Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1902-07-15
AFFAIRS POLITICAL.
Wisconsin Politics Discussed by Mil
Yankees Chief Executive.

Milwaukee, July 2, 1902 Hon. A. +.
Warden, chairman Democratic State
Central committee, Waukesha, Wis
My Dear Warden: You have requested
me 70 write an open letter on affairs
political in Wisconsin, This is my re-
ply:
Political conditions and probable re-
suits are the topics that absorb the pub
lie mind. The campaign opened months
ago and has been waged with unabating
vigor, although thus far the Democracy
has been content to stand aside and give
the field to the warning factions of the
Republican party.
1t is safe to predict that La Toilette
will be renominated and his platform
will be repetition of the idiosyncracies.
yagaries, and impractical and disturb
ing theories that were conglomerated
in the platform upon which he was cleo
ted in 1900
If current reports are true, and there
is abundant cause to believe they are,
he has already selected and nominated
the other candidates for the Republican
state ticket, and there remains to be
played only the closing farce of holding
the convention to ratify what his imper-
Gus will has already decreed.
The men who have followed his for
tunes, supported, nominated and elected
him and who dared to aspire to places
on the state ticket as rewards of merit
will be ruthlessly thrown aside to make
room for new satellites whose more re-
cent services have supplanted his old
and loyal followers in his transitory
affections. He has rallied around him
the nondescripts andcoffee-coolers of the
old camps who followed his towering
pompadour with the consistency with
which vassals followed their masters in
the feudal days.
powerful wing of the Republican
party has repudiated him and his de-
structive and mountaineering theories.
This wing embraces the representatives
of the business, commercial and manu-
featuring interests of the state and now
that the tax assessment rolls have been
closed, disclosing the startling proof of
his inefficiency and instability, there
will be added to the opposition the agri-
culturalists, who will feel most keenly
the added burden resulting from his ex-
travagance and mismanagement.
This opposing faction of his party will
withhold their support from him for the
same reasons that the Democracy will
unite in an unbroken and unyielding
phalanx to defeat his election.
These reasons are of potent signifi-
canoe and may be summarized as fol-
lows
Processing opposition to the railway
corporations, by his message to the
Legislature he disclosed his insincerity
by advocating policies in absolute con-
ilict with his campaign professions and
platform speeches.
Advocatinga an equalization of taxes,
he spun an insane theory which was
enacted into law and which resulted in
system of double taxation.
Promising economy in the admins
tration of state government, heunneces-
sarily doubled the school taxes.
Under the guse of tax reform he or
ganized the tax assessors of the state
into an army of nearly 1000 political
heelers, placed the assessors of each
county under the dominion of a COM
missioner of assessment, who in turn is
dominated by him.
He multiplied the game wardens of
the state and organized them into
division of caucus organizers and pri-
mary workers, and paid their salaries
and expenses from the peoples treasury.
He debauched the charitable and
penal Institutions, that of right should
be kept free from political coLtamin-
alton, by converting them into head
quarters for his personal henchmen.
He insists upon the enactment of
primary election law for the sole pur-
pose of perpetuating- himself in power,
knowing full well that the powerful
organization of heelers and state en-
ployeS he now has behind him can
not be dislodged from power except by
a greater and stronger organization, to
accomplish which the ordinary citizen
does not possess the financial ability.
BY this method no one can secure a
nomination to office except he be the
fayorite of La Toilette
While masquerading as the enemy of
the old Republican regime he entered
into a secret conspiracy with Henry c.
Payne the man whom he openly pre-
tended to fight, by which Payne with
drew stalwart opposition to La Fol
lette's nomination for governor in 1900
and La Toilette withdrew opposition to
Payne rs candidate for membership
upon the Republican national com
mittee.
BY enacting a law for the taxation of
mortgages he has placed the burden of
taxes, not upon capit'h, but upon those
who can least afford TO bear it, and mt
the same time has driven surplus capt.
tai from the state,
As result Of this iniquitous law.
bankers and lenders of money now re-
quire the borrowers To pay the tax upon
fhe mortage The borrowers must pay
the tax upon his real estate assessed at
its full value aud must then pay the
tax upon the mortgage upon that real
estate, aud this double tax is what La
Toilette calls equality in taxation.
BY constantly appealing to passion
aud prejudice he has arrayed class
against class and kept Che state in con
slant turmoil aud confusion, aud by
threatening to put his visionary aud rev
dictionary theories into execution ne
has disturbed business tranquility,
alarmed investors of capital interests