p. 16 | GOOD WORDS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 1, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 26.

GOOD WORDS.

The following good words were spoken by President Roosevelt, before a political club, in his recent visit to San Francisco:—

It is absolutely essential if we are to have the proper standard of public life that the promise shall square with performance. A lie is no more to be excused in politics than out of politics. (Applause.) A promise is as binding on the stump as off the stump, and now there are two facets to that crystal. In the first place, the man who makes a promise which he does not intend to keep, and does not try to keep, should rightly be adjudged to have forfeited in some degree what should be every man's most precious possession, his honor. (Applause.) And on the other hand, the public that exacts a promise which should not or ought not to be kept, or which can not be kept, is by just so much forfeiting its right to self-government. (Applause). There is no surer way of destroying the capacity for self-government in a people than to accustom that people in demanding the impossible or the improper from its public men. No man fit to be a public man will promise either the impossible or the improper, and if the demand is made that he shall do so it means putting a premium on the unfit in public life.

It was abundantly applauded among the elite of the club. It ought to be applauded everywhere, and reduced to practice, but it will not be. Politicians will continue to promise all sorts of things, and will not perform. And, worse than all, the people will continue to demand all sorts of things which they never ought to demand from a statesman. For instance, a candidate is asked to subscribe to labor-union principles, to the Sunday-law propaganda, and other things as unreasonable. And in the majority of cases he can not meet his pledges, neither ought he to do it. The only true representative of the people is the man who represents all the people, and who, true to his oath of office, seeks to legislate equally for all and specifically for none. He is there to work for the interest of the man who does not keep Sunday as well as for the interest of the Sunday-keeper. He who stands on any other ground will be forced into positions where he will prove false to his oath of office, or else leave behind a pathway strewed with broken promises. For a picture of many of the politicians of these days see Micah 7:2-4. There is surely need of such words: there is far greater need for their practice.