Bisbee daily review., 1906-08-19
WAR SECRETARY BELOW is ID
 NEW SCHOOL
DefieS the Labor Unions and Goes to Maine to Make Campaign Speeches in Fa- vor of Rep, LittIefieId.
By Sheldon & Clina

By Sheldon s. Cline. WASHINGTON, Aug. 1S-If Secre- tary of War William H. Taft is a can eidate for the presidential nomination.
 he is going about his campaign in a decidedly novel way. It is not the usual thing for a man with president
 lal aspirations to deliberately offend
 very large body of the electorate. especially when those electors are | thoroughly organized and promising to ! play a strong hand in the game of politics. Yet. if reports be true, MT. Taft contemplates doing that very thing.
 Word comes from Murray Bay, in Canada, where MT. Taft is spending his vacation, that the war secretary will go to Maine and take the stump in behalf of Representative Charles E. Littlefield. Now, the Republican plurality in MT. Littlefield's district is normally between 6,000 and 1000, and ordinarily it would be unnecessary, not to say absurd, for a member of the Cabinet to rush to his support. It must be. therefore, because of ex- traordinary conditions in Mr Little fields district that MT. Taft fels called upon to address the Maine cleo tors.
 That extraordinary conditions do exist in the Second Maine district is most true. They were brought about by the fact that organized labor has decided that MT. LttlefeId is unfriend- ly to labor's interests, and the labor unions have set out to encompass his defeat. From the Washington head quarters of the American Federation Of Labor the edict went forth that MT. Littlefeld must not be returned to the Sixtieth Congress, and as la Dor unions are numerically strong in that part of Maine there is apprehen- sion that despite the tremendous Re publican plurality, the successor of Blaine and Dingley is in danger of retirement.
 In agreeing to go to the succor of Littlefeld MT. Taft shows a fine dis regard of personal consequences. though politicians would condemn his move as hideous blunder. MT. Taft's course smacks strongly of Rooseveltism, and. indeed, it is al legged and generally believed, that the President advised and approves of MT. Tafts contemplated invasion of Maine.
 The question from the viewpoint of the practical politician is: What will the labor unions do about it? Will they write Mir. Taft down as ''un- fair" and mark him for slaughter should he ever seek the suffrage of the people? What would be the na- tural thing for them to do. It is so- Efrh MT. Littlefield that MT. Taft is going IC make speeches in the Second Maine district Therefore, MT. Taft is ar raying himself directly against the unions and what they conceive to be their interests. It was because MT. L!ttiefield and other members of Con- gross opposed what the unions cOncei- ved to be their interests that the American Federation of Labor de cided to take a hand in politics. MT. Littlefield and others opposed the passage of the eight-hour, the anti-in- junction and other pet measures Of the unions. Because they did so, the unions are trying to defeat MT. Little field and others. MT. Taft is opposing this purpose of the unions and is eIt- deavoring to return Mir. Littlefield and others to Congress, where they will have opportunity to again oppose the measures of the unions. There would not seem to be any material difference between the attitude of MT. Littlefield and of MT. Taft towards the unions. And, there is every req son to believe, MT. Taft has the SUD- port of MT. Roosevelt and the nation al administration in the stand he has taken.
 Thus the issue is sharply drawn at the very inception of organized la- bor's entry into politics. Labor's campaign will be puerile and pusil- luminous if it fights the Littlefields and ignores the Tafts and Roosevelts who are upholding the hands of the Littlefields. If, on the other hand, labor picks up the gauntlet which the Roosevelrts and Tafts have thrown down, there is going to be some mighty interesting doings in this country during the next few years. There isn't any doubt that public men are disturbed by this political campaign of the labor unions. It is new factor in American politics and one with which the politicians do not know how 10 deal. It may turn out fizzle. as have so many other po- Iitical movements launched with loud acclaim. And it may be a tremendous force which will turn upside down all the political traditions of all the years. It all depends on the rank and file membership of the labor unions.
 The average American citizen has always retained the custody of his own vote. There have been attempts to unite men politically along the lines of religion, of occupation and of race, and all have failed. The Know Nothing party was one of the earliest of these effnris It fln1riShed like a