  BY THOMAS E. WATSON CAREFULLY studied, the election of Nov. 8, 1904, affords more encouragement to Reformers than any event which has happened since the Civil War. In smashing the fraudulent scheme of Gorman-Hill-McCarren-Belmont, the people proved that there was still such a thing as public conscience. The whole Parker campaign was rotten—from inception to final fiasco—and the manner in which the masses rose and stamped the life out of it was profoundly refreshing. Roosevelt stood for many things which the people did not like, but they recognized in him a man instead of a myth, a reality instead of a sham. He had fought abuses in civil life; he had fought the enemies of his country on the battlefield; he had achieved literary success; he had been a worker and a fighter all his days. He had faced the coal barons and virtually brought them to terms; he had bearded the railroad kings and broken up the Northern Securities Combine. Thus, while he “stood pat” on many things which the people detested, he stood likewise for many things they admired, and they gave him a vote larger than that of his party. Another thing helped Roosevelt. This was the prominence of Grover Cleveland and his “second administration” gang. Apparently Parker had no conception of the bitterness with which the masses hate Cleveland. Because he was cheered by the self-chosen delegates to the St. Louis convention, because he was given a cut-and-dried ovation by the business men of New York City, the Democratic bosses seemed to believe that the more of Cleveland they forced into the campaign the better the country would like the taste of it. So they not only kept Cleveland on exhibition in the most conspicuous manner, but they dug up John G. Carlisle, Arthur Pue Gorman, Olney of Massachusetts, and other Cleveland fossils, until Parker’s identification with Cleveland’s second administration was complete. And when that happened, it was “Good-bye Parker!” Cleveland had issued the bonds which Harrison had refused to issue; he had sold $62,000,000 of these bonds at private sale, at midnight, to J. P. Morgan and his associates; the price was less than that which the negroes of Jamaica were getting for their bonds! August Belmont was Morgan’s partner in that infamous deal. Therefore, when Cleveland and Belmont got so close to Parker that he couldn’t breathe without touching them on either side, the suspicion became violent that the same Wall Street influences which had pledged Cleveland to a bond issue had pledged Parker to the same thing. There is no reasonable doubt whatever that Parker’s managers had pledged themselves to another issue of bonds. How could these bonds have been issued? Easy enough. Cleveland had invented the process by violating the law; and the Cleveland precedent still stands. To get more bonds, you only need another President who will take orders from Belmont and Morgan at secret, midnight conferences. Then there was John G. Carlisle. Among political shrubs which are aromatic, none smells sweeter than he. Not by any other name would he smell half so sweet. Carlisle was the Whisky Trust representative in Congress, who made so many speeches for Free Silver and Tariff Reform. Placed in Cleveland’s cabinet he crawled at the feet of the gold-bugs, and he wrote a new tariff for the Sugar Trust, which enabled those robbers to take annual millions from the people in repayment for the thousands which the Trust had put into the Democratic Campaign fund. This man, Carlisle, was exhumed and brought to New York to make another speech for “Reform” and for Parker! Likewise there was Gorman. With a political ignorance which is hard to understand, Parker seemed to believe that his salvation depended upon linking himself to Gorman. He appeared to breathe easy only when sitting in the lap of Gorman. Nothing in the way of campaign plan could be sent forth into the world with any hope of success until there had been a laying-on of hands and a blessing by the cloud-compelling Gorman. Yet it would seem that a well-informed schoolboy should have been able to tell Parker that Gorman was one of the best hated men living. When poor people were freezing in the big cities and the Coal Trust was pitiless, and the golden-hearted Senator Vest of Missouri proposed to cut the ground from under the feet of the Trust by putting coal upon the Free List, who was it that virtually said in the United States Senate, “Let the people freeze; the Trust shall not be weakened”? It was Gorman, of Maryland! Who was it that took the Tariff Reform Measure of Wm. L. Wilson and turned it into an elaborate device for enriching the few at the expense of the many? It was Gorman. Who took Sugar off the Free List and put a tax of $45,000,000 upon it? Gorman. Who increased the McKinley duties upon lumber and nails and wire and trace-chains and horseshoes and iron-ware which the common people must use? Gorman. Who doubled the tax on molasses? Gorman. Who stands upon the Democratic side in the Senate of the United States as the champion of the Sugar Trust and all other Democratic Trusts? Gorman. But Parker could never get enough of Gorman. The people could—and did. Their votes showed that they wanted no more tariff bills fixed by Gorman. Why was the election encouraging to reformers? Because it showed such an increase in the independent vote. At least a million Independents voted for Roosevelt because they were hell-bent on beating Parker. In part, they were moved to do this because of the belief that Roosevelt himself leans to radicalism. His past record as a reformer gave hope that during the next four years he would be a powerful factor in bringing about improved conditions. Reformers not only take encouragement from Parker’s loss of votes, but in the victories won by Douglas, La Follette and Folk. Widely separated as were the States of Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Missouri the fact that the independent voter broke party lines in each No one can misunderstand it. The people want honest leaders. The people will follow without flinching. Party names count for nothing. Give the people a MAN: fearless, honest, aggressive, standing for something, and not afraid to fight for it: the people will follow him to the death. We too often say, “The people are fickle; they won’t stand by their own leaders!” Ah, friend! Think how often the people have been fooled. See how many men they have put into office to accomplish reforms. See how often these leaders have forgotten their pledges as soon as they began to draw salaries, free passes and perquisites! The people have been betrayed so often that they are discouraged. But don’t you doubt this, brother: Another reform wave is coming, and woe unto those leaders who seek to check it! Here is the condition of the Democratic Party: For four years it is bound to the St. Louis platform, plus Parker’s gold telegram, plus Parker’s message to Roosevelt “heartily” congratulating him upon his election. For four years Belmont, McCarren, Meyer, Dave Hill, Gorman & Co. have absolute control of the party machinery. For four years the official commander-in-chief, the standard-bearer of National Democracy is Tom Taggart, the gambling-hell man of French Lick Springs, Indiana! Commenting upon the campaign, The Independent, of New York, says that Mr. Bryan gave his support to the Democratic ticket, but took back nothing which he had said about Parker. The Independent is mistaken. Bryan changed his position so often and so fast that Dr. Holt evidently failed to keep up. In that special-car trip of his through Indiana, Mr. Bryan’s evolutionary process developed him into a Parker champion, who saw in the Esopus man “The Moses of Democracy,” one whose “ideals” were the same as Bryan’s “ideals,” one whose candidacy enlisted Bryan’s support as cordially as though Bryan “had framed the platform and selected the nominee.” Oh, yes, that was about what he said, Dr. Holt. And when he had finished saying it twenty-two times per day, the Indiana voter girded up his trousers, trekked to the polls, and voted for Roosevelt. To W. J. B.Would you be so kind as to tell us when and where you will & commence to reorganize the Democratic party? You promised to begin “immediately after the election.” What is your construction of the word “immediately”? And what did you really mean by “reorganize”? Your party is fully organized from top to bottom—from Tom Taggart, the gambling-hell man, down to Pat McCarren, the Standard Oil lobbyist. How can you reorganize a party so thoroughly organized? You can’t do it, you are not trying to do it, and you must have known all along that you couldn’t do it. Watch out, William! The people have loved you and believed in you, but your course in the last campaign has shaken your popularity to its very foundations. Beware how you trifle with the radicals. If you want to come with us, come and be done with it. If you want to go to the Belmonts and Taggarts, go and be done with it. Be assured of this, William—you can’t ride both horses! To President RooseveltThe people have given you power and opportunity. For four years you will What Will You Do With It? The Express Companies are robbing the people of many millions of dollars every year in excessive charges for carrying small parcels. In every civilized land, save ours, the Government carries these small parcels at a nominal cost, as a part of the postal service. In America, a venal Congress keeps the yoke of the Express Companies fastened upon the people and will not allow the government to establish a Parcels Post. Mr. President, will you not fix your attention upon this monstrous abuse? Will you not come into the arena and help us in the fight for the Parcels Post? Mr. President, the railroads are charging the government $65,000,000 per year for carrying our mails! This represents a yearly income of more than two per cent. upon three billion dollars. Squeeze out the water, and the railroads of the United States could be bought for three billion dollars. Therefore, on the carriage of mails alone, your administration is paying the railroads more than two per cent. upon their entire value! The Government could float a two per cent. bond at par, and if it issued enough bonds to pay for all the roads the annual interest charge would be no greater than we now pay for carrying the mails. Can you do nothing about this, Mr. President? Is your strong arm powerless to defend the people against this high-handed robbery? Mr. President, your administration is now paying the Oceanic Steamship Company $45,000 per year to carry mails to the semi-savages of Tahiti. This island is under French control. French steamers offered to carry these mails for $400 per year. Your administration refused the offer, and continued to pay an American Corporation $45,000. Did you know this, Mr. President? Is there nothing you can do about it? Must the taxpayers be plundered of $44,600 every year simply because an American Corporation wants the money? Mr. President, is it right that to China and Japan American-made cloth should be sold cheaper than we Americans can buy it? Is it right that we should have to pay more for implements to work our fields with than the South American farmer pays for the same tools? For a hundred years our manufacturers have been protected from foreign competition in the home market; they charge us higher prices in this home market than are paid by any other people on earth; they organize this monopoly into a Trust, and then they take their surplus goods into foreign markets and sell them to foreigners at a lower price than they sell to us. Is that right, Mr. President? How can this evil be corrected? How can the Trusts be curbed? By putting on the Free List every article which is sold abroad cheaper than it is sold here, and every article which enters into the necessary makeup of the Trust. Mr. President, under your administration corporate wealth escapes national taxation, as it has done for the past thirty years. Under Abraham Lincoln, the railroads and the manufacturers paid a federal tax. They pay none now. Under Abraham Lincoln, the vastly overgrown Insurance Companies and Express Companies paid a federal tax. They pay none now. Is that right, Mr. President? Why should the poorest mechanic, clerk, storekeeper, printer, farmer, or mine-worker pay excessive federal taxes upon the necessaries of life while the billion dollar corporations pay nothing at all? The Ship SubsidyIn his message to Congress the President says: “I especially commend to your immediate attention the encouragement of our merchant marine by appropriate legislation.” Does Mr. Roosevelt, like the late Senator Hanna, favor the Ship Subsidy? Is the government going to hire merchants to go to sea? Are we to have hothouse commerce sustained at the expense of the taxpayers? What ails our merchant marine? Why cannot American merchants compete with British and German merchants on the ocean? Simply because our own laws will not allow it. Our navigation acts have destroyed the American merchant marine. How? By denying registry and the protection of the flag to any ship not built in one of our own shipyards. We are not allowed to buy vessels from England, Scotland or Germany without losing the protection of our government. We must build them at home. Our precious tariff increases the cost of all shipbuilding material, while in Great Britain vessels are built under free trade conditions. Hence it costs us more to build any sort of seagoing vessel than it costs Great Britain. If we were allowed to buy ships abroad we could get them on equal terms with British merchants. Consequently we could compete with them for the carrying trade. We would get our share. The American Merchant Marine would once more flourish as it did prior to the Civil War. The Tariff compels the merchant to pay more for an American ship than the Englishman pays for an English ship, and our Navigation laws compel the American merchant to use the American ship or none. Result: The Englishman gets the business. It was just this kind of legislation which provoked the preliminary troubles between Great Britain and the American Colonies. Our forefathers hated the British navigation acts; the sons copied them. Great Britain grew wise, swung to Free Trade, and took the seas away from us. Our navigation acts represent the most violent type of the Protective madness. To deny the merchant the right to buy his vessel where he can get it cheapest is mere lunacy. The cheapest and best ships will inevitably get the cargoes; and where the law denies to the American the chance to get the cheapest and best vessel it simply puts him out of the combat. Our Navigation acts have done that identical thing. What is the remedy? Senator Hanna wanted “ship subsidies.” In other words, the merchant was to be encouraged to go into the shipping business by the assurance that the Government would go down into the pockets of the taxpayers and pull out enough money to make good the difference between the costly ships of America and the cheaper, better ships of Great Britain. To escape the effects of one bad law, Senator Hanna proposed that Congress should pass another. The Tariff, which plunders the many to enrich the few (see recent remarks of Parker and Cleveland), has killed the merchant marine; therefore the merchant marine must be restored to life, not at the expense of the enriched few, but of the plundered many. The merchant marine has been destroyed by the system which is “the mother of the Trusts,” by the system which sells to foreign consumers at a lower price than to home consumers. Why not encourage our merchant marine by allowing our merchants to buy their vessels in those foreign markets where our Protected Manufacturers sell their wares so much cheaper than they sell them to us at home? Would it not be the most shameless kind of class legislation to take the The beneficiaries of protection are the few: its victims are the many. Thus the favored few get all the benefits of protection and escape all its evils; while the unprivileged many bear all of its evils and reap none of its benefits. We are told that Great Britain and Germany subsidize their merchant marine and that therefore our government must do it. The argument would be contemptible even if the facts supported it, but that is not the case. Great Britain does not subsidize her merchant marine nor does Germany do so. Great Britain pays certain lines for specific mail service and colonial service; nothing more. Germany does likewise. Neither country hires merchants to go to sea about their own business. There is no more statesmanship in hiring a mariner to engage in private business between New York and Liverpool than there would be in hiring John Wanamaker to establish another branch of his mercantile business in San Francisco or Terra Del Fuego. Such legislation as that is Privilege run mad. When Napoleon encouraged the beet sugar industry in France by bounties he may have done a wise thing. France was under his despotic control; commerce with the world was cut off; internal development became the law of self-preservation. But no imperial sceptre rules the ocean. There can be no monopoly of the use of her myriad highways. Amid her vast areas, natural law mocks the puny contrivances of men. Competition is free. The ocean race is to the swift; the battle is to the strong. Whoever can do the work, do it quickest, cheapest, surest, best, will do it—American bounties to the contrary notwithstanding. Take off the rusty fetters which bind the limbs of the American seaman and he will need no bounty. Give him a fair start, an open course, and he will outrun the world. Keep the chains on him—and he will never win! Suppose you give bounties to the shipper, then what? To the extent of the bounty he will do business—no further. And you will soon find that you have attracted mercenary corporations who do business for the bounty, the whole bounty, and nothing but the bounty. We tried this ship subsidy business once before—from 1867 to 1877. What was the result? Scandals and failure. Congress took more than six and a half million dollars of the people’s money, gave it to greedy corporations and got nothing in return save a fit of disappointment and disgust which lasted the country till the advent of Hanna. We earnestly hope that President Roosevelt will look into the record of the former subsidy experiment before he ever signs a bill of like character. In 1856 a little more than three-fourths of all our exports and imports were carried in American bottoms. In 1881 seventy-two million bushels of grain were shipped from New York to Europe, and not one bushel of it went in American ships. Less than one-sixth of our marine freight was handled by ourselves in 1881, and the amount has gone on dwindling. Great Britain improved her methods of building ships; built cheaper and better vessels than ours. The law did not permit us to buy from her, but did permit her to bring her ships into our waters and capture our trade; and so she captured it. We are the only people in the world who are not allowed to buy ships wherever we can buy them cheapest. We are the only serfs alive who are chained hand and foot to obsolete Navigation laws. And to escape the logical consequences of our folly we do not propose to repeal the When statesmanship gets down to that low ebb its morality is gone. A venal Congress may pass such a measure, but we do not believe an honest President will sign it. Hearst, the MythBecause he is not perpetually making an exhibit of himself, a good many shallow politicians sneer at W. R. Hearst and call him a myth. Because he is not everlastingly on his feet reeling off speeches which come from nowhere and go nowhere, the average regulation “orator” looks down upon the modest, silent man from New York as a very inferior mortal, indeed. Yet W. R. Hearst, with all his shyness and silence, has a way of hitting out quick, hard and sure that does more good for the people than all the “orators” have done in the last decade. If there is anything on this blessed earth that we have got enough of at this time, it is talk, talk, talk! From Presidents in fact and Presidents in prospectus, from Senators of all shades and Congressmen of every variety down to oratorical Federal Judges, College Doctors and legislative lights we have floods of talk, talk, talk! The misery of it all is that this oratory doesn’t mean anything. It strikes a bee-line for the waste basket. It lives today, echoes tomorrow, and is forgotten the day after. The orator himself thinks only of the success of the speech. He drinks in the immediate applause, he gloats over the newspaper puffs, he puts out his chest, he is happy: and that is all. The speech accomplishes nothing; was not meant to accomplish anything. Perhaps the orator himself voted for the thing which he denounced, as happened with the Panama business when Democratic “orators” spoke on one side and voted on the other. Now if there is anything which the American people are sick unto death of, it is this kind of patent-medicine oratory. What we all want just now is that men shall become workers instead of automatic spellbinders. We want men who actually do something—men who have ideas, plans, practical resources; men who will literally take up their clubs and hammer away at monstrous abuses wherever they show their heads. Such a man is W. R. Hearst. By his assault upon the Coal Trust he has exposed the heartless methods of capitalism and laid the foundations for much good work in the future. By his swift, successful attack upon the Gas Trust, which, by the collusion of city officials, was about to steal seven million dollars from the taxpayers of New York, he has set an example which should inspire every reformer in the Union. May his courage become contagious! May his example breed imitations! May his firmness in standing for the rights of the people raise up enemies to the Trusts throughout the land! Mr. Hearst is a Democrat; the corrupt officials who were about to surrender the treasury of New York to the Gas Trust were Democrats; that fact did not bother him in the least. Rascality is doubly odious when it borrows a good name; and the honest Democrat did not hesitate to bring his injunction down like a flail upon the heads of the dishonest Democrats who were betraying their trust. We wish we could swap a couple of hundred “orators” for another myth like William R. Hearst. Mr. Bryan’s Race in NebraskaIn a recent issue of his paper, Mr. Bryan says, referring to Mr. Watson: The small vote which he received—a vote much smaller than Populists, Democrats, and even Republicans expected him to This paragraph reminds me that Mr. Bryan was likewise a candidate in the year 1904. He ran for the United States Senate in the State of Nebraska, and he got no votes to speak of. Out of 133 members of the Legislature, he captured less than a dozen. The small vote which he received—a vote much smaller than Populists, Democrats and even Republicans expected him to receive—shows either that there are few who agree with him as to the course of action to be pursued, or that they did not have confidence in his leadership. “It is not only more charitable, but”—and so forth. Mr. Bryan says that “reforms are not to be secured all at once.” Quite right; and they will never be secured at all by leaders who change front as often as Mr. Bryan has done within the last twelve months. Neither will they be secured by a political party which preaches a certain creed for eight years and then throws it aside like a worn out garment. Nor will reforms ever be secured by a party which contains so many different sorts of Democrats that nobody knows which is the genuine variety. Let the Greenbacks Alone!To the right, to the left, in front, in the rear, we are beset by problems, abuses, critical conditions, wrongs crying for redress, victims of legislative injustice demanding relief. That a President of the United States should be blind to so many self-evident conditions, deaf to so many sounds of suffering, and should go out of his way to strike at the Greenback currency is a fact to cause astonishment. What harm is the Greenback doing to anybody? What evil has it ever wrought? The approval of Lincoln gave it life; the soldier who fought for the Union, when Roosevelt was in the cradle, was paid with it; the Union armies were fed and clothed with it when gold had run off and hid. The Greenback saved the Government in its hour of need, and it has done good each day of its life ever since. If we had five times as much of it as now exists, the country would be twice as well off. Who is it that hates the Greenback? The National Banker. Why? Because the National Banker would like to have the monopoly of supplying the paper currency. The Government circulates $346,000,000 Greenbacks; the National Banker circulates $400,000,000 of his own notes. The bank-notes earn compound interest for the banker; the Greenbacks earn no interest at all. Therefore, they compete with the notes of the banker. They interfere with his business. As long as they exist, he has no absolute monopoly. Therefore what? The National Banker hates the Greenback just as the Standard Oil detests the independent companies. For the same reason which moves the Coal Barons, the Beef Trust and the Tobacco Trust to wage relentless war upon the independent dealer, the money power demands the suppression of the Greenback. If the National Bankers can destroy the Greenback, they can fill its place with their own notes. Loaned out at lawful interest, compounded at the usual periods, they will wring from the people a yearly tribute of nearly thirty million dollars. In other words, the country now gets Greenbacks free of charge, whereas the bank-notes to replace them will cost $30,000,000 per annum. I can see how this will benefit the bankers; but whom else will it benefit? One of the strangest hallucinations that ever entered the legislative mind is that a banker’s note, based on national credit, is good, safe, sane currency, while the Government’s own note, based on national If the Government buys paper, sets up a press, stamps a note and issues it as currency, the banker howls “Rag Money!” The subsidized editor takes up the dismal refrain, the limber-kneed politician tunes his mouth to the echo, the wise men of the academy quit gerund-grinding to talk finance, and with one accord the orthodox repeat the jeer of “Rag Money,” “Rag Baby” and “Dishonest Dollar,” until the Government lets the banker take the paper, the press, the stamp and issue the notes as his own! Then it is all right. The editor’s soul is soothed; the politician purrs with satisfaction; the savant of the academy returns to his Greeks and Romans. All is well. The bankers issue their currency, grow fat on usury, and the principles of high finance are vindicated. The paper currency of the Government is a “Rag Baby”; the paper money of the National Banker is “Sound Money.” So, we let the bankers exploit a governmental function to their immense profit, when the Government could use the function itself, to the injury of nobody, and to the vast benefit of the people at large. But if the Government did this thing, the National Banker would lose his special privilege, his unjust advantage, his huge gains. Hence, he not only refuses to permit the Government to supply the country with any more Greenbacks, but he demands the destruction of those already outstanding. I regret to see President Roosevelt lending himself to this wicked proposition. Cleveland, during the whole time he was in office, was hostile to the Greenbacks and recommended that they be destroyed. Nobody was surprised at this. In fact, Cleveland had exhausted the capacity of honest men to be surprised. But the country hoped for better things from Mr. Roosevelt. He was thought to be too strong a man to be the blind tool of the National Bankers. The Greenback is hurting nobody, is doing great good; its only enemy is the National Banker, whose motive is sordidly selfish. LET THE GREENBACK ALONE! If the President will take the trouble to study for himself the financial statements issued by his own subordinates, he will discover a state of things which would otherwise be incredible. He will find that the bankers are drawing compound interest on more money than there is in existence! He will find that they reap usurious revenues from three times as much money as there is in actual circulation! He will find that they have drawn interest upon seven times as much money as THEY ACTUALLY HAVE! Under the law of its birth, the Greenback is real money. Like gold and silver, it comes direct from the Government to the people. If you burn it, and do not supply its place, you contract the currency at a time when such contraction means national disaster. If you burn the Greenback, and allow the National Banker to supply its place with his own notes, then you rob the people of thirty million dollars annually and give the spoils to the banker! He already earns about $50,000,000 per year on his special privilege of issuing currency. Isn’t that enough? He already enjoys the use of one hundred million dollars of the tax money which other people pay into the treasury; and he fattens on the luxury of getting this money free of interest and of lending it out at compound interest to the “other people.” Isn’t that enough? And he has filled the channels of trade with his “lines of credit,” his loans of money which has no existence save in the confidence of his Isn’t that enough? The Greenback is the barrier which stands between the National Banker and absolute financial despotism. LET IT ALONE! En Route to RoyaltyThe approaching inauguration of President Roosevelt is to be the most king-like ceremony ever witnessed on the American Continent. Three thousand troops of the regular Army, twenty thousand soldiers of the National Guard, the Cadets from West Point and Annapolis will take part in the parade, and battleships of the Navy will be ordered to the Potomac to add to the pompous function. From the White House to Capitol Hill, Pennsylvania avenue is to be built up on either side with statuary and decorations and plaster work, which will at least wear the mask of regal magnificence. The Government will turn its Pension Bureau out of house and home, suspending public work, in order that Society’s beaux and belles may have the most magnificent ball ever known since our Government was founded. First and last, directly and indirectly, it is quite within the range of the probable that the public and private expenditure of money in connection with Mr. Roosevelt’s inauguration will approach, if not exceed, a million dollars. Is it in good taste for the representative of a democratic republic to give his sanction to such prodigalities as these? Mr. Roosevelt is bound to know that there are ten millions of his fellow-citizens, fashioned by the same God out of the same sort of clay, who are today in want—lacking the necessaries of life. He is bound to know that in this land, which they tell us is so prosperous, there are now four million paupers. He is bound to know that there are at least one million half-starved children working in our factories, wearing out their little lives at the wheels of labor, in order that the favorites of class legislation may pile up the wealth which enables them to dine sumptuously off vessels of silver and gold. He is bound to know that in one city of his native State of New York there are at least half a million of his brother mortals who never have enough to eat, and that seventy thousand children trudge to the public schools, hungry as they go. He is bound to know that all over the Southern States hangs a shadow and a fear, because an industrious people, whose toil brought forth a bountiful harvest, are being driven by a remorseless speculative combine into misery and desperation. It would have been a proof of excellent judgment if the robust manhood of Theodore Roosevelt had asserted itself against the snobbery of our shoddy “Society” in Washington, by reducing the ceremonial of his inauguration to the modest measure of what was decorous and necessary. It is no time for ostentatious display of military power or of ill-gotten wealth. It is no time to be acting the ape of a German Kaiser or an English King. It is no time to allow free rein to a rotten Nobility of Money-bags, which seeks to turn the simple swearing-in of the Chief Servant of a free people—freely chosen by ballot—into a quasi-royal coronation of an hereditary beneficiary of the monstrous dogma of Divine Right. One of Mr. Roosevelt’s predecessors had long been familiar with courts and princes and kings, and they had filled him with so deep a contempt for idle, vain and pompous display that when he came to be inaugurated President of the United States he simply gathered around him a few of those who were at his hotel, walked with them up Capitol Hill, took the oath of office before his assembled fellow-citizens and delivered to them his inaugural address—which still ranks as a classic in the political literature of the world. This President was he who broke the power of the Barbary Pirates to whom Washington had paid tribute. He it was who by the daring seizure of opportunity gained Louisiana and raised this Republic from its place as a power of the third class into the dignity of a nation of the first class, by a sweep of his pen, lifting our Western boundary from the Mississippi and setting it on the coast line of the Pacific. His inauguration was simplicity itself, but his administration was full of the grandeur of great deeds accomplished. This was Thomas Jefferson. Another of Mr. Roosevelt’s predecessors had been a hero in three wars. In the Revolutionary War he had fought bravely, though only a boy. In the Indian wars he had led armies from the upper Chattahoochee to the Gulf of Mexico, adding an empire to our domain. In the War of 1812 he had taken the volunteers of the South, and at New Orleans had whipped the veterans of Wellington as English soldiers had never been whipped before and have never been whipped since. Entering civil life, this great soldier dashed himself against the power of Clay, Webster and Calhoun, triumphing over them all. Yet when he came to be inaugurated President of the Republic whose glory and power he had so greatly increased, it contented him to go quietly from the old Metropolitan Hotel, accompanied by the Marshal of the District and a volunteer escort, to take the oath of office in the Senate Chamber, without the slightest attempt at pompous ceremonial. The great soldier was honored by a salute fired by the local military, and, with that salute, the function ended. This was Andrew Jackson. I do not say that times have not changed and that customs have not altered, but I do say that the sober judgment of the judicious, throughout the country, would have profoundly approved the course of Mr. Roosevelt had he put the curb upon the snobs and the flunkies and the imitation courtiers, who are about to distinguish his inauguration by an excess of military display, ornamental frippery, tommy-rot formalities and prodigal expenditure of money such as has not been known since Edward the Seventh was crowned King of England. Elucidations Fads—Other people’s hobbies. Allowance—A sum of money we spend before we get it. Pessimist—A person who is perfectly happy only when he is perfectly miserable. Hush Money—The kind that talks most. A Distant Relative—A rich one. Bargain Counter—A place where women buy things they don’t want with money they do want. Weather Report—One that is not always verified. Honeymoon—The brief period before the novelty wears off. Notoriety—Something that doesn’t last so long as fame, but brings in more money. The Simple Life—The existence led by people who invest in get-rich-quick schemes. |
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