ROOSEVELT'S UPHILL FIGHT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 101, 29 April 1912, Page 7

ROOSEVELT'S UPHILL FIGHT

A BITTERLY-WAGED CONTEST. THE TYRANNY OF MAJORITIES. [fbou otra own corbespondknt.] SAN FRANCISCO, 3rd April. Two things havo happened in the last fortnight ttwifc seem to point with considerable directness to the conclusion that Taft will defeat Roosevelt in the bitterly-waged contest for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. The first is the victory won by Senator La Follette over Mr. Roosevelt in the North Dakota, primary election, a victory which has been followed by a recrudescence <>f the La Follette boom and a- consequent split in the ranks of the Progressives, or Insurgents. The other is ttie over whelming manner in which, the New York voters in their primary ©lection last Tuesday pronounced for Taft as against Roosevelt. The election was for f^e purpose of naming delegates to the convention which will seject the Republican, candidate for President. Of the delegates elected eighty-seven are Taft supporters and but seven follower* of Colonel Rooijevelt. What detracts somewhat from the force and effect of the New York election is the fact that it was one of the most horribly muddled in the history of American politics. Roosevelt describe*, the election as "a criminal farce," and both the Courts and the State Legislature nr« being appealed to to order a new election. The Taft delegates, Mr. Roosevelt charges, were elected by methods "mor© outrageous than the woret methods Tamm>ny Hall itself ever employed in an election." In scores of voting booths there were no ballot, papers, and in many others the papers arrived a few minutes before th© time of polling closed. Thus many thousands of voters were disfranchised. It is charged by Roos&velt that the Republican machine of New York, wluch favours Taft, saw to it that it was in diataicte favourable to Roosevelt that the ballot papers were not delivered. Whether this be so or not, the election was disgracefully mismanaged. It was the. first under the new primary •lection law. • A STRENUOUS GAIT. Notwithstanding the rebuff administered to hifi candidacy by the prinutry elections in New_ York and North Dakota, the ex-Presiden,t is electioneering at hie meet strenuous gait. Almost nightly he delivers three or four speeches, and already has covered most of the^ States between Illinois and the Atlantic Coast. In a notable speech at New York he sharply rapped President Taft as wanting in flic democratic Americaß spirit. " Are the American people fit to govern themselves, to rule themselves, to control themselves?" is the question at issue, according to Roosevelt. Hie own answer Is that they are, but he accuses the President of believing otherwise. "Mr. Taft is very much afraid of the tyranny of majorities," lie went on. "I have scant patience wiWi this talk of the- tyranny of th© majoriy. Wherever there i» tyranny of the majority 1 shall protest against it with all my heai* and soul. But we are today suffering from the tyrnnny of minorities. It i« a small minonty that is grabbing our coal deposits, our water powers, and our hai'bour fronts. A small minority 1b fattening on the tale of adulterated foods an.d drugs. It . is a. small minority tJi*t lies behind monopolies and trusts. It is a small minority that stands behind the present law of master and servant, the sweat-shops, and ■the whole calender of social and industrial injustice." DOES NOT ASPIRE TO BE KINO. The niibnuuiagemeut of the New York primary election he partly laid at the door of the President. " When President Taft keejos dwelling on his distrust of papular action it is natural," ho &aid, " thai his lieutenant** feel that they lui,vo 4, fieo hand in' trying to ■thwart tho wishes of the people," in the same (speech a« that in which tho latter uta-teiueub was made, Roosevelt answered ill epigrammatic stylo the charge that he aspires to be King of the United States. "I like the Kings I have met," he said, " biit I don't want to_ be one because the functions of those Kings, expressed in the terms of democracy, would be the vice-presidency for life with the leadership of the * Four Hundred ' thrown in. I think there are other jobs that a full-sized man ' would prefer.