U.S. PRESIDENCY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 99, 26 April 1912, Page 7

U.S. PRESIDENCY.

BITTER ARTICLE OX ROOSEVELT Tlio San Francisco Argonaut last month published a bitter article on Mr Roosevelt, from which the following is taken:— “It is hardly possible that ?vlr Roosevelt can hope in the face of the many handicaps which besot his candidacy to win the party nomination at Chicago. Bright pictures of ■ the situation and its possibilities have ,no doubt been drawn for him by his personal satellites—the Pinc.liots, : Garfields, Loebs, et al. It is to be remembered that he ■ has always held extravagant estimates of the worth and wisdom of his immediate associates. But even the credulity of friendship plus the credulity of ambition and vanity can hardly have gone so far as to convince a man of long political observation that lie can fight his way to success against so many and such formidable forces. Nevertheless, Mr Roosevcdt’s “hat is in the ring.” Ho is eagerly pleading for a third cup of coffee, though in his heart, wc fancy, he knows he will not get it. “What can he the motive which thus loads Mr Roosevelt to stake his established frame upon an impossible attempt to risk almost certain humiliation in a cause foredoomed? His hunger for the eyes and ears of the multi-, tndo, Lis invincible ambition to be at the centre of things, his lust for power and primacy—these impulses may have something to do with it. Ho is like the prizefighter, who, even though he knows that all the probabilities arc against him, nevertheless is drawn by forces he is powerless to resist to venture ,once again. .These impulses, wo repeat,u may have-rsome-thing to do with it. But wo believe' there is a deeper-motive—nothing jess than Ids resentment and hatred of • hiai once close ahd beloved’ friend, I "Mr> Taft.' “It is a fact that cannot lie denied that Roosevelt as President was both the sponsor ! abO -creator of'T/ift as a candidate.lp the Cabinet “Mr' Taft had been a wijUiytgly subordjnpf,? and even biddable*.fLguve. In hisYon-* coit Mr Roosevelt assumed that'■Mr Taft as President VvOuld he as' Taft the Cabinet Minister. Ho was, not prepared for the enlargement of character, for the elevation of spirit that a great and personal responsibility often inspires in men of sluggish tcapper ament, and which these forces did in fact inspire Mr Taft. “Mi' Roosevelt undertook to ‘run’ Mr Taft, and in this effort he sustained the humiliation of his life—the only profound humiliation which the curious fortunes of his life bad over brought to him. He had not the philosophy, the poise, the self-control to meet the situation as became a man. Resentment, tortured by an allconsuming conceit, grow into a passion to which, there lias been subordinated every other motive of his being. Now his consuming desire is to heat Taft—to destroy the man whose independence so rebuked his presumption and vanity, whose character in office lias won for him a kind of approval which Roosevelt himself was never able to command. Hero, we suspect, is the secret of a candidacy which represents not so much the hope of success as a deeply fixed purpose of personal vengeance,”