The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1908-02-13
Taft Responds to Query What
Martyred President Would
Do To-day.
WOULD FOLLOW COURSE
ROOSEVELT HAS LAID
Analysis Of the War Presidents
Character and Temper to Show
That Under Present Condi-
tions He Would Favor
Expansion and Fight
the Trusts.

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. February
12.-Secretery OF War Taft was the
principal speaker here tonight at the
Lincoln Club banquet, which was at
tended by more than 1000 persons.
United States Senator William Alden
Smith was POSTMASTER. and among the
other speakers were Ambassador
Jusserand. Congressman Goodmund
Foss. and Governor Curtis Guild, OF
Massachusetts,.
Secretary Taft was received with a
great outburst OF applause. His theme
was: What Would Lincoln Do To-
Day?" He said. in part:
II did not select this toast, and
should not have chosen 1t Of my own
free will. It is difficult to lit into a
new niche of history really great
man. whose greatness is indissolubly
associated with particular crisis in
which he lived. There are few lives
which seem to have been shapen SO
providentially to meet country's
great need as that of Lincoln, with
reference to slavery and the Civil War.
Coming from childhood OF the
greatest penury and discomfort and
squalor. mngl!ng with the humblest
and the poorest in a Western settle
ment. Lincoln acquired sense of
equality and democracy and love of
equal rights that never left him, and
gave deep color to his whole life.
While he had ideals, he never allowed
the longing for the impossible to in
terfere with the securing of the pos
sible. He was a party man. as every
man must be who wishes to leave his
individual impress upon the individual
character of the nation. And no one
recognized this more fully than did
Lincoln. For that reason we may say,
In the first place, that II Lincoln were
living to-day. he would be Republi-
can.
Policy of Expansion.
Where would he stand In respect to
our Philippine policy and expansion:
Would he. as the anti-imperialIsts.
take tho position. were he living to-
day. that the Republican party did. in
its action in respect to Porto Rico,
Cuba and the Philippines and depart
from the principles that actuated him
in becoming Republican, and retain
ing that party in national control?
Mr.. Lincoln relied greatly in his
upon the terms of the Declaration OF
independence. He dwelt upon the pos
tulate set forth in that instrument that
all men are created free and equal,
and he insisted that In so far as legis-
tuition Of our government it was a de-
parture from the Declaration of Inde-
pendence:;, He maintained that the
words words al men are created free and
the white man. but affirmed with great
emphasis that he did not mean that
the men who were thus declared equal
were necessarily fitted at once to be
n 70 k "a I.
ment. What he contended was that
they were at once entitled to the brea
they earned and should be given the
right of life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness.
Lincoln was not man chiefly dog.
matte He was a man who allowed
the application of his principles to
be t,e, controlled by the fitness Of the
.ninig; cnnis,, HAD s1, he been in the seat oc-
was presented to him after the Spanish
War as to what should be done WITH
respect to the Philippines. there is
nothing u. IN his career. nothing in any
which would have prevented him from
taking exactly the same course which
Mckinley took.
.s,o,,,a As to the Philippines.
lies back, to the government Of Spain
and to the oppression against which
they had revolted? Would Abraham
Lincoln have advised that course? I
cannot think so. Should we turn the
islands over to Aguinaldo and his mil
1tary subordinates? They have them
selves in the nine months Intervening
tried TO establish civil government,
and the tyrannies and the insufficient
cies of that government in trying to
maintain order would have made 1t a
crime against the whole people OF the
islands for us thus to dodge respon-
sibility and seek to escape the burden
which providence seemed to have thrust
Continued on Third Page.)
0IlaYaI nIonIIII1--o