Page:Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star.djvu/49

Rh, spoke out boldly; others did not. Party lines were not followed strictly. Republicans were not so bitter as men of the President's party. "We must stand by the President" had a popular appeal regardless of whether the Government was functioning efficiently or not. The view was widely held that it was unpatriotic to criticize the President. Frequently it was charged that Colonel Roosevelt's purposes were political, not patriotic. The articles were often decried as pro-German propaganda and The Star was branded as pro-German for publishing them.

In April, 1918, when this feeling was at its height, when the people in Kansas City's territory were in a highly inflamed state of feeling toward criticism of the Government, Colonel Roosevelt sent a ringing editorial, "Freedom Stands with her Back to the Wall," which The Star did not consider it advisable to publish. It had no doubt of the entire righteousness of the criticism passed on the officials at Washington, for the fruition of their slowness was shown in the poor showing America was making in these critical days, but it could see no good to come from the publication: in its opinion the article would only further inflame Colonel Roosevelt's enemies and irritate his friends. Colonel Roosevelt was informed of the office opinion of this article as he was on a later article ("How Not to Adjourn Politics," June 25) which was not published. He acquiesced in the decision, saying that he could readily conceive of local conditions which made their publication