A single story, still
believed, as I know, by persons of eminence in their professions,
will illustrate this. When one of the great contests between the
President and the Interests was on, he remembered that one of
their representatives in New York had damaging, confidential
letters from him. Hearing that these might be produced, Roosevelt
telephoned one of his trusty agents to break open the desk of the
Captain of Industry where they were kept, and to bring them to
the White House, before ten o'clock the following morning. This
was done. To believe that the President of the United States
would engage in a vulgar robbery of the jimmy and black-mask sort
indicates a degree of credulity which even the alienists could
hardly have expected to encounter outside of their asylums. It
suggests also, that Baron Munchausen, like the Wandering Jew
Ahasuerus, has never died. Does any one suppose that the person
whose desk was rifled would have kept quiet? Or that, if the
Interests had had even reasonably sure evidence of the
President's guilt, they would not have published it? To set spies
and detectives upon him with orders to trail him night and day
was, according to rumor, an obvious expedient for his enemies to
employ.
Pages:
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276