. The holidays prevented us noticing last week the extremely
unfair . attack on President Roosevelt published in the Morning Post of December 26th from the pen of Mr. Maurice Low. Mr. Low begins by declaring that "many people were fully convinced that Mr. Roosevelt was endeavouring to manipulate public sentiment so as to force his nomination" for the Presidency at the next election. He goes on :—" I do not impugn Mr. Roosevelt's sincerity. I do not question his motives, nor do I know whether public opinion does him an injustice, because it is not possible for any man to look into another man's heart. I merely state a very widespread belief." Of such writing we can only say that we do impugn its sincerity. We can look into another man's heart when he writes like this, and we see plainly that what lie is doing is to suggest a charge of insincerity which he has not the courage to make boldly and directly. We make no objection to Mr. Low preferring such a charge openly and on his own responsibility, for we hold that the freest criticism of its governing men is absolutely essential to a nation's political
elf are. Mr. Low would be, in our opinion, grossly mistaken in directly, charging Mr. Roosevelt with political insin- cerity; but it is a matter in which the accuser could quite well be honestly mistaken. What he has no right to do is to prefer his charge in the insidious and indirect fashion which he has adopted, not merely in the words quoted above, but also in a subsequent passage, where Mr. Low begins by sheltering himself behind the belief of "public opinion," and ends by the declaration :—" Seeing the futility of fighting when victory was impossible, he made the announcement of last night [December 11th] eliminating himself as a future Presidential possibility."
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