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Home  »  Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen  »  Page 389

Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.

Page 389

on the platform of an equal chance to all and special favors to none. If they can, it is time we knew it.
  And, in the next place, I have not the least idea in the world that the men who are plotting against the President do, or ever did, seriously question the fairness of his policy. It is him they do not want. Let a witness that is certainly on the inside tell why. I quote from an editorial in the “Wall Street News”—another newspaper that dares to tell the truth, it seems: It is not because President Roosevelt is antagonistic to capital, or a partner in that hatred of wealth which is so odious and so threatening, that certain financial interests, expert in the manipulation of the markets, are scheming to prevent his election to a second term. They know very well that he is no enemy to capital. They know that by birthright, by education and by long political training he is a supporter of sound money, an advocate of a protective tariff, a firm upholder of the rights of property. They know that he is the last man in the world to lead in an assault on capital lawfully applied to the development of the commercial enterprises of the country. They have no fear that he will be led by ambition or impulse into paths of socialism, or that he will, for one moment, give the authority of his name and