Letter from President Theodore Roosevelt to Secretary of the Interior E. A. Hitchcock

Mr. Roosevelt's Opportunity. The American people demand another special message, this time a message in defence, encouragement and champion- ship of the Hon. ETHAN ALLEN HITCH- cock, Secretary of the Interior. Here Opportunity awaits the Presi- dent with widespread, rosy arms and heaving midriff. Mr. HITCHCOCK has been striving in his modest way to save the people's property from plain pillage. Hereby he has launched a number of more or less prominent citizens on the pathway to the penitentiary, with others yet to come. But he is especially anxious to stand between the Indians and their would-be looters and despoilers. This is where he has incurred the opposition of the mighty and set loose the dogs of rapine and con piracy. On several oc- casions within the last three weeks he has been haled before a special commit- tee of the Senate, to be browbeaten and denounced by statesmen of far off West- ern affiliations and responsibilities. The now famous chin whiskers of Tom CARTER-of Montana or elsewhere-have bristled in a wind of eloquent reproach. WARREN and CLARK, twin jewels of Wyoming, let down their respective and of course illustrious chins in order to release a bawl of special devastation. Other members of the select committee in question shoot with force and accuracy at Mr. HITCHCOCK. It is the psychological moment for another message of peculiar fervor from the White House. The people have been educated to an appetite. The occasion titillates the people's honest hunger. This is the appointed time for a fulmina- tion of potent, overwhelming violence. Mr. ROOSEVELT'S charge at San Juan was wonderfully picturesque, a blaze of gallantry and so forth; but when he rides, with lance in rest, to the rescue of a quiet, honest gentleman trying to do his duty and sore beset by enemies, he will have done a finer and a nobler thing than the storming of heights or the capt- ure of Spanish outworks. Will he do it? COf course he will!