An Inherited Fight

THE OFFICE of President Roosevelt is to him doubly a trust—a trust from the people and a trust from the man whose political executor, in a sense, he has becomingly recognized himself to be. Doubtless he will find the circumstance now helpful and, again, hampering. In the move for lower tariff duties under the banner of “Reciprocity” he will encounter all the fight his lusty appetite can possibly crave. The obligation to forward this movement is rather the most embarrassing of the legacies from his predecessor. Nor must the disbelievers in high Protection hope for as much relief from him as McKinley could and probably would have provided. Mr. McKinley was unquestionably the man of most authority in his party and his stand in matters of foreign trade at the time of his death was peculiarly effective because of his long and tried devotion to the basic principles of Protection. When the ablest and foremost preacher of Protection, who is also the ablest and foremost Republican, declares for substantial modifications of the system as applied, without abating any of his faith in abstract Protection, the effect is bound to be considerable. Cautiously and skillfully Mr. McKinley had worked to prepare his party for the change which he shrewdly saw was inevitable. The most hardened defender of protected monopoly had to listen when the high priest of Protection talked of the need for foreign markets and the necessity for opening our own market to secure them. As a tariff-abater President Roosevelt will have much less moral influence, and, for this reason, with an equal earnestness of purpose, he will probably accomplish less for freedom of trade than McKinley would have done during the remainder of his term. Yet all praise is due him for his avowed resolve to continue the fight, and no small results, indeed, may be expected from his efforts.