AMERICA’S HERO.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2670, 27 November 1909, Page 7

AMERICA’S HERO.

ROOSEVELT MAY AGAIN BE PRESIDENT?

President Taft is in San Francisco to-day, Avrites a “Press” correspondent on October 5, in the course of a tour of the United States, as lengthy as tlie voyage from’ NeiA r Zealand' to England. As he drove through the city streets this afternoon, over ,a four-mile route, the croAA-ds that lined both sides of the nay and AA-atched from thousands of AvindoAVS, kept up a continuous chorus of enthusiastic cheering, Avaved 1 the Stars and Stripes and' sang patriotic songs in his honor. It all seemed fquitq .sincere; it seemed to come from the heart. And yet President Taft Avould have got a truer insight into the heart of the West if lie had attended a meeting here last week, when an orator'declared amid the cheers of four thousand people.: —“The people "of America are stretching out their arms to the juugle of Africa . . .... to the man Avho

fought the pOAver of the great corporations, Theodore Roosevelt.” The'meeting Avas that at Avhich Francis J. Heney, prosecutor of the jSan Francisco grafters opened his election campaign. The speaker Avas Hiram Johnson’, the laAvyer who stepped into the- breach when Heney Avas shot and secured the conviction of the boss grafter Abo Johnson condemned ''President Taft mainly for AvhiteAvashing R. A. Ballinger Secretary of the Interior. Iho President had declared that the charges of corruption against Ballinger AA-ere mere “spectres of - suspicion,” and had authorised' tlie dismissal of the ofhcial who had brought them—Field Agent L. R. Glavis. He Jiad stated his conviction that Ballinger was in full sympathy Avith the Roosevelt policy ot keeping the water power and other natural resources of the country in the hands of the people instead of handing them over to the, rich trusts. But Johnson declared that Lai linger was the friend of the rich corporations, and •Avas trying to place them in a better position to get the poor under their heel- 'And Taft, he said, by giving Ballinger .his support, had proved himself untrue to the standard Roosevelt had raised. ■, ' . tf But this is not merely the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Months atro the suggestion was thrown out by an independent paper in San * rancjsco that America must look to Theodoie Roosevelt as its next President. Am last Aveek so influential a journal as “Collier’s Weekly” gave a broad hint of the same-kind. “Prophecy is hazardous.” says the paper, but, accord ing to the Zodiac, as readjust now the next President of the United States A V iii be T. Roosevelt, another Republican, who is independent, or a democrat ” “Collier’s” is angry with the President for supporting i Aldrich and Cannon, the reactionary leaders of t ie tivo Houses of Congress, as he did in a recent speech; but thei white-washing of Ballinger is held up to the scorn o the^nation. “Collier’s” deplores -that Ballinger’s political career lias been ooverfly but closely- associated u-ith predatory -monopolies, and ho is strainniy every nerve to make public office sub - diary to, private snap. If Mr I aft retains Kim, it will be an error tbs journal 'believes, ;from Avhich no never Wl Of l course,’ Taft has not lost his following. There-are many Avho, with the New York “Evening Post, recent criticisms as the raving of th •heathen.” Yet.it is undoubtedly true that he lias lost caste of late, especially in-the west.. His conduct too closely resembles a balancing act. Roosevelt never balanced. And the people still, love Roosevelt. -