New-York tribune., 1908-09-24
r4Er on RRY4N.s RECORD.

Mr.. Taft's speech in Cincinnati OH Tuesday
hit the mark. 1t was vigorous ana direct ana
full of the promise of effective campaigning
1t went to the real issue of the contest MT.
Bryan's utter unfitness on his own public record
for the Presidency. Mr.. Taft cannot give the
country too much talk of that sort 1here he
is unanswerable There all thinking men must
agree with him, however much they disagree
about the tariff or the guarantee of bank de-
posits or any other of the lesser issues. On his
record Mr. Bryan is conspicuously unfit for the
RESPONSIBILITIES of the Presidency.
He has been wrong on practically all the
great questions that have come before the pub
lie in the twelve years of his Democratic lead
ership He is by turns a demagogue and an i'm
practical doctrinaire, the leader of the oppos'-
ton who takes whatever posture is forced upon
him and the convctonless politician always
seeking for popular issues. You look in vain
through that record for devotion TO principles,
firm adhesion to consistent course and prefer
ence of truth to expediency. You fail to find
any real capacity to grasp public questions and
TO perceive practical solutions of them. This
lack of that thorough understanding which is
the first element in craftsmanship often makes
him dangerous as when he proposed for rem
edy of the losses of the 1898 panic a repndia-
ton by legislative fat of half the countrys
debts. Any one who thinks of his free silver
project must wonder how as President he would
meet the various emergencies that might arise.
Was Mr.. Bryan, whose conscience is one of his
chief political assets, so dishonest to believe
that the people of this country, having once
understood the free silver policy. would be
ready to enter upon a career of repudiationf 1t
is easier to think that he did not understand
the money question, was incapable of compre-
hending it and carries about in his head to-day
the same fuddled greenbacker notions that he
had in 1896. Sometimes his errors have simply
made him ridiculous. as when he predicted in
the 1900 campaign that unless the troops were
Withdrawn Immediately from the Philippines
liberty in this country would die out and the
nation would cease to celebrate the Fourth of
July. That old utterance, which Mr.. Taft has
dug up. looks silly reprinted in cold type to-
day. and it speaks volumes for Mr.. Bryans in
capacity to deal with the Philippine question
then and now
But this laundering was presumably honest
enough. Mr.. Bryan is probably one Of those per-
sons who are constitutionally unable to under
stand the money question We are ready TO
grant too--though the concession does seem
violent-that the buncombe emitted about the
Philippines was serious, that the late colonel,
just out of the uniform In which he had sought
military glory when military glory seemed to be
popular-that this military parsonage really felt
called upon, by the nine gods of war or some
other potent influence. to save the country from
militarism But what shall be said about his
latest intellectual exploits? What convictions
prompted him to declare for the government
ownership of railways ''the only remedy and
then abandon that position? The tergiversa-
tion is much too facile for respectable in
tellectual character. man who was capa-
BILE of reaching conclusion worth having,
the result of fourteen years observation.
would not reverse it fourteen months later
with no conceivable change in the evidence be-
fore him. He seems incapable of reasoning
thing out so that the results of his reasoning
are binding upon his own mind. He is intellect
ualy incontinent He has happy thoughts and
bright ideas. but he lacks practical sense. He
can never see the whole effects of his policies.
In his new way of paying old debts in 1896 he
forgot that half the world is creditors. His fan
tastc scheme for parcelling out the railroads
of the country between the states and the
ton overlooked. among other things. the praC-
teal advantages of consolidated railway man.
agement His trust plan is so crude and I'M
workable as to suggest the Offhand answer of
the man in the street to this problem. The
benevolence of his bank guarantee is the incon-
siderate benevolence that pauperizes its objects.
He would be impractical and unsafe in the
Presidency.