne. Wyo, Aug-uaf 27, 1910. |
