The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-09-26

assured that Mr.. Burton had no
authority to give out his offensive in
terview.
Much more of the same character
might be mentioned. but l have said
enough to show that Mr.. Taft's letter
performs the very important office of
generating Mr.. Burton from the
charge of having spoken without
authority and fixes responsibility for
his offensive utterances where it be-
longed.
Taft's Opposition.
The grounds of Mr.. Taft's opposition
to me were two fold:
THE rate bill and the Brownsville
matter. AS to the rate bill Mr. Taft
says of me in his letter enumerating
the reasons why he could not accept an
endorsement for the presidency if cou-
pied with an endorsement of me for
senator:
He has opposed the vital policies
and principles of the administration.
and adds as another reason that 1
though requested to do so by the Ohio
legislature.
"Mr. Taft knew 1 had never opposed
the policy of supervising and regulat-
ing interstate commerce and interstate
carriers. He knew that my opposition
to the rate bill was not because 1 was
opposed to the policy of regulation and
supervision but only to some features
of the methods proposed by that meas
ure.
For instance he knew shat my OBJ
| lection was confined to certain clauses.
| among them the rate making clause
and the commodities clause"
Mr.. Foraker declares that already
the course of events has shown the
| wisdom of his objection to these clauses
of the rate bill. He continues:
without disparaging genuine NOR
! atty it can be truthfully said that less
/ imaginary and professional 'rightness
| of action and moral awakening and
| more common sense in the policies of
| the administration would have been
| better for the country and would have
| excited less of that opposition of which
| Mr.. Taft's letter complains. At any
! rate in the presence of the decision on
the commodities clause and the I'M
| fortunate consequences resulting from
i the enforcement of the rate law as to
| foreign commerce I do not think 1 need
make any apology for voting against
| the rate bill; certainly 1 do not think
! it was an offense of such a heinous
| character that I should be read out
| of the party on account of it, as Judge
Taft's letter practically proposed.
Why He Did 1t.
Il have in mind not the stopping in
| definitely of adequate railroad CON
struction at a. time when it is so badly
| needed, nor the losses amounting to
tanned owing to the shrinkage in values
of all kinds of securities but the empty
dinner pals and suffering families OF
unemployed wageworkers and the hum
bier classes of people to be found By
thousands in every section of the I'm
ion.
Responsibility for such conditions is
serious. 1t is the first time we have
had anything like it under a Republi-
can administration. Who caused al
this? Not Providence. He has beer
| generously indulgent. All our natura
conditions are favorable to a resump-
ton of the fullest prosperity and yet Il
does not come. A million brimful
dinner pals have been kicked over. W.
know that the policies of the Republi-
can party filled them. Whose policies
emptied them? I am at least thankful
profoundly so, that no one has evel
| charged-not even my bitterest enemie:
that any dinner pail has ever beer
emptied or that any wage worker ha:
ever lost a days wages by reason o.
any act or speech or vote of mine. I
was because 1 thought 1 foresaw al
these disasters that 1 would not be stood
up by the president shoulder tt
[ shoulder with the Democrats to vote
in support of policies that they right
fully as I thought claimed as their own
But what manner of man is Judge Taft
anyhow. I have known him for grea
many years and 1 thought intimately
and yet at times 1 feel as though die
not know him at all.