Article August 24, 1899 Issue

Roosevelt to Methodists

The Governor Talks of Honesty in Politics and Denounces the Timid Good Man.

GOVERNOR THEODORE ROOSEVELT delivered an address on "Practical Politics and Decent Politics," to an audience of over twelve thousand persons at Ocean Grove, N. J., August 3. The address was delivered under the auspices of the Ocean Grove Summer School of Theology, and was in part as follows:—

"When I am addressing a body like this I naturally like to speak on the question of political life, for in a country such as ours the political life must in the long run correspond to the social and religious life.

"It is idle for the mass of good citizens to try to set themselves apart as not responsible for our political shortcomings. In the end the politicians must be exactly what the people allow them to be. They must represent the people—perhaps the vice, perhaps the virtue, perhaps the indifference of the people. This does not in the least excuse politicians that are bad, and we must keep in mind the fact that every vicious politician, above all every successful politician, tends to debauch public conscience, to render bad men bolder and decent men who are not far sighted more cynically indifferent than ever.

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