The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-09-14
BACK AT BRYAN.
Taft Replies to the Comments
of Democrat Candidate
On the Roosevelt Letter to the
Montana Man.
POINTS TO RECORD.
Speech of Acceptance and His
Subsequent Utterances
As Ample Indications of Where
He Stands.
POINTS TO RECORD,

Cincinnati. o., Sept. 14.-Asserting
that his official record, his speech of
acceptance and subsequent utterances
are ample indications of his own politl-
cal position William H. Taft replied to
Mr.. Bryan's comment on the Roosevelt
letter by switching the spot light of
inquiry back to Mr.. Bryan's own po-
litical record and making an analysis
thereof.
This is Mr.. Taft's reply:
In my notification speech and in
other speeches made since, 1 attempted
to make clear my position on all of the
issues of the campaign. If Mr.. Bryan
has been unable to understand 1 can
not make them clear. 1 stand on my
record in office and what 1 have said.
Mr.. Bryan should devote little time
to his own record, from which he seems
to be struggling to separate himself,
with all the adroitness acquired in
II years hunt for an issue on which he
can be elected president.
1.-The readiness with which Mr..
Bryan in successive presidential cam
paignS passes from one paramount is
sue to another shows that the chief
consideration which affected his selec-
ton of an issue has been its plausible
ity in attracting votes. He presents
the remarkable spectacle of one who
has been seeking the presidency for II
years without success and without Of
fetal responsibility and without the
opportunity to test the various propo-
sitions which he has advocated for re-
forms. and yet of having the event
demonstrate what a colossal failure he
would have made in each instance had
poSalS into the policies of the coun-
try. He does not now say whether
he is still in favor of the free coin
aeg of silver.
He does not now answer the ques-
ton whether if he were president and
an eXigency should arise in which he
would be called to exercise his discre-
ton affirmatively to maintaining the
parity between gold and silver he would
exercise that discretion. He has not
permitted himself to discuss in this
campaign the issue of anti-imperialsm
which was the paramount issue in 1900
as he declared. and in respect to which
the policy of the Republican party has
been indicated by the event, so that
tranquility and a good government ex-
list in the Philippine islands and even
the Independents prefer Republican
victory to Mr.. Bryan's promise.
He now says that he favors the more
rigid regulation of the railroads. In
1896, he expressed the view that the
railroads could not be regulated be-
cause the railroads would own the reg
ulators appointed by law and therefore
he was in favor of government owner
ship. We hear nothing from him on
this subject.
His Bond to Keep the Peace.
Instead by describing his platform
not only as an announcement of pr1n-
ciples. but as a protection against I'M
comfortable issues he has attempted TO
| give bond to keep peace with respect to
government ownership, which by its
| mere announcement showed its lack of
the vote catching quality. He processes
| 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 which he
| himself led, did he make them the
paramount issue. Instead, in the Park
| err campaign he took occasion to charge
| Mr.. Roosevelt with militarism and
with being completely subject to the
| influence of corporations, only to see
| him winning the greatest peace triumph
| of the world, and securing such an ef-
! fective stamping out of corporate
| abuses as to elicit the admiration OF
/ the entire country.
| "Mr. Bryan processes to be the
| great friend of labor. and yet he was
one of the chief supporters in the
| passage of the German Wilson bill
| that made labor helpless for four
years. He then proposed as a
remedy for the disasters to which la
Dor was thus exposed, the issuing of a
so cent dollar which would have cut
| in half such wages as there were
paid, would led to the hardest kind
of struggle on labor's part to restore
it's wages to it's proper equivalent I'M
der the gold standard.
The country has been most fortu-
nate that the fallacy of Mr.. Bryan's
railroad propositions has been expos
i ed without the. cost of putting then
| into actual governmental practice anC
it viii be fortunate indeed if the dan
ger of four years depression, to which
it would be exposed in case of Mr.
| Bryans election, may be averted. and
if by Republican success in Novembel
and subsequent prosperity and by {
clinching of the Roosevelt policies, h
may be again shown to be
| nrnnhet without honor