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Show The Man On Horseback IT seems to be a charitable conclusion to ascribe the course of Theodore Roosevelt, during tho past three months, to an unbalanced mind. If his acts mean anything it is that he proposes to be elected President two years hence on the wreck of the two old parties, elected on an anti-corporation anti-corporation cry in the states where so many millions mil-lions of men depend upon corporations for their daily bread; and in other states where he hopes his cowboy magnetism will carry voteis off their feet. He has already hinted at appraising and condemning con-demning the railroads, which would mean, that they thereafter would be run like the postoffice department, through Government employees, which would practically place the executive In command of the army, and navy and the trans portation of the country upon which the life of the great cities depends from day to day. What, with that prospect before them will Ihe capital class do in the near future? Will it not be natural for them to call in wnat t they can as rapidly as they can? If they do, what then will be the business state ' of the country within six months. 1 When he was arraigned before the Saratoga convention on Tuesday, in an absolutely truthful address, the mob hissed the speaker down. ? What can be hoped for when people cease to reflect, and become a howling mob? We doubt whether, were the regular Democrats Demo-crats and Republicans of New York state to com- bine in November, they could defeat the Roose- I velt candidate. Fortunately the Presidential election is yet two years off, and men will have time to gathen i their wits together by that time.. There was a time when we believed that Col- onel Roosevelt was an honest and patriotic man. E We began to doubt when he was proved an un- grateful liar, especially in the Tillman-Chandler I incident. j We believe him now to be the most dangerous J man that has ever been in public life in the United States, unldss it shall become evident to all in the near future that his vanity, egotism and ambl- 5 tions have overthrown a naturally erratic mind. ijj We believe that this was all planned before he left on his African hunting trip; that the ! knowledge of it was what prompted the insolence of Pinchot, which made it necessary to dismiss him from office. We believe he was behind the insurgent movement; that had it not been the tariff there would have been some other cry m- J vented. When, in the early days of the Republic, i a crisis was pending, Daniel Webster said: "On the great questions which occupy us, we all look f for some decisive movement of public opinion. 1 As I wish that movement to be free, intelligent and unbiased, the true manifestation of the public pub-lic will, I desire to prepare the country for another an-other appeal, which I perceive is about to be made to popular prejudice, another attempt-to obscure all distinct views of the public good, to i overwhelm all patriotism and all enlightened self- J interest, by loud cries against false danger and I by exciting the passions of one class against an- I other." B Do not those words apply as well now as they 'J did four-score years ago? Further on in the same j speech h" "aid that he would not "believe the I people o ie United States capable of being effec- n tually deluded, cajoled and driven about in herds r by such abominable frauds as this. L "If they shall sink to that point; if they so I! far cease to bo men, thinking men, Intelligent n men, as to yield to such pretences and such j clamor, they will be slaves already; slaves to their tl own passions, slaves to the fraud and knavery of I pretended friends; they will deserve to be blotted out of all the records of freedom; they ought not to dishonor the cause of self-government, by attempting at-tempting any longer to exercise it; they ought to keep their unworthy hands entirely off from the j cause of republican liberty, if they are capable of being the victims of artifices so shallow, of tricks I so stale, so threadbare, so often practiced, so I much worn out on serfs and slaves." R |