The Week [excerpt]

     The outline of the President’s policy telegraphed from Buffalo is as encouraging for what it omits as for what it contains. There is not a line in it which “breathes short-winded accents of new broils.” On the contrary, it contains the promise to “use all conciliatory methods of arbitration in all disputes with foreign nations, so as to avoid armed strife.” The spirit of Jingoism is not only wanting from it, but is expressly cast out. This is the most admirable feature of the communication. Next to this assurance of peace (for it is certain that no nation is going to seek a quarrel with us) is the declaration of the trade policy which the new Administration will favor, namely, “a more liberal and extensive reciprocity in the purchase and sale of commodities,” and the “abolition entirely of commercial war with other countries, and the adoption of reciprocity treaties.” This is identical with the policy already adopted by President McKinley and advocated by him in his last public speech, as well as in many previous ones. Mr. Roosevelt has been a consistent Republican through all his political career, and has perhaps felt constrained at times to accept a protective policy more extreme than he would have liked. He has never been reckoned, however, as a high-tariff man. His language, on the other hand, respecting the merchant marine will perhaps be interpreted as favoring the Hanna-Payne ship-subsidy scheme. Yet it does not really commit him to any particular method of “encouraging” the merchant-marine. Neither the Republican platform of 1900 nor that of 1896 commits the party to any particular method of doing so. Most gratifying is the closing paragraph in the Buffalo declaration which promises “the placing in positions of trust men of only the highest integrity.” This, we will not doubt, is the firm and honest purpose of the new President.