Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1908-09-25
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their opposition to Roosevelt and his
policies should now be banded together
to secure the election of a Presidential
lndidate pledged to the perpetuation
and literal execution of those policies.
The only explanation which at all
explains the otherwise ineXplicable at
titude of the Trusts and the protected
Industries, 1--WE mean the men who own
and control these concerns) is that the
corporations and capitalists, lately
frantic with angry fear Of the Admin
| lstratiOn, have received from some au-
thoritative source the assurance that,
Notwithstanding Mr.. Taft's declara-
tions TO the contrary, the election of the
Republican nominee and~a Republican
House of Representatives will signal a
suspension of active hOstilities against
the one class and the continuance of
| the government preference now enjoyed
by the other under the protective sys-
tenn of Tariff.
The evidences in support of this sup
position are too strong and cumulative
to be overturned by mere denials. The
indication already pointed out consti-
tutes in itself good presumptive proof
In 1896 when the Republican platform
and nominee were both committed to
loosening of the shackles on COM
merce by the adoption of reciprocity
agreements with foreign countries, it
was similarly remarked that the SYM
pathy and money of the protected in
terests flowed more freely than ever in
to the campaign Golfers of the Republi-
can party. The deduction was justi-
fed then as now that they had receiv-
ed trustworthy promise that their sup
port would be compensated, should the
Republicans win, by the enactment of
even higher rates of duties on imports
the platform and McKinley's pledges
to the contrary Notwithstanding. And
the event vindicated the deduction and
discharged the obligation. The reci-
prOcity treaties were defeated or pigeon
holed in the Republican Senate and the
Dingley bill was soon after enacted, ex-
tending to the products of the domestic
mills and factories protection uni
formly higher than that previously ex-
tended. There is every ground that
the bargain then engineered by Mark
Hanna is to be duplicated by Hitch
cock. Here are some of the pregnant
signs:
The charater, antecedants and busi-
ness connections of the persons in
charge of Mr.. Taft's campaign and the
identity of his running mate, Mr.. Sher-
man, with the fat-frying and reaction
ary wing of the party. Hitchcock is
politician; Sheldon is director
and lobbyist for half hundred indus
trial monopolies; Du Pont is the head
of Trust now before the Federal
courts charged with violation of the
laws against conspiracy in restrain of
trade. VIM. Nelson Cromwell, of New
York, the great Wall street lawyer, at
torney for the Panama canal combine,
Kuehn, Loeb and Company, the Har-
riman interests, the sugar trust, Stand
asd Oil trust, ct al; Charles f. Booker,
of Connecticut, millionaire, engaged in
the banking and railway business, and
of the New York, New
Haven and Hartford Railroad Compa-
ny, against which government suit
is now pending; Frank G. Lowden, Of
of the late George M. Pullman and now
vice-president and heavily interested
in that widely known monopoly, the
Pullman Palace Car Company; and
last, Boise Penrose, the political heir of
Boss Quay, and, since the latter's death,
boss of the corrupt political machine
In Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, a
machine which has not been equalled
in political turpitude since the days of
Boss Tweed in New York.
OF these managers and committee
men Hitchcock, Sheldon and Cromwell
were chosen by Judge Taft himself, and
for the very qualities and
which render them totally
incapable of acting as faithful agents
of any genuine reform either in politl-
cal methods, in tariff revision or in the
publication of business.
The ce-Presidential candidate, in
whose nomination Mr.. Taft so cordial
ly rejoiced, defantly proclaimed in his
speech of acceptance that "the tariff
would be revised in the interest of pro-
tectlon.'
Mr.. Sheldon has more recently been
at the pains to publicly announce that
''the Republican party is not bound by
the personal utterance of the nominee.
If all this does not make up COM
plete case, we are at loss to conjecture
what would convince the people that
the Republican party is asking con-
tinuance in power on false pretenses.
AS for Judge Taft, a man is fairly judg
ed by the company he keeps. His
voluntary entrustment of his canvass
to such agencies as those enumerated
above was not in ignorance of their re-
cords, and can not presage disavowal
of the means they will use or repudia-
ton of the obligations they will incur
to forward his success. Figs are not
gathered from thorns, nor from thistles
grapes. If he commissions such staff
before election, Of what material would
be select cabinet if made President
Having free option, he has deliberate
ly thrown himself into the hands of
that element of his party which notori-
ously is welded to the existing order of
things and inimical to all the changes