Editorial Crucible [excerpt]

     AS PRESIDENT, Mr. Roosevelt is growing in public confidence and esteem as the days go by. The American people admire to the full the honesty and courage so characteristic of the man. But it must be frankly confessed that there was, in the background, just a little fear lest the manly, wholesome frankness of which he is the embodiment might be a little too prompt for the president of the United States, where such large and subtle conflicting interests converge. But this fear is rapidly passing away. Business men everywhere, as if by inspiration, have acquired great confidence in the stability and conservatism of his administration.
     In this they are entirely right. Mr. Roosevelt is not rash and erratic, but, on the contrary, intensely rational and thoroughly conservative for the great interests of national welfare. There is nothing which he is more determined upon than to preserve from a hint of disturbing policy the prosperous industrial conditions of the country. He may be a little prompt with some corrupt officials, but that will only inspire greater confidence, and it will serve notice on the others that corrupt methods will not prevail in his administration. Nothing will be done under his administration that will disturb fiscal conditions or business prosperity or the harmony of foreign relations. He is clean and firm, and hence the unclean will avoid him. This country was never surer of a strong, judiciously conservative administration, and one that will stand like a Gibraltar for industrial prosperity, than the administration of President Roosevelt. He is entitled to the unqualified support of organized labor, of legitimate capital and of every friend of clean government and personal freedom, regardless of section, race or color.