and Justice, which would contain every idea that is here
expressed. The essayist might even feel somewhat ashamed of his
production on the ground that all the ideas that it contained
were platitudes. But it is one thing to write an essay far from
the madding crowd, and it was quite another to face an audience
every member of which was probably a partisan of either the
workers, the employers, or the officials, and give them straight
from the shoulder simple platitudinous truths of this sort
applicable to the situation in which they found themselves. Any
one of them would have been delighted to hear these things said
about his opponents; it was when they were addressed to himself
and his associates that they stung. The best part of it, however,
was the fact that those things were precisely what the situation
needed. They were the truth; and Roosevelt knew it. His sword had
a double edge, and he habitually used it with a sweep that cut
both ways. As a result he was generally hated or feared by the
extremists on both sides. But the average citizen heartily
approved the impartiality of his strokes.

In the year 1905 the Governor of Idaho was killed by a bomb as he
was leaving his house. A former miner, who had been driven from
the State six years before by United States troops engaged in
putting down industrial disorder, was arrested and confessed the
crime. In his confession he implicated three officers of the
Western Federation of Miners, Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone.
These three men were brought from Colorado into Idaho by a method
that closely resembled kidnaping, though it subsequently received
the sanction of the United States Supreme Court. While these
prominent labor leaders were awaiting trial, Colorado, Idaho, and
Nevada seethed and burst into eruption. Parts of the mining