The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1908-09-02
FORMAL REPLY
BY DEMOCRATS
National Committee Answers
Cleveland Article.
USES BITTER LANGUAGE

John M. Atwood, Chairman of the Com
mittee on Speakers, Wrote the An.
swer-DecIares the Fair Fame of
One Who in His Lifetime Had Been
Great Man Was Sold for an
Amount of Money.
Chicago, Sept. "A formal reply
to the ante-mortem article written by
former President Grover Cleveland
advocating the election of Taft, came
from the headquarters of the Demo-
cratic national committee. II was
written by John NJ. Atwood member
Of the committee from Kansas and
chairman of the committee on speak
ers. The reply which Mr. Atwood
gave out follows:
Never since DR.. Rufus Griswold
betrayed the trust that was his as
literary executor of Edgar Allan Poe
and mutiiated the memory of him
whose literary representative he was
has there been such a fragrant be-
trayal of trust by one sustaining a
fdnciary relation toward illustrious
dead as when Mr.. Frederick S. Hast
ings sold for money the fair fame of
one who ia his lifetime had been a
great man.
"The Grover Cleveland article
which has been exploited by the Re-
publican national committee was in
tended by its publishers to lead the
reading public to believe that If Mr.
Cleveland were living today he would
be one of Mr. Taft's political cham
pions.
1T must be borne in mind that
this article, cenceding its unperverted
authenticity, was written before the
Republican national convention; be-
fore the character of it's delegates
could have been known; before it was
known that these delegates were so
far from being untrammeled repre-
sentatives of a free people as to be
marionettes moved by the will of an
other; before the convention had re-
fused to speak for honesty in cleo
tions by refusing to declare for pre-
election publication of camSaign con-
tributions; before the convention pro-
mulgated socialism, by declaring that
the government should go into the
banking business; should establish
postal savings banks.
Twice Made Cleveland President.
"The worst enemy of the dead pres
ident could not have more perfectly
misrepres ented his mental attitude to-
ward public affairs than to proclaim
that, If living. he would have advocat-
ed the candidacy of one who was ar
rayed as a leader against the party
that had twice made him president; !;
one who was standing on platform
that placed that candidates party out
side the pale of common honesty; a
platform that promulgated a political
tenet that had for it's central thought
a socialistic seed For party today
that will not proclaim the source
of Its campaign income is for that
party to say that 1t expects income
from sources that it dare not proclaim.
Can anyone imagine Grover Cleve-
land, whose primal characteristic was
honesty, advocating the election of a
candidate who stood for admitted dis
honesty of purpose?
"If the postal savings bank is estab-
lished, the federal government goes
into the banking business, and so
oialism is just that, viz: the introduc-
tien of the government into the field
Of private enterprise. Can anyone
imagine that stern old individualist,
Grover Cleveland, advocating the cleo,
tion of one who stood for even semi
socialism?
ITO misquote the dead, who have
known naught but private life, Is a
shameful thing; to misoonstrue the
dead, whose life is a part Of the coun.
try's history, and to exploit that mis-
representation as a political asset, is
both a shameful and a wicked thing. "