The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-14
THE TAFT MOHEM TENT.

The time has come for the friends of William H. Taft of Ohio to take seri- ously the movement to nominate him for the presidency, not as the residu- ary legatee of President Roosevelt, but upon his merits. Through no direct encouragement of his the movement has become a thing of life and imag- ination and substance. It is still pos sible, rather than likely, that new combination may shape itself before another name will have the greater in- fuence with the delegates, but if the State of Ohio takes the lead and names him as its choice in advance of action by other States, the conditions will then demand consideration of nomi nation by exclamation.
 The one thing which has done more to further the ambition of his friends than anything else is his dignified att
 
 titude in declining to run after the office, great though it be. President Roosevelt is known to have favored his stumping the country for delegates, while Secretary Tafts conduct justifes the belief that he refused to undertake so questionable a search for the golden fleece. It was inevitable, too, that this attitude should add immensely to his strength in his own State and bring about the situation which is now neces- sarlIy satisfactory to all concerned. He has not said that Senator Foraker must be eliminated from Ohio politics as the price of his willingness to make the run for President, and he has not said that he would make a deal with the warning factions of his State by which the ambitions of all might be satisfied while his would be reinforced. It has not been a grand-stand play in any sense of that term. His view of the dignity of the presidential office, and his knowledge of its practical bur dens, simply copvinces him that a man who would enter into deals in order to acquire its title is undeserving of the office. No wonder that the practical politicians of Ohio see the point and admit It's force. No wonder that Sen- ator Foraker denies that he is in any agreement by which his fortunes are being bound up by secret pledges with those of Secretary Taft.
 One of the current magazines prints an article on what the writer of 1t calls "The Mystery of Secretary Taft" There is no such thing as mystery connected with his remarkable public career though it is true, as we have said upon several occasions, that his have not been the habits of the aver age man in public life. It is fair to assume that he Is in sympathy with 
 President Roosevelt in that official s determination to purify our political institutions and make the enforcement of 'the square deal' prevalent, but it is no more fair to assume that he will be deputy president if elected, sub ject to the will of his present chief, than it was fair to assume that he would, upon his return from Porto Rico, trot about the country displaying the presidential bee It is well to real ize that it Is one thing for cabinet / officer of the personal dignity of Sec retarles Root and Taft to render a faithful account of their stewardship from day to day, as it is called for by their recognized chief and an entirely different matter to attribute to them that kind of stewardship which de- prives them of all credit as men in possession of their own minds when responsibility is put upon them. Be- cause they are loyal to the administra- tion of which they are such conspicu- ous members, they have come to be recognized by the public as men of