Middletown Transcript

"It is not fair to President Roosevelt to insist that he shall be a candidate next year to succeed himself. He has said at least thrice that he is not to be a candidate, and others speaking for him have declared that if the President should be nominated his party would be met by the most unusual situation of a candidate declining to accept an honor placed upon him.

Of course if it should come to pass, when the Republican national convention meets, that there was a unanimous call of the delegates that Theodore Roosevelt should be their candidate it would create a problem the President would have to face. He would meet it. We do not believe he is to be called upon at this time to make any further statements in relation to his intention to quit when his present term expires. He is a target for cynics and unfair critics, who maintain that the President is not honest in his refusal to be considered a candidate, and his mistaken friends are adding to the criticisms by insisting that he shall rescind his decision.

In the meantime the President's political opponents should be fair enough to take the President at his word; and his friends and admirers should not seek to embarrass him."—Morning News.