In a speech recently made by Mr. Root at the
Union League Club in New York (the chief Republican club in that city) he described President Roosevelt in the following words :—" Men say he is not safe ! He is not safe for the men who wish to prosecute selfish schemes to the public's detriment. He is not safe for the men who wish the Govern- ment conducted with greater reference to campaign contri- butions than to the public good. He is not safe for the men who wish to drag the President of the United States into a corner and make whispered arrangements which they dare not have shown to their constituents. But I say to you that he has been, during these years since President McKinley's death, the greatest conservative force for the protection of property and our institutions in the city of Washington. There is a better way to protect property, to protect capital, and to protect great enterprises than by the buying of legislators. There is a better way to deal with labour and keep it from rising into the tumult of unregulated and resistless mobs than by starving it or by buying or corrupting its leaders." This "picture of a man" is, we believe, astrne in fact as it is striking in oratory.
