AMERICAN LETTER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15902, 13 April 1912, Page 15

AMERICAN LETTER.

DOINGS IN THE BIG REPUBLIC.

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. [Feom Our Correspondent.] NEW YORK, March 1. MR ROOSEVELT’S REAPPEARANCE.

Perhaps the most astonishing development of tho gathering storm 3 of a most important presidential election has been tho reappearance in political circles of Theodore Roosevelt as a claimant for the Republican nomination. “My hat is in the ring,” tho former President told tho reporters three days ago, and ,ho made his statement tho more clear by adding: “If the nomination is tendered mo I shall accept.” Those who have been following the political situation closely say, however, that there is more in the Roosevelt statement than this. They claim, and surface indications would seem to substantiate their claims, that Mr Roosevelt has been steadily planning ever since he left the White House (March 4, 1C09) to regain the presidency. At any rate, there is no doubt now about the organisation of tho movement to further his candidacy. It is adroit and remarkably complete in all of its ramifications. It is already engaged upon its nation-wide task of circulating a skilfully-prepared literature and suave Speakers to help ensure tho nomination of tho ex-President. The propaganda is nothing if not effective. Still, it will take a nation-wide campaign of a deal of strength to counteract tho nation-wide impression that Mr Roosevelt is playing in bad faith. Mr Roosevelt on the evening of his re-election—in November, 1904—said with absolute distinctness that in no event would lie accept either nomination or election for another term as President of tho United States. This statement is now being reprinted in largo type in many newspapers and is causing tho candidate some embarrassment. He has recently tried to explain that away by saying that if you offer a man. a second cup of coffee at breakfast and he declines that is no indication that ho will refuse a cup on any other day. To this naive argument the newspapers say “slops,” and suggest that no one may turn a difficult corner more skilfully than a lawyer.

THE ETHICS OF FRIENDSHIP. It will be more difficult for Mr Roosevelt to explain away his relations to President Taft, who has set his heart upon re-nomination and reelection, an honour to which our executives look forward as a sort of recognition of their abilites throughout tlieir firot terms. Mr Taft was brought into tho political arena by Mr Roosevelt. Mr. Taft was not seeking for the glory. He was a hard- worker, a man of undoubted integrity, a scholarly Judge who had shown remarkable executive ability in handling some difficult situations in tho Philippines for Mr Roosevelt when President. Mr Roosevelt, who has never hesitated at assuming dictatorship, determined that Mr Taft should be his successor. Tho two men were intimate friends, and through that friendship Mr Taft succeeded his former chief. The Taft Administration has not be6n brilliant; it has not always been successful; its blunders have been many. Yet Mr Taft is in his real personality a most lovable sort of man, and ho has won for himself a deep-seated affection in the hearts of many Americans, some of whom are politically opposed to him.

We have pretty definite ideas of justice and decency, in this country, while our codo of the ethics of friendship is fairly well defined. There is a distinct feeling across the land today that Mr Roosevelt, having created Mr Taft should have stood by him. The Taft policies wero largely the policies that Mr Roosevelt had created: indeed, it was only when tho President began to think for himself, when he began to appoint to high Cabinet positions men who did not bear the approval stamp ,of his predecessor and refused to consider men whom Mr Roosevelt suggested, that Mr Roosevelt began to turn his back upon him. Tho breach, onco started, grew wider. For two years it has been noted that the two men studiously avoided meeting one another at public gatherings of every sort. This situation in a measure precipitated the open break between the two men, which was followed by Mr Roosevelt’s Qjinouncement this week that ho would accept the Republican nomination if tendered him.

THE PRESIDENTIAL TRADITION. To most Americans the Roosevelt pronouncement has a third and greater principle to combat than leither of the two just cited. It has been a tradition, an unwritten law, in this country that no President shall serve more than two terms. That seems a wise custom, and two terms were the extreme lengths of the administration of such really great Presidents as AVashington, Jefferson and Lincolu. It was suggested to AVashington that he should accept a third term, and he declined tho honour, and so set precedent. Some other Presidents, Grant most recent of all, have held hopes of a third term; they ha,vo invariably learned in one way or another that even a republic can have its customs and unwritten laws and stick rather closely by them. Most of our clear-' thinking folk see in the continuance of one man as President the first step taken toward dictatorship. The United States do not want a dictator, no matter how good a man he may be, and right there is the vory great objection to. Mr Roosevelt’s candidacy expressed" in concrete form. A\ T e have lived a little too close to Mexico to enjoy the idea of a one-man Presidency year after year. THE TROUBLES IN MEXICO

Poor Mexico 1 Since the forced abdication of her one-man President, Porfirio Diaz, she has been having strenuous times of it. I am just back myself from the Mexican frontier, 2500 miles distant from New York, and I have seen with my own eyes how vital a situation may becomo when one is actually standing before it. Take El Paso—the queer little American city at tho great rail gateway to Mexico from the United States—Mexican troubles have been something more than mere nowspaper despatches to her citizens. The important Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez is just across the Rio Grande—the boundary river—from her, and Juarez is always falling into the hands of one lighting faction or another. Only the day before yesterday the rebels took it away from tho Government troops, and to-day they are receiving the Customshouse earnings—the chief reason for taking the town.

Once or twice in the engagements at Ciudad. Juarez tho modern rifles of the soldiers and the insurgents have proved better than the marksmanship of the men who held them and bullets have gone flying into the United States —with the tragio result in El Paso one day last spring of a perfectly innocent American citizen being shot dead while standing in front of his place of business. That thing of itself nearly created an “ affaire intern ationalo ” and was a primo factor in bringing the United 'States army into a hurried concentration camp at San Antonio, Texas, about three hundred miles back from the boundary. AVhen the Mexican riflemen use enough com-mon-sense to turn, tlieir rifles away from the United States, El Paso rather enjoys the novelty of having a real battle fought within two miles of its City Hall. The town quits business and goes up upon the house-tops

to see what can be seen. The next day it organises automobile and trol-ley-car excursions to tho battlefield. But when the Mexicans show their traditionally careless _ marksmanship and bullets begin to zip on tho north side of tho Rio Grande, El Paso get? hot and wires to Washington for help. THE QUESTION OF INTERVENTION.

It begins to look to impartial observers as -it tiie United States would be forced, after nearly seventy years, to again intervene in Mexico. There seams to bo little doubt but that tho new President of that republio, Madero, is an honest and an earnest man. It also seems that there are to-day so many parties of revolutionists, insurgents and brigands seeking his post as vo have transformed the country from peace to almost constant fighting—and not all of it desultory, by any means. There are a good nnuiy American citizens in Mexico. Tho raro opportunities of that undeveloped country, in addition to its proximity, have made it an inviting field for investors, and men with tlieir families by tens of thousands have gone down into the old Spanish territory to share in tho prosperity that must como to it within the nest few years, As matters stand the life and property of those American citizens are almost constantly endangered and the pressure being brought upon President Taft to “do something” is both constant and increasing. • . On tho other hand, uhe Mexicans have no particular desire to have our intervention extended away into their proud capital city. They .have made hio secret of their feelings m the matter. “I venture to say tlio United States intervene in Mexico a affairs that country will have taken one of the most momentous steps in its history,” said Juan Sanchez Ancona private secretary to President Maaero, only yesterday. 1 1 Every citizen in the republic of Mexico will be in danger. Every American in Mexico would probablv be slaughtered at the first news that the American flag.has crossed the border.” With such bloodthirsty spirits to the south of us, is it any wonder that wo have acquired a habit of turning to onr neighbours—-the clean-handed, clean-hearted Canadians —with a feeling of something more than akin to relief at noting that on one side of tis at least vre nave a folK of our own tongue and motherhood:' All of these Latin-American nations to the south of the United States are more or less constant irritations and problems to us. Mr Knox, Secretary of State, convoyed on a battleship, has just started to make a number of respectful . visits to tile South American nations. The first message ho received after leaving \\ asiiington was one to the effect that he had better stay away from tho United States of Colombia- It seems that Colombia is engaged in settling some claims in relation to the establishment of the republio of Panama and toe Canal zone, which are a little naore than irritating to her. Yet Mr Knox, on the first- stop of his long trip, at the Canal zone, which is to-day the focus or every American eye, will almost brush into Colombian territory. PANAMA CANAL PROBLEMS. The Panama Canal—perhaps tho greatest engineering feat ever attempted in the world—is to-day 70 per cent complete. The water will bo turned into the ditch this autumn, and within twenty montlis, although the formal opening of the Canal is to be delayed until 1915, so ns to have it _ coincident with tho great exposition in its celebration which Sau Francisco is preparing to hold in the summer of that year. Already the vexed questions of its operation are matters of public discussion hero, and there and everywhere. Will the Canal charge tolls to the merchant ships that uso.it? Cannot a way b« found by which the ships of the United States can. bo exempted from the toll* that must be charged vessels of alien nations? These aro two of tho most vital questions that have already arisen in connection with the great new ditch, and no man Is bold enough as yet to predict their ultimate solution. Tho Canal is bound to make important changes in tho inter-Stato' commerce situation of the country, although it is three thousand miles south of tho southernmost tips of the United States. Yet by It the emigrants from _ Europe can be brought to San Francisco and other Californian ports for 18dol, less, than half the present transportation charge, and so, with cheap labour at last at her doors, California looks .for* ward to an era of tremendous _ induotrial development, the thing which sho has lacked up to the present tima. And that is but one of tho. ways in which tho diggiug of our new waterway may change the entire complexion of our country. The great railroad heads of tho land are already studying its possibilities witli the keenest care. RAILWAY i'ROGRESS.

Ono of those great railroad heads |g already gone—perhaps the last of his kind. With the death of Edwin Hawley tliero passed away almost the last of tho overlords of our American railroads. Mr Hawley was, in some respects, a miniature Harriman. Ho had the Harriman genius of railroad assimilation. although it must be oonfe> sed that he lacked tho masterful will and tjie constructive force of the man who made Union-Pacific a "power in the land. He did give ample evidence of his ability to recast,, if not reconstruct, tottering railroad properties, and to convert them into profit producers. Yet ho was almost the last of his sort. Today it has become impossible in the United States for ono man to regard a vast railroad svstem as his nersonal property. The Federal and Stato Governments, with their great powers of regulating tho operations of these arteries of traffic, have helped to bring this changed condition about; they have been further aided by the constant division of increasing wealth throughout the so-called “ middle class” of Americans, and their investment of this wealth in railroad securities. Thus wo hav# • tho Pennsylvania railroad with some 70,000 shareholders, and perhaps the best organised and best managed system in tho country to-day. Other roads are coming to the same sort of thing. Tho personal railroad, personally owned, personally managed by some sort of financial autocrat or overlord, is fast passing from the map of the land.