The New York Times/1898/10/23/Carl Schurz on Roosevelt

CARL SCHURZ ON ROOSEVELT.

Mr. has made public a very candid statement of the reasons why he cannot vote for Mr. and why he feels it his duty to vote for Mr., the independent candidate for Governor.

The chief of the reasons why Mr. reluctantly withholds his vote from Mr. is the manner in which that gentleman has advocated, in his own speeches, an extreme policy of expansion, involving not merely the risk but the threat of war. Mr. analysis of Mr. declared views on this subject is a model of courteously contemptuous statement. Even its victim can hardly resent it, though it is bound to make him very indignant. For our own part &mdash; though we fear Mr. will hardly thank us for the opinion &mdash; we are inclined to think that he has erred more in the statement of his ideas than in the ideas themselves, and that in the face of actual responsibility he would probably act with more sobriety than he talks.

But it remains true that he has talked very wildly; that his talk in this direction was uncalled for, and that in some salient regards it has been extremely offensive. He has distinctly appealed to rational men to vote for him as Governor on the ground that to vote against him would tend to provoke “a hitch” in the peace negotiations in Paris, and would be a vote to abandon all that we achieved in the war with Spain. Such an appeal is more than offensive; it it insulting. Mr. has made an obvious and effective response to it, and for this and the influence it may have Mr. has only himself to thank.


 * Facsimile at query.nytimes.com