The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-09-14

1 liam J. Bryan statement thal he nes tiae Presidents heir and natural successor. 1 The letter follows
 Sagamore Hill,
 Oyster Bay, N. r, September 5, 1908. 1 My Dear MT. Kohrs:-I have received your letter about the candidacy of MT. 1 Taft, the man who feel is in an espe- cial sense the representative of all that in which I most believe in political life.
 Every good citizen should desire to see both prosperity and justice, prosperity and fair and righteous dealing as between man and man, obtain permanently In this great republic. As a people we are justly proud of our business industry, of our energy and intelligence in our work; and 1t is entirely right that we should ask ourselves as to any given course of conduct, "Will it be proftableT' But It is also no less emphatically true that the bulk of our people, the plain people who found in Abraham Lincoln their especial champion and spokesman, regard the question, "Is this morally right?" as even more important than the question, "Is this profitable?" when applied to any given course of conduct. Indeed, In the long run our people are sure to nnd that in all dealings. alike in the business and the political world, what Is really profitable is that which is morally right The last few years have seen great awakening of the public conscience and the growth of a stern determination to do away with corruption and unfair deal Sng, political, economic, social. It is ur- gently necessary that this great reform movement should go on. But no reform movement Is healthy if 1t goes on by spasms; if it is marked by periods or frenzied advance, followed, as such pe- riods of frenzied advance must always be followed, by equally violent periods of reaction. The revolutionary and the reactionary really play into one another's hands, to the extent that each by his ex- cesses necessarily tends to arouse such disgust, such a feeling of revolt, in the minds of quiet people, as temporarily to restore the other to power. To permit the direction of our public affairs to fall alternately into the hands of revolution aries and reactionaries, of the extreme
  servatives who recognize no wrongs to remedy. would merely mean that the nation had embarked on feyerish course of violent oscillation which would be fraught with great temporary trouble, and would produce no adequate good in the end The true friend of reform, the true foe of abuses, is the man who stead fly perseveres in fighting wrongs, in war ring against abuses, but whose character and training are such that he never promises what he cannot perform. that he always a little more than makes good what he does promise, and that, while steadily advancing, he never per mits himself to be led into foolish ex- cesses which would damage the very cause he champions. In Mir. Taft we have man who combines all of these qualities to degree winch no other man in our public life since the Civil War has surpassed. To flaming hatred of injustice, to a scorn of all that is base and mean, to hearty sympathy with the oppressed, he unites entire disin- terestedness, courage both moral and physical of the very highest type, and kindly generosity of nature which makes him feel that all of his fellow countrymen are in very truth his friends and brothers, that their interests are his, and that all his great qualities are to be spent with lavish freedom in their service. The honest man of means, the honest and law-abiding business man, can feel safe in his hands because of the very fact that the dishonest man of great wealth, the man who swindles or robs his fellows, would not so much as dare to defend his evil-doing in Mir Tafts pres ence The honest wage-worker, the hon. est laboring man, the honest farmer, the honest mechanic or small trader, or man of small means, can feel that in a pe- culiar sense MT. Taft will be his repre- sentative because of the very fact that he has the same scorn for the demagogue that he has for the corruptionist, and that he would front threats of personal violence from a mob with the unquailing and lofty indifference with which he would front the bitter anger of the wealthiest and most powerful corpora tions. Broad though his sympathies are, there is in him not the slightest tinge of weakness. No consideration of per- sonal interest any more than of fear for his personal safety. could make him swerve a hairs breath from the course which he regards as right and in the interest of the whole people.
 I have naturally percu1iar interest in the success of MT. Taft, and in seeing him backed by majority in both houses of Congress which will heartily support his policies. For the last ten years, while I have been governor of New York and President, I have been thrown into the closest intimacy with him, and he and have on every essential point stood in heartiest agreement, shoulder to shoul- der. We have the same views as to what is demanded by the national in- terest and honor, both within our own borders and as regards the relations of this nation with other nations. There is no fight for decency and fair dealing which 1 have waged In which I have not had his heartiest and most effective sympathy and support and the policies for which l stand are his policies as much as mine.
 It Is not possible In the space of this letter to discuss all the many and in- finitely varied questions of moment with which MT. Taft as President would have to deal let him be judged by what he has himself done, and by what the ad-