Protesting Too Much.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 13, 1912:
    Why does The Outlook contingent feel compelled to deny each fresh assertion that the Colonel is fond of cocktails? Mr. Roosevelt has been in the public gaze many years. If he had been a drinking man, the whole world would have, known it long ago. He does not drink. We have the best testimony that he is quite as temperate as the Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, who is, assuredly, not of the stripe of Toodle and Dick Swiveller. Why not let it go at that? Here is Dr. Abbott out with another private letter for public perusal branding as slanderous certain assertions, hitherto quite unregarded, that the Colonel kept up his courage in Chicago by the use of alcohol.
    Dr. Abbott calls the Colonel one of "the most wholesome, sane, temperate, sweet-minded men" that he has ever come in contact with. We should not use those adjectives to describe the Colonel, but we are perfectly willing to believe that the yarns about his drinking habits are foolish lies. Continual and vehement denial of them, however, will only serve to give them currency. Many men who drink talk and act with the violence and lack of logic of Roosevelt in his most sane and sweet-minded moods. The reports of his use of alcoholic stimulants have no other basis. These stories gain currency because the Colonel's habitual deportment is that of a raving alcoholic.
    Dr. Abbott and Mr. Roosevelt's other friends ought to treat the calumnies with silent contempt. We have been told enough about his fondness for milk and iced tea. There is no public disposition to attribute any of the small vices to the Colonel. He can work himself into a greater fury on his temperance drinks than an ordinary man could acquire on frequent potations of absinthe and brandy. That is an accepted fact. Various other charges against the Colonel require answering. The Outlook contingent will have use for all its supply of rhetoric during the campaign. Why waste ammunition and at the same time give circulation to slanders which might otherwise be disregarded?