"MR. ROOSEVELT'S CAMPAIGN."
[TO Tux EDITOR OF TUE "SPEOTATOB."1 SIR,—It is always interesting and often instructive to learn, from comments like those which you make in your article of March 9th, how our affairs look to a distant and friendly observer. Perhaps it may also be of interest to you to know how the same affairs appear to us who are in the midst of them.
Mr. Roosevelt's career as President was, like that of every man in public life, open to more than one interpretation. At the height of his popularity, in his second term, ho seemed to many of us, as to you, a courageous leader in a struggle toward higher ideals in political and business life; indeed, there were many who regarded him as the originator and embodiment of such ideals. To a second class, somewhat cooler observers, who did not wholly approve the vehemence of his speech, it seemed, nevertheless, that the needed changes could be brought about only with a certain degree of violence, which they were therefore willing to overlook if the immediate awakening of public interest could be thereby secured. A third class, not large, regarded Mr. Roosevelt from the beginning with distrust.
The shift of opinion of which we are now getting the plain evidence has been going on for five years. There were, at the close of Mr. Roosevelt's second term, not a few of his admirers who felt a sense of relief that he had come safely through to the end, and though the number of those who could adopt your words to express their confidence that he is "a man of upright motives, fair dealing, and untarnished personal honour" is still large, it is not so large as it was. One rarely hears now those phrases of hero-worship which six or eight years ago drowned all dissent or question. Men of the second class believe that Mr. Roosevelt's work was done when he reached the end of his second term, and, whatever their judgment as to his personal character, they regard the attempt which he is now making to secure the Presidency for a third time as harmful and even unworthy. And the third class, those who have distrusted Mr. Roosevelt's character and motives, has been largely increased.
The extent of this change of opinion it would not be possible to estimate with certainty, but the causes which have produced it are, in part at least, not hard to discover. The emotional strain of reform has left us wearied; the definite and tangible results have been, as always in such cases, far below our expectations ; the moral aspects of the reform, in which all could be interested, have necessarily receded into the background of attention, and the period of sober searching after the best method of expressing ideals in action has followed in due succession. These causes have nothing to do directly with Mr. Roosevelt, and, if he had been able to accept the fact that his work as a hortatory fighter was ended, the ordinary estimate of him might have gone into history unchanged.
But it has been Mr. Roosevelt's unhappy fortune that he could not settle comfortably into the background or under- stand his own limitations. One need not wonder at it; nor does it involve, of strict necessity, a doubt of his sincerity. No other man of our time has been exposed to such extreme adulation ; no other has seemed so easily to draw public opinion after him by the mere force of his personality. It was almost inevitable that he should desire to return to power, and it was quite inevitable that he should use again the same means which have so often secured for him a per- sonal triumph. He knows no other means. His present canvass is purely personal ; he has no platform, and he is himself the only issue. And it is probably inevitable that the vehemence which has always been characteristic of him should be heightened into violence. He has at times betrayed an impatience of criticism, and, as his method ceases to appeal to the more intelligent voters, he seems to be turn- ing to what is no better than flattery of "the people." I suppose that his recent speeches are not reported in English newspapers ; they are given here in full by the papers which are most earnestly opposing him, obviously in the expectation that his own words will injure him. I enclose a specimen ; you will not care to print it; but if you, Sir, will first formu- late in your mind a working definition of the word demagogue and will then carefully read this speech you will see how it has come about that distrust of Mr. Roosevelt has so in- creased.
All this has nothing to do with Mr. Roosevelt's "pledge" that he would not again be a candidate or with his "treachery " to the Republican party. About these charges my feeling is not very different from that which you have expressed. These and other accusations current here are little more than the definite forms through which the distrust of Mr. Roosevelt seeks to express itself. It is with the deep distrust itself, evident enough in the State elections two years ago and now showing itself still more clearly, that the friends of Mr. Roosevelt have to reckon. I think it is not too much to say that all that ho is accomplishing in his present canvass for votes is to cast upon his earlier career a light which is most disconcerting to his admirers.—I am, Sir, Ste., New Haven, Conn., U.S.A. E. P. MORRIS.
We publish the above, not because we agree with it, but in order to give "the other side" a hearing. In our opinion Mr. Roosevelt is merely suffering from that reaction which always follows an outburst of popularity. His quarrel with the party machine has no doubt intensified the reaction, but it would have come even if he had proved the most amenable and docile of ex-Presidents and ex-popular heroes.—En. Spectator.]
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