Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 110, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1904 — SPEAKS ON THE ISSUES [ARTICLE]

SPEAKS ON THE ISSUES

ROOSEVELT’S FORMAL LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. President in a Twelve Thousand Word Document Defends His Administration of the Affairs of tlie Nation—Declares Protection Necessary. President Roos-evclt's formal letter accepting the presidential nomination of the Republican party has been given out. It is 12,200 words long. President Roosevelt defends the last seven years of Republican control. He declares that the Democrats attack Re publican policies and acts of tlie last seven years by misrepresenting what has been done, lie then proceeds to review those acts in detail, and scatters through liis 32,000-wor.d letter scores of interrogation points, asking the Democrats what they are going to do different, or what different they would attempt if charged with power. As to Panama, he says he would he derelict in liis duty it he used a false construction of the constitution as a “shield for weakness and timidity, or as an excuse for governmental impotence.” The letter charges the'Democrats with insincerity in aud conflict of criticisms in matters such as the settlement of the coal strike and the prosecution of the merger suit that shows no chance for coherent action or constructive legislation if they are given power. As to the money question he declares the only real way to keep the question from becoming unsettled is to keep tlie Republican party in power. In defense of the protective tariff policy’ the President says that some Democrats seem anxious to prove that it is safe to give them partial power, as they could do no mischief then. In connection with the tariff lie discusses the trusts, and says the evils connected with them can bo reached only by rational effort, along the lines taken by Congress and the executive during the last throe years. The tariff is made tlie leading feature of the letter. It is set forth that tlie present executive thinks.tlie present regular army is no larger than the country requires, and as to the Philippines he says that to retrace our steps would he to give “proof of an infirm and unstable national purpose.”

Points from the Letter. Following are leading paragraphs from the President’s letter: — It Is difficult to find out from tlie utterances of our opponents what are the real issues upon which they propose to wage this campaign. It is not unfair to say that, having abandoned most of the principles upon which they have insisted during the last eight years, they now seem at a loss, both as to what it is that they really believe and as to how firmly they shall assert their belief in anything. In fact, it is doubtful if they venture resolutely to press a single issue; ns soon as they raise one they shrink from it and seek to explain it away. Such an attitude is the probably inevitable result, of the effort to improvise convictions; for when thus improvised it is natural that they should be held iu a tentative manner. There is not a policy, foreign or domestic, which we are now carrying out which it would not he disastrous -to reverse or abandon. We base our appeal upon what we have done and are doing, upon our record of administration and legislation during the last seven years, in which we have had complete control of the government. If continued in power we shall continue our foreign policy and our handling of tlie navy on exactly tlie same lines iu tlie future as in tlie past. The fundamental fact is that in a popular government such as ours no policy is irrevocably settled by law unless tlie people keep iu control of tlie golernmciit men who believe in that policy as a matter of deep-rooted convict ion. On some of tlie vital questions that have confronted the American people in the last decade our opponents take the position that silence is the best possible way to convey their- views. To say that action against trusts and monopolies should He limited to the application of tlie common, law is equivalent to saying that the national government should take no action whatever to regulate them. Undoubtedly it would lie possible at the present time to prevent any of the trusts from remaining prosperous by ijie simple expedient of making stielt' a sweeping change in tlie tariff as to paralyze tin- industries of the country. The trusts would cease to prosper, but their smaller comp H-it-ors would be ruined and the wageworkers would starve, whiles' It would not pay the farmer to haul liis produce to market. The expenditures of the nation have been managed in a.spirit of economy as far removed from waste as from niggardliness, ami in the future every effort will lie continued to secure ait economy as strict as is consistent wjtli efficiency. So far from having “sapped the foundattons of free popular government at home by the course taken in the rhilippines, we have been spreading its knowledge and teaching its practice among the peoples to whom it lniri never before been more than nil empty name. At no time In the history of litis or any other country has there been sin era so prodiletlvo -of material benefit alike to workingmen and employer, as during the seven years that have Just passed.