Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1903 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

Boats looHTilt History. Some very shrewd, if unscrupulous, newspaper work is being done by the press agents, who are booming President Roosevelt for the 1004 nomination. They are portraying him as a heavy-weight trust fighter, who is smashing the trusts right and left They tell the people that Wall street Is dead against Roosevelt and is hatching all kinds of schemes to prevent his renomination. They are even inventing Ingenious stories about the postoffice frauds, scandals and corruptions, which they hope will not only divert well-deserved blame for this state of affairs from the President, who has permitted it to go on for two years, but will make political capital out of it for him. They say some of the principal rascals of the many who were plundering the postofflce were conspiring to prevent the President’s renomination next year. In these simple and absurd ways they expect to beguile the voting population of this country and, according to their own assurances, they are succeeding. Thus the Philadelphia Ledger says: “Unless all signs of the times be unreliable no Democratic candidate for the Presidency can defeat Roosevelt, and similarly no Democrat can carry New York against him. The representatives of the trusts, of any arid all “vested Interests,” are financially powerful, and could swell to great proportions an anti-Roosevelt campaign fund, but in any contest fought out to a conclusion at the polls between them and "the plain people” of the country, they and their cam-, paign fund would cut but a sorry figure. The plain people have the votes, and they do not forget nor fail to appreciate that in fighting his winning fight against the trusts and “vested interests” President Roosevelt fought the plain people's battles, and they love him for doing it and for the enemies he made by doing it” If these statements be true it is certainly useless and foolish to hold political conventions or elections next year, and, as Mr. Roosevelt will be entitled to two full terms on his own account the country can take a political vacation until 1912. In fact, we might as well make up our minds to accept the rough-rider as the “man-on-horse-back,” who will become the dictator of the empire, which he was Instrumental in substituting for our late, Republic. But are the statements true? What “winning fight against the trusts” has the President made that have in any way benefitted the “plain people?”

The President’s reputation as a smasher of trusts rests largely upon two court decisions obtained last year. The beef trust was enjoined by the courts, and the Northern Securities Company, a railroad combination, was declared illegal In the United States Circuit Court. In neither case can any benefit to the “plain people” be detected, even by the aid of the most powerful microscope. Both of these trusts are continuing to fix prices and rates that the people must pay and It may be Bald, right here, that no decision under the Sherman law has in permanent benefit to the people. The net result has been that the trusts have changed their form but not their substance. No court decision has permanently lowered prices or rates or taken the hands of the trusts out of the pockets of the people. Nor Is it probable that court decisions will ever remedy the evils of trust while we have high tariffs and other ipecial privileges which give monopoly power and encourage combinations and trusts. We must somehow overcome these monopoly privileges before we can hope to get rid of the evils of trusts. But the President has set his face against any change in the trustfattening tariff. He even stopped off, on his recent stumping tour, to help strangle the poor little “lowa Idea,” which feebly declared that tariffs which shelter trusts should come off.

To be perfectly fair we should state both sides of the case—“ The President vs. the Trusts.” The President not only withdrew his endorsement of the somewhat drastic Ldttlefield anti-trust bill, last winter, and transferred his good-will to the amendment to the Department of Commerce bill, which promises nothing but uncertain publicity, but he endorsed and approved the Elkins bill, which abolished the criminal clause of the Interstate Commerce Act and leaves the great railroad trust conspirators subject only to small fines. With the penitentiary no longer staring these criminals In the face the railroads' will continue to fix rates and pay any occasional fines, as did the beef trust in Missouri, after which It proceeded to put up the price of meats. Nor Is it certain that no Democrat eaa carry New York against Roosevelt. The voters in New York know Mr. Roosevelt’s history. They have frequently been tricked by him. The independent voters there, including many Democrats, elected him to the legislature to fight the bosses and bos slsm. He began all right, but soon “found himself very lonely, politically,” u big friend Mr. Poultre Bigelow »„n. U 8) and deserted hiu reform frtsads and became a part and parcel of the Boee-Platt machine and an attendant at "Platt’s Sunday School.”

Many New York voters knew him as a member of the New York Free Trade Club and heard him make red hot speeches there, once declaring that he was ready to “die for free trade.” When Lodge and other great Republicans began to crawl over from freetrade to protection, Mr. Roosevelt decided to crawl, too. He resigned on August 20, 1885, saying: “I am a Republican first; a free trader afterwards."

Again New York voters saw Governor Roosevelt (who, by the way, was elected governor by only 17,786 plurality in 1898, although McKinley received a plurality of 268,409 in 1896, and of 143,606 in 1900), while,pretending to be for the Ford franchise bill, which was very popular in the State, call a special session of the legislature at the urgent solicitation of the corporations, to amend the bill so as to weaken or kill it. On this point Senator Ford, a staunch Republican, said in interviews in the New York World of April 29, and May 3, 1903: “I used to make daily visits to Gov. Roosevelt about the bill and while he professed to favor it ha kept suggesting that changes be made. The governor suggested some other form of taxing franchises. The corporations became alarmed, and Benjamin B. Odell, Jr., avid Senator Platt were in Albany most of the time. Senator Platt became the quest of Gov. Roosevelt There was an attempt to sidetrack the bill. . . . There was no doubt in my mind at the time nor in the mind of any other senator or newspaper man with whom I talked, that the special message was intended to kill the Franchise Tax bill. . . . Although the governor had solemnly assured me that he was going to sign the original bill, be was induced to call the session. ... I urged the governor to sign the original bill, which lay on his desk, and then make the pending bill an amendment of the new law, in order that if any feature of his proposed amendments should prove to be unconstitutional it could not affect the validity es the original law. This the governor declined to do." These are only a few of the old scores against Mr. Roosevelt, which New York voters will have to settle when the President asks for voters there in 1904. He said in January. 1900, that "under no circumstances” would he accept a nomination for the Vice Presidency. Had he felt certain of re-election as governor be probably would not have broken this pledge made to leading Republicans, and would not have been called a “brilliant, erratic and curious sort of man,” by that old wheel-horse Republican, Gen. Grosvenor. There are others in New York besides the Wall street element who will not vote for Roosevelt. In fact, it is safe to say, that Wall street will not only support him in 1904, but will furnish the dough for his campaign. Mark the prediction!

BYRON W. HOLT.