The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1908-10-08
TAFTS TOUR
OF SOUTH OAK,
Described by Expert Staff Report.
er of Chicago Tribune

and dated at Sioux City:
"Mr Taft has completed his first
week of actual cross country cam
paining for the presidency. Today
the second week begins with two full
days in Mr. Bryan's own state and
an afternoon and a night spent IN
the home town of the democratic
candidate. We have been travelling
on fast trains and on rapid schedul-
es, but there seems to be no locomo-
tive powerful enough to catch up
with the enemy's country. 1t is al
ways in the state beyond, and we
have yet to reach a section where
either the attitude of the crowd or
thereports of the local leaders, who
swarm into the train, can be consid-
cred in the slightest degree alarm
ing.
1t is probably a mistake to speak
of the flight of the Taft special as a
whirlwind tour of the country. On
the contrary. | have seldom seen po-
htical gatherings where the enthus-
iasm seemed to be deeper, where
there was such complete absence
of antagonism, and where, in fact,
there seemed to be so little evidence
of any organized opposition. We
have crossed and re-crossed Mr. Bry-
ans trail throughout the northwest.
He has held big meetings, bit so has
Taft. In almost every case the re-
publican crowd has been larger than
the democratic crowd, and Mr. Taft
has beer more enthusiastically re-
ceived than Mr. Bryan. This | gath
er from the reports of people in
places like Mitchell, who say that
Bryan day at the corn palace festi-
val unquestionably gathered 10000
or Is, 900 together, but that the en-
thusiasm was not nearly so great as
manifested in the big meetings Mr.
Taft addressed from an open plat
form and in the corn palace itself.
The two big night demonstrations
at Fargo and here at Sioux City
were magnificent in their way. At
Mitchell there were from $1,000 to
10000 people who listened to the re-
publican candidate, and there was
not discordant note, not sign of
that boisterous democracy which
was so characteristic of political
meetings in the Dakotas in 1896.
Taft and the Tariff
1t was at Mitchell where Mr. Taft
made what appears to me to be the
strongest speech he has yet deliver
ed, 1t was entirely without bitter
ness, but he hammered Bryan by
name and carried his audience with
him by his sledge hammer attacks.
He was especially happy in catching
the fancy of the crowd when he ask
ed them whether they proposed to
entrust the important affairs of the
government to republicans who have
been trained in administration or to
Mr. Bryan and his associate demo-
who were but platform debat-
ers." In this Mitchell speech, which
covered wide range of topics, and
which was particularly pronounced
in its logic and in the vigor of its
language, Mr. Taft handled the
tariff question in way which SEEM
to satisfy his hearers in an unusual
degree. Tariff reform is popular in
this section, and practically the only
interruption of the Mitchell meeting
was when the speaker was asked
whether he proposed to revise the
tariff "up or down"
With this question as his text
Judge Taft went to work to give the
people there concise lesson on the
economics of the tariff question, and
it was easy to see from the attentive
way in which he was heard that he
was creating a profound impression
and was dispelling some of the So
phistry of Mr. Bryan's speech of the
day before. Referring to the fact
that he himself had pronounced for
tariff revision in Maine two years
ago, before he became candidate
for the presidency, Mr. Taft an
nounced his belief that large pro-
portion of the schedules in the Ding
ley tariff would have to be lowered
because changing conditions had re-
duced the cost of production. In
the case of a few products, among
which he mentioned pottery in par