Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1908 — IMAGINARY SPEECHES [ARTICLE]

IMAGINARY SPEECHES

BY ROBERT S. TAYLOR.

7 ■ THS FOURTH ON* BRYAN THE UNFIT. "In Self-assumption greater Than in the note of judgment.”- Shakespsaks On July 18th there* appeared in Col Iler’s Weekly a signed article by Mr. Bryan on the subject of the Presidency. If I can show from that article that its author is not a fit man to be President of the United States, I shall make good use of my time and that of my imaginary audience. It is a formal, studied paper under this caption: MY CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENCY BY WILLIAM J. BRYAN. Nominated at the Democratic National Convention at Denver for President of the United States. Certainly there can be no fairer subject of criticism than such an article under such a caption and over the writer’s own signature. I quote the following extract from its opening lines: “The President’s power for good or for harm is often overestimated. Our government is a govern- ‘ ment of checks and balances; power is distributed among different departments, and each official works in co-operation with others. In the making of laws, for instance, the President joins with the Senate and the House; he may recommend, but he is powerless to legislate, except as a majority of the Senate and the house concur with him. The Senate and the House are also Independent of each other, each having a veto over the other; and the President has a veto over both; except .that the Senate and House can, by a two-thirds vote, override the President’s veto. The influence of the President over legislation Is, therefore, limited; he shares responsibility with a large number of the people’s representatives. “Even in the enforcement of law he is hedged about by restrictions. He acts through an Attorney General (whose appointment must be approved by the Senate), and offenders against the law must be prosecuted in the courts, so that here again the responsibility la divided. In the making or important appointments, too, he must consult the Senate, and is, of necessity, compelled to exercise care and discretion.’’

What was Mr. Bryan’s object in rehearsing these familiar facts? It was to conciliate Republicans. He wants their votes, but he is apprehensive that they may be afraid of him. This is what he means, stated more plainly: “Some of you may hesitate about voting for me because you think I have made mistakes in the past; you are still holding *l6 to T and other things against me; but those things need not keep you from supporting me; I will have no dangerous power for harm, if elected." Isn't that it? Power of President. Without stopping to remark' upon the bad taste of belittling an office in order to get it, it is of serious importance to inquire whether the proposi tion is true. Is it true, as Mr. Bryan affirms, that “the President's power for good or for harm is often overestimated”? So far from it, it is difficult to find words to express adequately the error of the statement Let us consider for a moment. In the first place, the President represents ns all in our relations with foreign countries, which have become increasingly important of late, and are bound i to grow more so. We have represen tatives, from ambassadors down, at ev- ( ery important capital and port in the world. The President appoints them all and directs. their conduct, and ' through them controls our Intercourse ' with other nations. He has the sole power of making treaties, subject only , to the approval of the senate after the treaty has been first formulated under bls direction on our part By wise manageemtn he can retain for us the respect and good will of other nations and do very much to preserve peace with them; by unwise management be can, plunge us into war. We , sever before had such high standing jin the world as we have now. Our inluenoe in the affairs of nations was ■ever so great, and it is all in the interests of peace And for this we are debtors to the President The President is commander-in-chief of the army and navy. In those great departments hts word goes. Who is not proud of the friendly tour which cor warships

are izound the world? Presi-' dent Roosevelt sent them. Would 1 Bryan have done It? I think not. Appointment of Judges. The President appoints all the federal judges—those who sit in the supreme court, the United States circuit courts of appeals, the circuit courts, and the district courts —considerably, more" than a hundred in all. During the tour years following President

Roosevelt’s retirement there will probably be more federal judges to appoint than in any preceding presidential term, except, possibly, Harrison’s, during which congress created a dozen or more new judgeships, mostly to provide for the newly created courts of appeals. Federal judges who have held their, positions ten years continuously are entitled to retire on full pay when they reach the age of seventy years. The Chief Justice and three Associate Justices of the Supreme Court (four out of nine) are entitled to retire now, as are, also, a large number of the judges who sit in the Courts of Appeals. A judge is not required to retire at seventy, and they often continue to hold office for several years after reaching that age. But, what with retirements and deaths, there is almost certain to be an unusually large number of vacancies on the federal bench within the next four years. The appointment of judges is one of the most important duties to be performed by the president and one in which there Is occasion for the highest exercise of wisdom and sound judgment No man can tell how much for the weal or woe of our country may depend on the wisdom with which these appointments may be made during the next four years. There is much discussion of late of constitutional questions. There are those who have opposed President Roosevelt’s policies upon grounds of constitutionality, and who stick for old doctrines of state rights. If the federal bench should be filled with men of that type sufficient in number to control the decisions, it might set this country back a quarter of a century In the path of progress. lam not now discussing the merits of these questions, but simply pointing out that here is a field in which the President has immeasurable power for good or ill to the welfare of the country. All this, however, the supreme power of the President in our foreign service and relations, in the army and navy, and in the selection of judges, is of small importance beside his power in the initiation and advancement of legislation, the Infusion of life and effectiveness into the administration of all branches of the government, and the leadership of the people along lofty paths of progress and reform.

The President the Leader of His Party. Ours is a government by parties, and the President is, first the leader of his party. In that place his hardest task is to hold his party up to high moral standards. In the lives of parties as of men, there are always forces which pull downward. Unless these are overcome by forces that lift upward mightily, deterioration and decay are inevitable in any party, especially after long continuance in power. In this unending struggle the influence of the President in his party is all important. I nbed no better illustration ! of this fact than the history of the Republican party for seven years past. The pulling-down forces were at work in our ranks. President Roosevelt Bounded the alarm and pointed out the dangers. ' Under his leadership our party has experienced a great awakening. It has risen to higher ideals and nobler purposes than have been attained by any party in this country since the Civil War. Indeed, I should omit that qualification. The question then was a simple one—union or disunion; and the thing to do was equally simply—to put down the rebellion. The problems before us now are far more complicated and difficult In its present high resolution to curb the power of overgrown wealth and subject all kinds of business having seeds of danger In them to effectitve regulation by law, our party stands now on a loftier moral plane than was ever before reached by any party having constructive ability to execute its own purposes wisely. And for this we are Indebted in large measure to the Inspiring leadership of the President Leader of the People. But the President is much more than *e leader of his party. Ho is, or ought to be, the leader of the people. Not all public questions take the form st party Issues. There are conditions St good government upon which all men agree in theory. Honesty la of. les; equal justice to all; ths purity of the ballot; the conservation of natural resources; the protection of the public health; ths promotion of trade and

•ommerce, and many otter euefc thing*, are ends to be promoted by government In respect to which there is no disagreement among men. They ar* to be subserved by the people through the force of enlightened and energetic public opinion. Buch a Leader la Roosevelt. Here again we have a perfect Illustration in the career of President Roosevelt No other President ha* been in such true sense the leader of the whole people. His influence ha* touched all classes of society and every interest of life. In respect to th* feelings of men toward himself he has ■ obliterated party lines. He has given' the people loftier standards and higher Ideals than they entertained before. He has nailed a banner across the sky emblazoned. “MAKE THE LAWS JUST; A SQUARE DEAL FOR EVERY MAN.” Did ever ten words mean more? The strongest argument Bryan can think of for himself is that he is the heir of Roosevelt. Holy Moses! Did ever such an ancestor beget such a descendant before?

To be sure, a man can be President without rising to any such heights of activity as these. He can leave it to congress to pass such laws as it likes. He can leave it to the Senators and Representatives ’to select his appointees, at home and abroad; and he can leave it to the appointees to discharge their duties in their own ways. He can leave it to the political bosses to dictate the policies of his party. He can stand pat and let things run themselves. We have had some somewhat such Presidents. But not under them have we grown in the things that make for a nobler and better .national life. The truth is, not only that Mr. Bryan’s assertion that the President’* power for good or for harm is often overestimated is inaccurate, but that the very opposite is true—that, as a rule, men underestimate rather than overestimate the power of the President for good or for ill to the people of the United States. The wisest and best man that God knows how to create Is nona too great or too good for the office. And we, the people, will fall short of our duty if we fail to put there the' best man for the place that we know how to pick out. Bryan’s Worst Blunder; This, hoever, is the least important of the mistakes in this official utterance of the Denver candidate. In a subsequent part of the article he uses these words with the emphasis of italics:

“The Vice-President ought to be made a member of the cabinet ex officio, in order, first, that the President may have the benefit of his wisdom and knowledge of affairs, and, second, that the VicePresident may be better prepared to take qp the work of the President in case of a vacancy in . the Presidential office." - Mr. Bryan has made many ill-con-sidered suggestions in the past, but none more so than this; as we will all agree after a moment's study. The constitution and the laws put upon the President the whole responsibility for the discharge of the duties of his office. He is not required to take advice from anyone. The law gives him no advisers in terms. It says nothing about a cabinet The heads of departments—the Attorney General, the Secretaries of State, War, the Treasury, and the other departments, are charged by law with oertaln duties, but not among them to advise the President He takes their advice, individually and collectively, on his own motion. He makep of them a body of advisers which we call a cabinet. In this he follows the usual custom. In all civilized countries the heads of departments are advisers of the Executive, Whether he be a President or a King. But they are advisers of his own choosing; which la an all-important fact. Mr. Bryan’s proposal to make the Vice-President a member of the cabinet by law would constitute him a compulsory adviser of the President It would make it his duty to advise, and the President’s duty to receive and' consider the advice—not to act upon it, necessarily, but to listen to it and give weight to it The Vice-President would occupy an entirely different position from that of the other members of the cabinet They would be there by the President's invitation; he by direction of law, welcome or unwelcome. If he and the President happened to disagree on any important ■object, the situation would become a strained one at once. Some of the other members of the cabinet might agree with the President, and some with the Vice-President and then there would be a ruction for certala. It is impossible to think of any surer scheme for promoting discord in the administration of the government than (me Mr. Bryas proposes, ttwwnid give as a double-headed gmrereseeni

•*e Mg head and on* mu* ■uuip 6n.cn otncr. As I left my house this morning pondering on these things, a big grasshopper was sitting on the step. He jumped a mighty jump and landed somewhere in the grass. He didn't know where he would land when he started, any more than I did. “That’s Bryan,” I thought;' “when he jumps the Lord only knows where he will light” The people of this country have been treating Mr. Bryan very kindly of late There has been a general disposition to think, or, at least, to hope that he has become a wiser and safer man than he was twelve years ago; but he never made a worse break than this; and, what is still worse, it is a kind o! break which has always been charhoteristic of him —a freak of fancy with no seasoning of judgment. Bryan’s, Fundamental Weakness. It is not in my heart to do injustice

to Mr. Bryan. It is difficult to size him up with confidence. From some points of view he would appear to be a demagogue. But Ido not allow myself to think that. I take him to be a sincere man with strong sympathies, but defective judgment In the article from which I have quoted he states repeatedly that the most important requisite in a President is sympathy with the people. Sympathy is good, but sympathy without judgment is dangerous. This is Bryan’s constitutional weakness. His sympathies are strong, and as voiced in his eloquent speeches, are contagious and captivating. It is in the remedies which he proposes for the ills with which he sympathizes that his fatal errors are made. His “Cross of Gold” speech at the convention In 1896, which precipitated his nomination, was prompted by sympathy with the masses of the people under the oppressive domination of the money power. His sympathy was creditable, but his remedy of free coinage of silver at 16 to 1 was a colossal mistake of jud& ment. He is moved now by sympathy with railroad employes and the body 1 of the people, who suffer, as he bei iteves, from the greed of the railroad corporations, to advocate government ownership of the railroads,' Which is another mistaken remedy. He sympathizes with the Workingmen in their efforts to secure better terms from their employers, and purposes, as a remedy, to make all injunctions against strikers subject to the approval of a jury; which is a much mistaken rem-

edy. Its effect would be to relieve strikers from further Interference by Injunctions only to turn them over to the army. Lincoln had sympathy and judgment; Bryan has sympathy without judgment It Is no answer to all this to say that free stiver Is not now an Issue; tna»

Mr. Brayn did not press his views on government ownership of railroads when he found that it was not acceptable to his party; nor that his absurd notion of putting the Vice President into the cabinet is only a harmless ■peculation. One of the issues in this campaign—I may say the chief issue, is the fitness of Mr. Bryan for the ofce of President. Is he, mentally and temperamentally, a suitable man to be entrusted with the vast power and responsibility of the Presidency of this great nation? On that question his whole past history is to be considered —all his fads, fancies and mistakes. It is in that connection that this article in Collier’s becomes pertinent and weighty evidence. It is not his only indiscretion, nor the most serious one. It follows a long line of others. But it has this Important significance: It shows that the William J. Bryan of today is the same blundering Bryan of old.’ It does not need many words to disclose a man’s mental make-up. If Mr. Bryan should say with unmistakable seriousness that his old idea that the moon is made of silver as a mistake; that he had become convinced that it Is made of cheese; and that the arst act of his administration would bo to build a railroad to it in order to make It available for food, a jury would find him non compos mentis without further evidence. His letter to Collier's is as serious an utterance as ho could give out. It does not quite convict him es lunacy, but it does convict him of a want of judgment which ought to deter every thinking man from voting for him. But If township and ward option are better for the cause of temperance than county option, why is every brewer. every saloon keeper and every Mend of the liquor traffic working for township and ward option? I«tit Strange that they should work against mdr asm eng wishes**—Ab New Bra.