The morning journal-courier., 1908-10-14
TAFT COMPLIMENTS
 SOCIALIST DEBS l. Says He Is Logical and Has a Right to Oppose Our Insti- tutions, If He Does
 It Legally.
REVIEWS LABOR RECORD
Receives Respectful Hearing from Iron Workers, Who Arc Not Usually an Agreeable Audi
 ence-

EaSt I1VerpOOls Cbp OCIs l0'--lu Llle midst of the steel and iron district of Cleveland, William H. Taft today com manded the closest attention of an im- mense audience proverbIally regarded ks the hardest place in the state of Ohio for political speaker 10 obtain respectful hearing. He showed from his viewpoint why 1t was that the American workman needed tho protec- ton of tho tariff and what had been the result when he had not had that protection. MT. Taft followed this with detailed account of his own personal experience with the labor world. He explained that the decisions he had rendered while on the bench. and for which he was now condemned by Bry- an and Gompers, were In reality the le- gal basis of labor organizations of the present day and upon that basis they had grown and prospered until now they were stronger than ever.
 This meeting MT. Taft considers the best and most effective he has had on his present trip because of the char acter of the audience, its known demo- cratic and socialistic tendencies and Ae success he had in riveting atten- ton.
 The Taft special ran into its first mishap to-day The front trucks of the candidates car and the rear , trucks of the Pullman preceding it \went off the track just as the train Was coming to halt on a siding at eterlmg shortly after 10 o'clock this morning. No other damage than the track being torn up was done.
 While fourteen audiences were ad- dressed by the candidate to-day, his pig meetings were at Wadsworth. Elyria, Lorain, Cleveland and East Liverpool.
 At Lorain cheer for Debs, when The candidate mentioned his name in connection with the labor cases he had handled on tho bench inspired MT. Taft to pay his compliments to Debs as presidential candidate.
 "Mr. Debs is a socialist" he said. rMr. Debs Is logical. He Is opposed 10 the institutions of this country as they have been established by the constitution He has a right to be if he chooses, provided he accomplishes his methods by legal and nn-violent ways. Therefore I am not going to criticise MT, Debs"
 In Cleveland after MT. Taft had re- viewed his labor record at length with en illustration of what he had to do with helping to build up labor organ izations in the Philippines and his ad- minfstratlon in connection with the Panama canal, he recalled tho fact that he had since been made a mem Der of the union. He addedi
 "Accordingly. received an invita- ton from contracting firm up in Oregon, saying that they would be glad to have me now that I was a regular member of the trades union tc go into the business and work ono of their steamshovels, but l said thai certainly until tho third of November ] had job and after that would communicate with them further. Mir Gompers is one of tho executive coun. ell of the American Federation Of La. Dor, and l get the impression that the whole Federation of Labor was de. livered body and soul by Gompers tc tho democratic party and to Mr. Bry, sn, but 1t seems there are somo not MT. Daniel Keefe, the head of tht Tongshoremen's union, with whom perhaps number of my audience ar, acquainted, does not think that I am { devil with horns. He is going to sup port mo for the presidency b~aus, he says he has found in his dealing! with me (we have had good many that was just and fair to the inter ests that he represented as the heat of the Longshoremen's union and on, of the executive council of tho Amer ican Federation of Labon
 T sympathize with the men that b, manual labor are building up thi country and to say that an opposed to their organizations and trad unionism is to say what is utterl, talae."