The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-09-15
JUDGE TAFT DoDGEs.
Attempts to Bring Dead Issue Into
the Present Campaign.

CINCINNATI, Sept. l4.-ASSerting that
his official record. his speech OF accept
ance and subsequent utterances are
ample indications of his own political
position, William II. Taft today replied
to Mr.. Bryan's comment on the Roose-
welt letter by switching the spotlight
of inquiry back to Mr.. Bryan's own
political record and making an analysis
thereof. This is Mr.. Taft's reply:
"In my notification speech and in
other speeches made since, / attempted
to make clear my position on all of the
issues of the campaign. If Mr.. Bryan
has been unable to understand them
cannot make them clear. / stand on
my record in the past and what / have
said. Mr.. Bryan should devote a little
time TO his own record, from which he
seems to be struggling to separate him
self with all the adroitnesS acquired in
twelve years hunt for an issue on
which he can be elected president. The
readiness with which Mr.. Bryan, in
successive presidential campaigns,
passes from one paramount issue to an
other shows that the chief considera-
ton which affected his selection of an
issue has been its plausibility in at
tracing votes
Says Bryan Would Fail.
He presents the remarkable spec
tacle of one who has been seeking the
presidency for twelve years without
success and without official responsible
ity, and without the opportunity to test
the various propositions which he has
advocated for reforms, and yet of hav-
ing the event demonstrate what a colos-
sal failure he would have made in each
instance had he been permitted to carry
his proposals from the policies of the
country. He does not say whether he
is still in favor of the free coinage of
silver. He does not now answer the
question whether If he were president
and an eXigency should arise in which
he would be called to exercise his dis
erection affirmative to maintaining the
parity between gold and silver. he
would exercise that disposition He
has not permitted himself to discuss in
this campaign the issue of anti-im-
perialism which was the paramount is
sue in 1900 as he declared and in re-
spect to which the policy of the Re-
publican party has been vindicated by
the event, so that tranquility and
good government exists in the Phil
ippine islands and even the independ-
ents prefer Republican victory to Mr..
Bryans promises.
Changed Since 1896.
rigid regulation of the railroads In 1896
he expressed the view that the rail-
roads could not be regulated because
the railroads would own the regulators
appointed by law. and therefore he was
in favor of government ownership. We
hear nothing from him on this subject.
Instead, by describing his platform not
only as an announcement of principles,
but as a protection against uncomfOrt-
able issues, he has attempted to give
bond to keep the peace with respect
TO government ownership, which by its
mere announcement showed its lack of
the vote-catching quality. He pro-
fesses TO have been the father, and now
to be the heir of the Roosevelt policies,
and yet in no campaign of three in
which he has taken part and two of
which he himself led did he make them
the paramount issue. Instead; during
the Parker campaign he took occasion
to charge Mr.. Roosevelt with militarism
and with being completely subject to
the influence of corporations, only to
see him win the greatest peace triumph
of the world and secure such an effec-
tive stamping out of corporate abuses
as TO elicit the admiration of the en-
tire country.
More Prosperity Talk.
Mr.. Bryan processes to be the great
| friend of labor, and yet he was one of
the chief supporters in the passage of
the Gorman-Wilson bill that made la
Dor helpless for four years. He then
| proposed as a remedy for the disasters
to which labor was thus exposed the
issuing of a 50-cent dollar, which would
have cut in half such wages as there
were and would have led to the hardest
| nj a Ia 30
restore its wages to its proper equiv
alent under the gold standard The
country has been most fortunate that
the fallacy of Mr.. Bryan's railroad prop
| ositions has been exposed without the