The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-21

tax, which might be found constitu-
tional by the supreme court in its
changed personnel; meanwhile he sug-
gests that the matter of unduly large
fortunes and the disposition to be made
of them lies with the state legislatures,
which have the power to direct how
estates shall be distributed among the
heirs. and to levy inheritance taxes He
does not now favor federal legislation
looking to either an inheritance tax or
an income tax; and in any event he
would have no radical legislation look
ing to a sudden disturbance of the gen.
eral business of the community.
Then Games a long and enthusiastic
eulogy of Roosevelt and his policies.
| MI, Taft objects most strenuously to the
socialistic in its tendency; he denounces
as untrue the charge that the president
is responsible for the depression of Sc
curities, and he accuses Bryan of un-
willingness to trust the people to choose
representatives for themselves who will
be above corruption. BY a curious in
version of logic the speaker accuses
Bryan of lacking confidence in Demo-
cratic forms of government, and says
''Mr. Bryan's whole system of remedies
for the evils that both Mr.. Roosevelt
and he and many others recognize is
based on his distrust of the honesty,
courage and impartiality of the indi-
/ vidual as an agent on behalf of the
people to carry on any part of the gov
eminent, and rests on the proposition
that our present system of represent
alive government is a failure"
REPUTATION of such a charge against
Bryan seems unnecessary because ii is
so palpably and grossly untrue. If Mr..
| Bryan has one distinguishing charac-
/ teristic it is his entire confidence in the
desire and ability of the people to gov
ern themselves; and the difference be-
| tween him and Roosevelt is that
| Roosevelt has seemed to think that the
| legislative representatives of the peo-
pie were mere incidents and unneces-
sary appendages of the executive office.
When it somes to the tariff question,
the last subject of the speech, the pros
pective presidential candidate is al
most as adroit as any trust beneficiary
of the tariff could wish. In substance,
he admits that the tariff on some man
ufactured articles may be a little high,
although not being a tariff expert he is
! reluctant to specify any particular in
stance. If, by any possibility, there is
/ a case or two or more of excessive
/ tariff he would have the Republican
party do nothing until it holds its ma
| tionaI convention next year, when he
| thinks a plank should be adopted ia
voring tariff revision. In his judgment
| that would be early enough for discus
sion of the matter
Altogether the speech is an admirable
resume of the Roosevelt policies and a
promise of their continuation in case
Taft is chosen as successor to the
throne. 1t contains no startling new
policies and is commercially common
/ place in its enunciatiOn of obvious
facts. 1t shows less than the Roose-
veltian aptness of phrase and much less
combative tendency than has been
presidential trait this term. Wall
street will find little comfort from it ex-
cept in a negative way; and the COM
mon people will find small promise of
aggressive attack on the trusts or on
such parts of the tariff as nourish the
trusts at the expense of the consumer.