The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-12
Did Not Disnel Apathy.

From the New York Evening Post (RepD
 Sioux City, Ia.-This town is by way of being a clearing house for the political news of South Dakota, and this section of Iowa It is the nearest city of any consequence in a wide tract of country. cattlemen from the Dakotas and farm CTS and merchants from Iowa and Ne braska, whose homes are not nearer to Omaha, come in here to exchange gossip and opinions and find out what is going on. This makes Sioux City a center of political activity and political news, but the casual inquisitor, in search of "senti- ment" has to scratch deeply to find any.
 As in other states recently visited, a spirit of apathy prevails One does not hear men discussing politics in the hotel Hobbies, about the clubs, or in railway trains.
 It seems to be the common opinion in this vicinity that MT. Taft did not gain any votes by his appearance here. For enc thing, his voice had completely failed, and nobody in the crowd that turned out to hear him, estimated at about 11000, could hear what he said. The meeting was held under a train shed, where there was bound to be more or less noise made by the movement of cars and locomotives. The meeting had been extensively adver- tised. The governor of South Dakota and the governor of Nebraska came from their respective capitals to attend it. as did hundreds of people from their states, as well as from the tributary territory in Iowa. When these people found they could not hear the candidate many of them left, and those who stayed were restive and inattentive.
 Following behind NIr. Taft the impress sion is unacceptable that his speaking tour has not been as wholly successful as was hoped for. An old line republican summed up popular opinion hereabouts when he said: "If Judge Taft did not do any better elsewhere than he did here. it would have been the wisest thing to have kept him at home" It should be said, though, in fairness to MT. Taft, that disinterested observers from Sioux City, who went through the Dakotas with the candidate, assert that he made an excel lent impression at the places where he was in voice and could be heard.
 It is rather surprising to discover that MT. Roosevelt's Monday morning "open letters" to MT. Bryan have not made the deep impression out here, even among stahch republicans, that was expected. About the Chicago headquarters there has all along existed a difference of opinion as to the value of MT. Roosevelt's serv- ices in the campaign. Those who thought that the President was doing a helpful thing by injecting himself into the can vass and taking away the llmelight from the candidate, reasoned this way: "Roose- velt's letters and assertions may not do any good in the east, where he is un- popular anyway, but out in the middle west, where he Is as strong as he ever was, they will make thousands of votes. D So far as I can ascertain, this has not proved to be the case. One ardent old partisan, when asked what effect Roose- velts controversy with Bryan and For aker had had, made this reply: "It looks to me like Roosevelt had been called uu in the ninth inning, to bat for Taft. and had struck out" It would be hard to beat that terse description of the common feeling in this vicinity