THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 2 July 1907, Page 4

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

WILT, ROOSEVELT STAND AGAIN? Whatever be the outcome of the next Presidential election, ihcri is a general ilisopsition, says the New York correspondent of tile Standard, to believe lh:it the Harriman-Kosevelt controversy, will lie looked hack noon as the actual start ing point of th? struggle. Ureal railway issues, a Wall street panic, ami a pev-tal dispute between the I'ivsideiit and one of the most powerl ill railway linanciers of the country through the publication of an old eorres pondenee have pricipilated a struggle of which the climax cannot he reached till November, 1!)(1S, nearly in months ahead. For more '.!mu a year, until the Republican Convention definitely settles the matter, internal factions of the party hi power will obscure the lines of battle. I he din and coul'i'.-d.m being ail the greater from the number of rivals brought into the foreground for the Presidential nomination. l'or the present the opposition of the Democratie party need [baldly be taken into consideration. The [interest lies in the dominant personality of the White House.

Will he succeed in ip-f ailing as his sue cessor one in more or les-. sympathy with his own legislative and executive 1 policy, or be forced by the pressure of circumstances to withdraw his s.-t-;!,--and accept a nomination I from a party distracted by an embarrassment of choice? Otherwise he r the risk of seeing (lie eliorts of his administration checked, perhaps fnistrat ed by a President of a negative or reactionary character, if chosen by the nution from his own party, or of extreme revolutionary tendencies if chosen from

his opponents. The recent attack on the trusts from Washington may be attributed to a Koosevcltian characteristic of impulsiveness brought on by accusations levelled at the financial purity by the means by which President Roosevelt's own election was seemed in Wot. That insinuations to this ell'ect should come from Mr llarriinan, whom he considers the arch-enemy of the policy of railroad regulation which, for the present at least, is the one subject in which he is deeply and vitally interested, seems to him monstrous. The lengths to which Mr Roosevelt has gone in bis denunciations are generally deplored by sober men of all parties who think that such utterances liave woefully impaired the dignity of the nation's head. His best friends only palliate them as his way. They have increased the dislike of Mr Roosevelt on the part of those who have always disliked him and given a fresh and more formidable, handle to bis enemies. But. theii ,I'ect in causing him damage can easily be over-estimated outside his own country. His personal popularity is probably in no way diminished. On the contrary, his persuasion that he is the object of an "organised capitalist conspiracy," like that of 190-1, wishing to defeat his present policies and make it impossible for him to bring about the election of a man next year who will carry out the campaign of corporation regulation he bus so vigorously maugualcd is likely to appeal to the multitude. He acts ou the principle | thai the surest way to break up U,.. plans of the schemers, if there ale such, is to take the public into his confidence.

-Nor, again, is the I'rcsidcnt'., position much weakened by the fact of his tuning invited at times .Mr llarrimau to personal conferences. 'J his is uulhiiie new for Mr lioosevcll. When in olla°c at Albany as (Jovcrnor of .New York [Stale he again and again consulted and negotiated uilli political '-bo-sea' 7 and opponents in a way that no other public ollicial with aspirations of a higher national career, uiilraiiinieilcd by Mispcel association,, would venture to do. Such loailcncs, is a ]; (PU se-Velt asset. Ilis seli-conlidonci; . im l ,-,,nvicii,m of his ability to e-cape the .stigma of -entangling alliance- have 1,ii1,,,i0 been ju,illled. Suspicion- and charge, ari,iiig jroui -ocl, relation, l,,,v<j been comnionly ignored, and, utiles* the general judgment '"•'I<CK an exception in tl„. , . enl j,,. stance, the „,;„, of | lis Mmmr[rrs ~„., voters are ready to forgive llll>v , ,„,„. promising conf,.|-eiiees. of which dillcr■■'iil versions are possible. That .Mi- Jioosevelt has entertained any H'ot'gld of .hanging his determination ""' ' """■tdidate again is impossible '"' ''"lief l'.v H'ose who know him imim"'"l.v. his mind having „„,,, been made »l»; ■*••*- "o sensible man can disguise "■"»' '■""-■lt" the po-„ibilily t|,. lt ~,„, pressure of events IM .,y compel hi,,, ~„„. of what was honestly intended I" In- an irrevo.able decision.' ],, the "!"'"'"" "' Seiialm- Allison, of lowa, to which his long experience of public'lire ■'<""''>"* special weight:, '-it seems ineviMble that President Koosevcli will ! >. lofced to run again. '['he President "as -imrre in his declarafion. b„( (lie Ncpublican party must „„, ~,,„„. h - m (|| I ' , '" li,i " '"''i' in (hat deiei-iuination."