Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1908-09-17
TAFT MAKES
SHARP ANSWER.
Stands on HIS Own Record, Says Th,
Republican Candidate.
BRYAE'S MOTIVES NOT GOOD.
says His Chief Consideration in Selection
OF Issues Has Been TO Catch Voters
Will Clineh the ROOse-
welt Policies.

political compositions. He wrote an
answer to Mr.. Bryan's comment on
President Roosevelt's Taft letter. after
which he spent the latter part of the
day in the preparation Of the speeches
he Is to make tomorrow-the first to a
delegation from Greenfield, Ind; the
other to the Methodist negro preachers
OF Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Penn
Iylvania.
When Mr.. Taft was first shown what
Mr. Bryan had said. the spontaneous
answer was short and terse; then Mr..
Taft dictated formal reply as follows:
In my notification speech, and in
other speeches made since, l attempted
70 make clear my position on all the
issues OF the campaign. If Mr.. Bryan
mas been unable to understand then.
cannot make them clear. | stand on
my record in Office and what have
said Mr.. Bryan should devote little
time to his own record, from which he
seems to be struggling to separate him
self, with all the adroitness acquired in
a twelve years hunt for an issue on
which he can be elected President. The
readiness with which Mr.. Bryan in sue
cessive Presidential campaigns passes
from one paramount issue to another
shows that the chief consideration
which has affected his selection of an
issue has been its possibility in attract
ing votes.
he presents the remarkable spec
tacle of one who has been seeking the
Presidency for twelve years without
success and without official RESPONSE
oihty, and without the opportunity to
test the various propositions which he
mas advocated for reforms, and yet of
having the event demonstrate what a
colossal failure he would have made in
each instance, had he been permitted
to carry his proposals into the policies
of the country.
| de does not now say whether he is
still IN favor of the free coinage of sill
yer. He does not now answer the
question whether, if he were President.
and an exigency should arise in which
he would be called upon to exercise his
discretion 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-imperialism
which was the paramount issue in 1900.
as he declared, and in respect to the
policy of the Republican party has been
indicated by the event so that tran
guilty and good government exist in
the Philippine Islands, and even the in
dependents prefer Republican admins
tration to MIR. Bryan's promises.
he now says that he favors the
rigid regulation of the railroads. In
1896 he expressed the view that the
railroads 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 ques-
ton. Instead of that, by describing his
platform rot only as an announcement
OF principle, but as a protection against
uncomfortable issues, he has attempted
to give bond to keep the peace with re-
spect to government ownership, which
by its mere announcement showed its
lack Of the vote catching quality.
He processes to have been the father
and not the heir of the Roosevelt poll
cies, and yet in no campaign of three in
which he has taken part, two Of which
he led, did he make them the paramount
issues. Indeed, in the Parker campaign
he took occasion to charge Mr.. Roose-
velt with militarism and with being
completely subjected to the influence of
corporations, only to see him win the
greatest peace triumph of the world,
and secure such an effective stamping
out Of corporate abuses as to elicit the
admiration of the entire party.
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 pro-
posed as remedy for the disasters to
which labor was thus exposed, the is
suing OF fifty cent dollar which could
have cut in half such wages as there
were, and would have led to the hardest
kind Of struggle on labor's part to re-
store its wages to its proper equivalent
under the gold standard. The country
has been most fortunate that the fallacy
of Mr.. Bryan's railroad proposition has
been exposed without the cost of put
ting them into actual government prac-
tice, and it will be fortunate indeed, if
the danger of four years. depression, to
which it would be exposed in case of
Mr.. Bryan's election, may be averted,
and if by Republican success in Novem-
Der, and subsequent prosperity and by
a clinching of the Roosevelt policies, he
may again be shown to be prophet
without honor"