NEWS WORTH REMEMBERING
News Worth Remembering PRESIDENT TAFT has begun a nation-wide campaign against the Progressives. It is to be a personal campaign. The President will make another "swing of the circle," carrying his...
...What Kind of Commission...
...of the House, both Republicans and Democrats, including Mr...
...Senator La Follette, however, insists that his candidacy depends upon the wishes of the Progressive Republicans, themselves, and they alone can make him a candidate in the accepted sense of that term...
...Following the President on his trip of excuses and explanations and anti-progressive speeches will be prominent Progressive Republicans to meet the issue and invite the public to scrutinize the public record of the President upon such matters as tariff revision downward, railroad regulation, the Alaska situation, and anti-trust legislation...
...Referring to the La Follette-Under-wood bill to revise Schedule K he said: "Thus the bill is seen to be a compromise between avowed free traders and avowed protectionists, a bill conceived in an unnatural alliance...
...We cheerfully meet him on that issue...
...Open to Full Debate "In this connection it should not be...
...He has done me many kindnesses, and I have tried to repay them so far as opportunity has served...
...Underwood and myself, which is essentially a criticism of all Democrats in the House and Senate, because all Democrats stood together, is absolutely uncalled for, and is as ungrateful a performance as I can remember...
...A Nation-Wide Campaign The campaign planned at the Progressive Republican headquarters is to cover the entire country...
...Mann, the present Republican minority leader...
...The president was authorized to appoint a committee "to take such steps as the committee deemed best to expose the fallacies of judicial recall...
...The President's tariff board is composed of able and well informed men in a general way...
...he stands for a handful of protected tariff barons and by his veto enables them to continue to levy unjust and exorbitant tribute upon the consumers of the land...
...I was privileged as Democratic minority leader to lead in that great and righteous fight, which will be a consolation to me so long as life lasts...
...a bill framed in ignorance of the exact effect of its operation and a bill that presents only those methods in its adoption which had been generally condemned in the making of previous tariff bills...
...Chairman Underwood and myself particularly as Democratic targets...
...The President himself has cut out the issue...
...At the head of this office is Walter L. Houser, formerly Secretary of State of Wisconsin...
...Underwood, and Mr...
...The campaign will be conducted upon principle...
...La Follette Addresses Grange At Williams Grove, Pennsylvania, on the 31st, Senator La Follette of Wisconsin was the principal speaker at a mass-meeting of the State Grange Patrons of Husbandry...
...We stand for the best interests of the masses...
...It might as well be understood now as later, that if the tariff board is ta be used as a pretext for delaying tariff revision downward, as the President is now using it, instead of expediting genuine and salutary tariff revision, its days will be few, for we will cut off its supplies...
...Poindexter, of Washington...
...The service of some House and Senat< members even goes back to- the McKinley bill, the Snrine-er bill, the Mills hill and the Morrison bill...
...They assisted—most of them—in the passage of the Reciprocity Bill, because they believed in its usefulness and in so doing they united with the Republican support and did not 'play politics' in its passage...
...Representative Norris, of Nebraska, in a speech at Patton, Pennsylvania, August 29, said: "If President Taft has actually made up his mind to start a personally-conducted warfare upon the Democrats and the progressives in the Republican ranks, the Progressives welcome the fight...
...The officials claim that such recognition of the federation would hamper the railways in performing their duty to the public...
...So far as I have been able to learn, the others are not experts...
...MeCall of Massachusetts and the Republicans and not a word of thanks to the Democrats...
...They will no doubt take up the cudgels in their own behalf...
...Appeals for Support The President said he expected to submit to Congress in December recommendations for a revision of the Cotton and Woolen Schedules based on the report of the Tariff Board...
...We made the best record of constructive statesmanship made by any Congress in the same length of time in a generation, and that fact is precisely what caused the President to assail the Democrats in Congress...
...forgotten that when Mr...
...W( did no such thing...
...If any politics was played on reciprocity, the President himself played it—personally at that...
...They personally and with their helpers at once began to assemble information on the wool schedule...
...It is not a flippant or unfriendly statement to say that he possessed only the 'surface information' on the tariff, as Governor Dingley denominated it, which is possessed by every citizen well informed in a general way...
...Works, of California...
...So I leave them out of this interview...
...I am very sorry to say, however, that having pursued a purely statesmanlike course, with reference to reciprocity, they did 'play politics' of the most • irresponsible character in respect to three tariff bills, which by uniting with certain Republicans in the Senate, they were able to pass and present to the executive for his signature...
...Underwood and myself, have spent half a lifetime studying and debating the tariff...
...It will be noted that while the President's conscience would not permit him to sign a bill revising even one schedule —the wool schedule, the rates of which he declared to be too high and in need of reduction — without recommendation from his board of non-experts, he promptly signed the outrageous Payne-AIdrich-Smoot tariff bill without the counsel, advice or tuition of any tariff board whatsoever...
...That was after I and other Democrats had expressed our opinions with considerable force and bluntness about his letter of thanks to Mr...
...These are the simple facts in respect to the tariff legislation attempted in the House and in the Senate...
...Norris Accepts Challenge The Progressive Republicans have taken up the gage of battle thrown at them by the President and are entirely willing to take the issue before the American people...
...Underwood chairman...
...In a recent utterance, Senator Cummins, of Iowa, declared he was opposed to the nomination of President Taft...
...When asked about the recall of judges, he replied, "It is just the same for judges as for any other officials...
...Given Full Consideration "The President implies that he refused to sign the wool bill because it was introduced and rushed through without due consideration...
...He has allied himself openly and definitely with the re-action-ary element of the Republican party— the same element that put through the Payne-Aldrich tariff law two years ago —and has in unanswerable terms repudiated the policies for which the Progressive Republicans have been fighting...
...Nevertheless and notwithstanding, the President signed the Payne-Aldrich-Smoot bill and vetoed ours...
...19 and selected the Democrat members of the committee on ways and means, making Mr...
...Was Warned of Action "He seems to think that we ought to have adjourned so soon as reciprocity was disposed of—that is he seems to think that Congress is composed of a lot of schoolboys to be ordered about by him as head teacher...
...Underwood and I advocated his tariff commission...
...There is only one aspect of the case that causes us any sorrow...
...He said the people need not fear the initiative, referendum or recall "because you can't enlist the 90,000,000 people of America in anything unless it is right...
...I know that my friend William Howard is...
...for, if it had not been for the action of the Democrats in the House in both the Sixty-first and Sixty-second congresses in lining up almost unanimously in favor of reciprocity with Canada, he would have been the most thoroughly discredited and humiliated President sine* the days of Andrew Johnson...
...He is as a rule a most amiable gentleman, but at the time he seems to have been in a bad temper, because he sees defeat staring him in the face...
...Otherwise, we very cheerfully accept a president's challenge, and will promptly clear the decks for action...
...but he was forewarned both by Mr...
...many of us participated later in the hearing and debates on the Payne-Aldrich-Smoot bill, which the President has declared'is the best tariff bill ever passed and which I confidently assert is the worst...
...I served in Cor gress with him many years, and rat-his capacity high, but he is not a tariff expert...
...It declared "the application to judges of the principal of recall would create a judiciary whose decison would not rest upon the law of the land, but would be influenced by public sentiment and that the establishment of such a judiciary would be destructive of our system of government...
...Passed Bill For Taft "He had said the rates of the wool schedule in the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill were too high and ought to be reduced...
...In a speech at Hamilton, Massachusetts, on August 28, generally regarded as his "key-note" speech of the presidential contest now opening, the President stirred Senator Lodge, Representative Gardner and a stand-pat audience, composed of members of the Essex County Republican Club, to enthusiastic approval by his assault upon the Progressives...
...McCall...
...Associated with him is Medill McCormick, until recently editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune...
...These Progressive Republican Headquarters were not established to promote the personal fortunes of any individual, nor has it been made known who is to be brought forward as the candidate of the Progressive Republicans...
...Spend Years on Tariff "On the other hand, several member...
...11 and the bill was reported to the House March 18, a period of a little over four months devoted to fourteen schedules...
...In view of the foregoing facts it surely must be that the President in his zeal to reform the broken lines of the stand-patters forgot that all men were entitled to a square deal when he uttered this monstrous and preposterous sentence : " 'The bills bear internal evidence of the fact that they rested on a basis of not tariff for revenue only, but tariff for politics only.' "Really, I do not see how he could find it in his heart to utter the foregoing words for which there is no basis of fact in the universe...
...Any tyro in arithmetic knows that as we devoted three months to one schedule and the framers of the Payne bill devoted on the average only two-sevenths of one month to each schedule, we devoted ten and a half times as much time to a schedule as did Brother Payne and his Republican coadjutors on ways and means...
...This board has already cost three or four hundred thousand dollars and has not given to Congress any information to aid in revising the tariff...
...When we repeated the performance of pulling him out of the hole in the Sixty-second Congress, he did divide the thanks between Democrats and Republicans...
...Didn't Thank Democrats "With all the influence and patronage of his great office he could not muster a majority of house Republicans for reciprocity in either the Sixty-first or the Sixty-second congresses...
...Therefore these gentlemen should have been willing to wait for it to act...
...Many of us participated in dabate on the Dingley bill...
...He has already assaulted the Democrats with the most bitter denunciation...
...The President's criticism of Mr...
...Gronna, of North Dakota, and Dixon, of Montana...
...Progressive Senators and Congressmen will make extended speech-making tours, in fact this part of the campaign has already begun...
...The President says that we didn't play politics about reciprocity, but that we did play politics about the tariff...
...I accept his onslaught as a badge of honor...
...The caucus of Democratic members-elect to the Sixty-second Congress met Jan...
...The President himself is a man of large general information, as well as a man of great ability, but certainly he is not enough of a tariff expert to justify him in vetoing tariff bills which passed the House by majorities of more than two to one...
...We were never in favor of a tariff board or commission under the control of the President alone and responsive to him only...
...Let's see...
...He essayed the rather large stunt of running amuck on both the Democrats and the insurgent Republicans in Congress, singling out Mr...
...Progressives Open Campaign Close in the wake of the President's denunciation of the efforts of the Progressive Republicans and the Democrats to reduce the excessive duties of the Payne-Aldrich tariff law came the announcement that Progressive Republican headquarters had been opened at Washington from which will be directed an aggressive campaign for the defeat of President Taft and the nomination of a Progressive Republican in the convention next year...
...La Follette and his associates were demanding...
...Strike Still Imminent Julius Kruttschnitt, Vice-President and Director of Maintenance and Operation of the Harriman lines west of the Missouri, on the 1st, absolutely and finally rejected the demand for recognition of the federation of shop employes, comprising five shop-craft unions and 25,-000 men...
...Crawford, of South Dakota...
...Underwood and myself that if he called the extraordinary session we would pass tariff bills and such other bills as the Democrats deemed advisable...
...In the teeth of his Winona speech, and his other declarations to the effect that said rates were too high and ought to be reduced, he vetoed our wool bill, which largely reduced the rates and would have greatly relieved the people by giving them much cheaper clothing and blankets...
...He heartily endorsed the leadership of Senator Le Follette...
...Instead of being slapped together hastily without due consideration, it was one of the most thorougniy and carefully considered tariff bills ever presented to any President for his signature...
...Borah, of Idaho...
...We do not believe that a President, whose boast it is that he is the President of all the people, should take the presidency upon the stump...
...breeches, to the standpatters...
...He said: "President Taft's speech can only be described as remarkable when the history of the recent past is taken into consideration...
...The President appealed for Support on the ground that his tariff board was really "the same" kind of a board which "Mr...
...Progressive literature will be sent out in large quantities to the voters...
...Payne-Aldrich Bill Bad "That bill was so bad that in a House with a Republican majority we lacked only five votes of killing it by recommitting it That day twenty-four patriotic Republicans voted with us, among them Mr...
...Clapp of Minnesota...
...Union leaders ask for such recognition on grounds of economy and because of a feeling that greater centralization of capital and power makes corresponding centralization among the unions desirable...
...And he added, "They were plainly measures made to appeal to a supposed popular desire and with the hope that by the veto which they had every reason to expect they might invite popular hostility toward the executive and the party of which hewas the head...
...The bill was reported to the House about the middle of April, a period of three months, on the preparation of one schedule out of fourteen, whereas the hearing on the Payne bill, with fourteen schedules, began Nov...
...The President will make another "swing of the circle," carrying his warfare against the Progressives into their own territory, particularly into the Middle West...
...Clark Makes Answer On the following day Champ Clark, Speaker of the House, on behalf of the Democrats, replied to the President's charge that the Democrats attempted to revise the tariff "for politics only...
...He appears to hope that tht consumer will kiss his hand, which i; the hand that smote them sorely...
...Insurgents Will Answer "My observation and experience prove to my mind that Senator La Follette and the insurgents are able to take care of themselves...
...A resolution denouncing the principle of the recall of judges was adopted by a large majority on the 31st...
...The President and I are personal friends...
...The bills bear internal evidence of the fact that they rested on a basis of not 'tariff for revenue only,' but tariff for politics only...
...He said: "The extra session of Congress was called for the purpose of confirming the Canadian reciprocity treaty, which it did by a support made up of votes from both parties...
...We do not believe that a president, who should use his energy in pleading the cause of the whole people, should expend it in pleading the cause of a party, and especially we do not believe that a president should drag the presidency upon the stump in the interest of a faction of a party...
...H. Farrar denounced the recall of judges and the idea of a federal commission to fix the prices of merchandise...
...It is felt that a strike is imminent...
...Lawyers Denounce Recall At the thirty-fourth annual session of the American Bar Association, last week, Dr...
...Taft Assails Progressives "Our Democratic friends, however, were not content to allow the session to pass with the accomplishment of the purpose for which it was called...
...The only politics we played was to keep faith with the people and to religiously redeem the promises we made in order to win the election in 1910, which is the best and noblest sort of politics...
...He called upon his hearers to repudiate what he calls the "coalition" between the Democrats and the Progressive Republicans, and he made a special appeal to Massachusetts to uphold him in his vetoes, saying, "Is it not clear that reckless legislation of the kind proposed in the house of Rep-resentatives would imperil our industries so that nothing short of a most serious business depression could be expected as a result...
...a bill, the product of political log rolling for the purpose of obtaining its passage...
...It is to be wholly a campaign of education...
...He favored the limiting of the capital stock of national banks and the prohibiting of consolidation of such banks or of their control by any corporation...
...I would say nothing unkind about him, but I cannot and will not permit his personal strictures and his bald misstatement of historical facts to go unchallenged...
...He added— "Never in the history of the government, I venture to say, have important public interests been dealt with in such a lighthearted way, with such absolute ignorance of the effect of legislation and with such willingness to sacrifice business interests to political exigencies as in the present legislation which has just been defeated...
...After we pulled him out of the hole in the Sixty-first Congress he wrote a letter of thanks to Mr...
...He will not deny that statement...
...Underwood reported the wool bill, every line, paragraph and section was thrown open t» debate and amendment and that the debate continued until the members discussed it all they wanted to...
...What is more significant, he has attacked the Progressives within his own party...
...and later, when the sentiment of Progressive Republicans throughout the country is clearly manifested, it will develop who is to be the standard bearer of the Progressives against President Taft and his stand-pat associates...
...At the present writing the issue is in the hands of the workers...
...Other Senators who have expressed a desire that Senator La Follette be the Progressive Republican candidate, are Bristow, of Kansas...
...He Attacks Democrats The President took the Democrats to task for passing the Free List Bill and the Cotton Bill, which he declared were "really impromptu and were so loosely drawn that to have put them on the statute books would have been a serious reflection upon the Congress responsible for them...
...Then why should we wait for the verdict of the President's board of tariff non-experts...
...Bourne, of Oregon...
...The congressional record will fully and clearly prove my contention herein stated...
...President Taft, in a speech before the association, urged wider application of the principle of arbitration of international disputes...
...Clark and Mr...
...Under these conditions, men of Massachusetts, it seems to me that the slogan of your party should involve a national cry and not be confined to mere state issues...
...If we had done less than we did do, we would not have been worthy of so great a portion of public confidence as we now enjoy...
...We reduced them...
...He vetoed it, thereby going over, boots and...
...The President endeavors to convey the impression that Mr...
...What Underwood and I "did advocate, and vote for, was a board of tariff experts to be governed by and made responsive to the House in general and to the committee on ways and means in particular, because the House is charged by the Constitution with the duty of originating revenue bills...
...The people will be called upon to decide decide between the Progressive Republicans, on the one hand, and the Taft-Cannon-Guggenheim Republicans, on the other hand...
...It will include every state where there is Progressive sentiment...
Vol. 3 • September 1911 • No. 36
