Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1912 — What Could He Do? [ARTICLE]

What Could He Do?

If Theodore Roosevelt could be elected president, what reforms could he proceed to put through? This is what the Roosevelt supporters, breathless from much cheering, have wholly neglected to inform the rest of us. Mr. Roosevelt could not bring about the election of senators by direct vote; that can only come through a constitutional amendment. He could not make universal the presidential preference primary; that rests with the several states. He could not recast the trust or transportation laws; that is the province of congress. He could not bestow upon a waiting nation the power to recall judicial decisions; that would require the amendment of one federal anff forty-eight state constitutions. He could not fight the trusts. Mr. Perkins, Mr. McCormick and Mr. Hanna were not bom yesterday. Nor has Mr. Roosevelt forgotten the tirpe whenjhe Harriman correspondence ■canffehonie to roost.” He) could not touch the tariff, even if he knew anything about it or had any convictions about it. That, also, rests with congress, and Mr. Roosevelt's tendency to quarrel with congress has already been impressively demonstrated! He could not —conscientiously do anything to help on the movement to limit the service of a president to one term of six years. That might cause the ruin of the country at a future time when, having left the chair just long enough to demonstrate to an ungrateful people how sure things were to go to smash in any other hands, the great cause which he typified, and represented could only be furthered by once more supporting him. Nor could he perform the regular duties of the executive office to the profit of the American people. He spent seven years and a half in the president's chair. He permitted the Steel trust to enlarge and consolidate its monopoly. He created commissions and boards without warrant of law. He set congress by the ears and ended his second term In a weiter of ill feeling. But he did not place to his credit, in more than seven long years, one conspicuous achievement through the legal and constitutional exercise of his official powers.