Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1908-01-02
SECRETARY TAFT
TO BOSTONIANS
ROOSeVelt'S War Minister Spends Siren
uOuS Day In Massachusetts, City.
THE RESPONSIBILITY
FOR PRESENT PANIC
Charges Depression 10 Guilty Managers Of
Some Of the Large Railroad and Finan-
cial Enterprises--Rate Law hasn't
Brought About StriDgencY.

Boston, Dec. 3l.-Greeted with cheers
as ''as the next president of the United
States" topic which he carefully
avoided in his own remarks, however,
Secretary of War William H Taft de-
livered his first public speech since his
world-circling tour tonight at the an
nual banquet of the Boston Merchants
Association at the Hotel Somerset.
The banquet closed long and stren-
uous day for the secretary, during
which he delivered a brief address be-
fore 30 ministers in the morning and
spoke before large gathering of Jews
in this city, the Elysium Club, in the af-
ternoon. During his visit to Boston,
which ends tomorrow morning, Secre-
tary Taft is the guest of Samuel Carr,
a Boston banker and relative of Mrs.
Taft.
A more notable gathering of prom
inent and representative business men
has seldom been seen in Boston than
rhat which greeted the secretary to-
night.
In the banquet hall beautiful decora-
tions adorned the table, which provided
for the seating of over 500 guests.
President Jerome Jones, of the Boston
Merchants Association, presided.
The guests included, besides Secre-
tary Taft, Congressman Sherley, of
Kentucky; Lieut.. E. S. Draper, of
Massachusetts; Mayor John F. Fitzger-
aid and Rt. Rev. William Lawrence,
bishop of Massachusetts.
In introducing Secretary Taft, Presi-
dent Jones said:
1--WE are favored this evening by the
presence of a man from the middle
west who has impressed us all with his
fitness for the most important position
a great and powerful nation can bestow,
and in brief, an official of great strength
and wisdom. He has recently put-a
girdle around the earth as an ambassa-
dor of peace and good will, by visiting
the great rulers of mighty nations and
we want to hear him talk to u.s.
AS Mr.. Taft rose all the guests stood
up with him and filled the air with long
and continued cheers.
Secretary Taft read his speech from
manuscript throughout, making no
comment relative to his own candidacy
for the presidency.
Mr.. Tafts speech was in the main q
broad defense of President Roosevelt
and the administration in dealing with
the trusts and with the recent financial
crisis. Those responsible for the panic,
he said, were the guilty managers of
some of the large railroad and financial
enterprises, and not those who in the
course of their official duty have made
known to the business world the facts
and commented on them. He denied
that the administration had arraigned
the whole business world as dishonest.
The president had condemned the law
breakers and convinced those who had
nnlawfully accumulated enormous pow
er that they were not immune. The
president, he declared, had never said
otherwise than that the business men
OF the country as a whole were honest
and their methods sound. Indeed"
said Mr.. Taft, ''it is chiefly in the inter
est of the great body of honest business
men that he had made his great fight
for lawful business Methods
That the railroad rate law was respon-
sible for the financial panic, Mr.. Taft
characterized as absurd, and as for the
shrinkage in the value of railroad
stocks, he said, that neither Mr.. Roose-
velt nor his administration were respon-
sible for state legislation against rail- |
roads. Instead of making a panic"
he said, ''the national policy of ending
the lawiessness of corporations in inter- |
state commerce and of taking away |
their power Of issuing, without SUPER
vision, stock and bonds, will produce a |
change in their management and re-
move one fruitful cause for loss of pub
lie confidence.
The action of state legislatures
against railroads, he declared, was oc-
casioned by the same revelations of
lawlessness and discrimination in rail-
way management that made the federal
rate bill necessity, but, he said, eff
the state measures have been too dras-
tic the cause of the injustice is not with
the national government"
Mr.. Taft launched upon the sea of
government ownership of railroads and
declared that he was opposed to the
idaa, because it meant state socialism
and an increase in the power of the CEN
tral government that would be danger
GUS.
On the subject of the United States
currency system Mr.. Taft commented
npon the fact that it was not SO ar
ranged as to permit its volume to be in
creased temporarily. He believed that
had there been such currency the
money stringency might, in part, have
been alleviated.