AMERICAN NOTES.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13908, 6 December 1910, Page 8

AMERICAN NOTES.

ROOSEVELT LOSING HIS HALO

(FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SAN FRANCISCO, November 2

The man has yet to be born that can carry a halo through an American political' campaign. The shining circle that floated around the head of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt while he was teaching phonetic spelling to the African lions, preaching the full cradle to France, and telling Britain how to govern Egyot, has vanished in smoke. Those that cried out to him to return and save his own country from the politicians have been jarred into recollection that 'Teddy" was once a politician himself, and they are even beginning to wonder whether he has lost something of his craft. It was only to be expected that, when ho was denouncing the Democrats ot New York as dishonest, the Democratic leader, Judge Alton Parker, should remind him that the "Bellamy Siorer affair" had never been satisfactorily- cleared up. Roosevelt, during his Presidency, was accused of sending his Austrian Ambassador, btorer, to the Pope to ask that Archoishop Ireland an American, should be made a cardinal. He denied tlie charge, but it has been claimed that letters of his to Storer's wife show him to have been at least ok the brink of a prevarication; Judge Parker, referring to the incident, called the Colonel an "unmitigated liar." That poor halo! Then again, "Teddy" was looked to to straighten out the political tangle with a single word after the manner of Solomon. He seems rather to have made the tangle more intricate. Before he came there was a clean-cut issue between the progressives and the "stand-patters" in the Republican party. But Roosevelt seems to love them all, provided they are not branded with the stain of corruption. As the Democrats say, he embraces Senator Beveridge, the Insurgent leader, in Indiana, and with equal fondness embraces Senator Lodge, an arch-stand-patter, in Massachusetts. The people still love "Teddy," and believe that he has something nearer tbe right idea than his enemies. But the contention that he should be checked lest he become a dictator is gaining strength. One of his most ardent admirers, the independent weekly "Life," gives in a few lightsome sentences the feeling' of many of his best friends. It says:—

"The Colonel has been going too fast. He needs hobbles, and this is a good timo to put them on him; and that in spite of tho fact that he is in so many respects so much better than so many of the men that are eager to throw him down, and in spite of the reluctance with which any man of sporting instincts must set himself to contrive obstacles for so dazzling a performer. To count the noses of the professional Republicans who want Roosevelt beaten is a little disenchanting, and to consider the reasons behind the opposition of many of his noisiest opponents may stir one to derision, but, after all/ the greatest campaigner against Roosevelt is Roosevelt. It is not what is said of him that bites, but his own discourse about himself." A NEW ZEALANDER'S CLAIM. "Away off in New Zealand," according to a press despatch from New York, there, is a man who thinks he has a right to a shoe of New York worth, at hia own estimate,' over £33,000.000. His name is given as "Horatio Edwards, of East Hinchley, New Zealand." The claim dates back to the time when America was a colony. It is alleged that one Robert "Edwards came to New York and acquired sixty-five acres of marsh lands iri what is now $he heart of the city. This land, it is said, was leased to the Colonial Government for ninety-nine years, and was lost to sight by tho Edwards family. Horatio Edwards claims to bc**the heir of Hobert. TO FORTIFY THE CANAL. "That the Panama canal will be fortified, and strongly fortified, seems now an assured fact,'"' says Rear-Admiral Robley D. Evans, in a newspaper article. "The one great reason for mounting guns at both ends of the canal hardly needs to be stated. It is self-evident. To protect a work costing about five hundred millions of dollars by the terms of a treaty alono would hardly be wise, for history records too many violations of treaties where the temptation has been much less than in this case. Tho possession of the Panama Canal, from a commercial, as well as from a military, standpoint, means so much, that any nation strong enough to attempt it might seek a cause to take the chance.

"We may therefore say, without fear of contradiction, that the canal will be fortified to protect it against possible enemies of the United States. That such action is a proper one on the part of the Government owning the canal, no patriotic citizen will for a moment question, but there is a strong feeling in the country that tho right to do this work should havo been clearly set forth in the terms of the Hay-Paunco-fot© treaty. An examination of that treaty fails to show this right declared in terms that no one can doubt. The same Power that negotiated tho treaty can negotiate an amendment giving- us the clear right in this matter, which is our due. I« ailing such amendment, we must go on with our fortifications, and take the consequences—whatever they may be." BIGGEST GATES EVER MADE. A faint idea of the hugeness of the Panama Canal work may perhaps be obtained from the figures snowing the size of the gates to be used on the canal locks. Each of these gates, the manufacture of which has just begun, will be about as high as a six-storey building, 65 feet wide and 7 feet thick. There are to be forty-six pairs of these gates, and the structural steel to be put into them will bo eight times as much as the Eiffel Tower contains. It will weigh 60,000 tons. Tlie cost of the fates alone will be over £1.100,000. he parts are being made in Pittsburg. When completed, they will be sent, all numbered, so as to fit together like a picture puzzle, to the canal zone. Four hundred experts will be employed to set them up. The work will take about three years.