The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1908-08-08
Taft's Speech of Acceptance.


nomination the republican candidate for the
presidency of the United States, William H. Taft
slgnlfed his acceptance in speech of great length
1t can be said without any violation of the pro-
prietes of the OCCASION that it President Roose-
velts Speech though delivered by Mr.. Taft. The
candidate made no concealnent of the important
part taken by Mr. Roosevelt in the creation of the
address or of his final review of the document, the
Oyster Bay version having been given intact at Gin
cinnat to the committee on notification.
Knowing that he had been nominated by an anti
Roosevelt convention its platform expressions being
made the basis of such judgment, Mr. Taft may have
concluded that the supplementary platform issued in
the form of a speech of acceptance could not be
made too strongly Rooseveltian in its associations
and expressions.
1t can be presumed that the preamble to the adj
dress, effusvey punctuated with audation of the
president, solely the product of the candidates
thought, for he is known to be devout worship
per at the shrine of Roosevelt and is supposed to be
duly thankful for the ingenuity displayed by the
president in working public patronage influence in
the south in his interest The example of gratitude
in politics ought not to be lost.
Mr.. Taft was anxious to have it understood that
the country was drifting upon the rocks when
Mr. Roosevelt took the helm and that he had steered
it sEl1fu1ly; but it would require another pilot of
equal skill and honesty to interpret and follow the
charts of the lustrious master of the ship of state
Mr.. Taft then complacently pointed to himself.
There was the ingredient of danger in this frank
admission for the voting public knows that that
which menaced, and still menaces, the country was
made imminent by the course of the candidates
party and it knows further that the party manage
ment expects him to depart from the policies of his
predecessor, if the nomination made at Chicago is
confirmed in November
1t follows, therefore, that if Mr.. Taft should be
elected, whatever may now be his intentions, he will
not be permitted to emulate the example of the
whom he so profoundly adnires, if his party
control him.
1t was rather an awkward presentation of the topic
of pancs that Mr. Taft wrought into his speech of
acceptance when he declared in effect that the re-
publican party could not be held responsible for
the panic of October last and the subsequent bust
ness depression but that the election of Bryan would
cause real panic and the democratic party would
be responsible for it.
The panic had to be dealt with of course in the
document and there was no way in which it could
be separated from the party in power through a
plausible course of reasoning And here the public
gained an echo from Roosevelt in the abrupt denial
of responsibility and the dire, though untenable,
prophecy of candidate brought to bay
Mr.. Taft does not like the democratic platform
promise of guaranteed bank deposits, feeling
vnced at least constrained to say that the safety
of depostors would incite rascality among bank
officials and ruin the banking business But he ex-
pressed aectionate regard for the substitute idea
of safe government banks under the auspices of the
postofice department In the ordinary comprehen-
sion the creation of government banks would be
really ruinous to the banking business of private
though their officers would be spared
the disgrace of enforced rascality for they would
be arbitrarily removed from the pale of temptation