Tombstone epitaph., 1909-05-23

new way of assailins the doctrine oi state rights. They kill rights before l they are born They have taught l their party the shameful lesson that annihilation of state rights prior 10 their birth is as effective a method as strangling them in their cradle.
 This drama of preventing the es- tablishment of two great common wealths, of depriving two populations of representation in congress, of rob bing thousands of voters Of the elec- tive franchise, has Mephistopheles and it's Faust. The Mephistopheles is Aldrich. the Faust is Beyeridge Ahrich is the incentor. Beyeridge the tool. Aldrich is the deviser of ways and means, who stands safely en- sconced in the shadows of the back ground. Beveridge Is the puppet who takes the odium. In any event. Ar drich is the protagonist of the play.
 And 10 pursue the comparison fur ther. the drama of Arizona and New Mexico. like the drama of Faust, has it's Wagner-the conventionalist. the | temporizer in the person of President ! Taft. Do you want proof Of thls! Turn to the Taft letter to Aldrich in | which MT Taft said he did not un- 1 derstand that the republican platform of 1908 pledged statehood to the two ! territories before the regular session of the next congress. Digest that ! statement and then read the state hood plank of the Chicago platform IL says:
 We favor the immediate admission 1 of the territories of Arizona and New ! Mexico as separate states of the un- : ion" Not a word about waiting till the session of the next congress. Not a syllable or a hint of delay. IL put the party squarely on record for i'm mediate statehood. Remember that and draw your own parallel between that unqualified declaration and the
 shifty dodge of MT. Taft's letter. and . then put the two side by side with that extraordinary scene little be
 fore the adjournment of the last con
 se,ss when Beveridge returned 10
 the familiar iOb of pulling the Aldrich
 chestnuts ont of the fire. If there
 has been tragedy about the state hood drama of Arizona and New Mex
 ico that scene furnished the bur
 lesque.
 For Beveridge. left without a pre-
 text. void of even patch of bog ti
 stand on had to fall back on th' position that there were bad people Il
 New Mexico that there were fraud
 in New Mexico. (as if there weren'
 frauds and bad citizens in every stat
 and territory of the union) And tn
 climax of the ridiculous was reache'
 when Beveridge was made 10 act th
 part of a political clown for the sak of Aldrich. 4 stenographer. Mis-
 I.awler. was summoned. and the H'i
 girl testified that to her own knowl
 edge there were some pretty disreI
 utahlp citizens in New Mexico An
 on evidence of no more siGnifcanc
 than that. Aldrich. Beyeridge and Nil Taft had found what in their eye
 must serve them as an excuse for fla - rcpudiation of ,he pledge starin them in their faces from the page C . their own party platform. It vel . down with the republican congress anything would do for delay-an congress adjourned with Arizona an I. New Mexico exactly in the situatio :, that they were before. No statehoo for that session.
 And if not then. when? Have th
 two territories any guaranty for th
 future? We will answer that que ton by another What ground ha
 anybody to believe that a party whic deliberately oyerrides it's own pledg | will not continue to repudiate T
 False in one thing. false in all
 diate statehood for Arizona and Ne
 a maxim which applies to a polite;
 policy just as aptly as 1t does to tn
 testimony of a witness on the stant The republican promise of imm l Mexico had fulfilled its object
 catching votes The fish were in th
 pet. and what more did the Aldrichf
 and the Beyeridges want? The den {, ocratic platform said: Admit Arizon
 end New Mexico at once. and |, meant 1t. The republican platfor1 , raid the same thing. and it did nt ]. mean it. And 1t is fraud that cal l, not be cured. No matter what an
 republican congress shall do in tn . business it cannot get around tr I. fact that the last republican congres a deliberately went back on the pligh
 ed word of its party-its solemn trot ], to the American people. ImmediaI . action was promised. there was ar l; ple opportunity for IL, the statehoo = question did not even call for q bate, 1t had been extensively ca =, vassed, not only every senator ar . representative but every intelligeI
 voter in the country knew the merit s of it, it had been thrashed out by th - discussions of twenty years. In the |, platforms, the two great parties wei al one on 1t. The voters who respe !, lively stood by those platforms, it fo ' lows as matter of necessity wei = united on it. The conclusion is inc 7 orable. The Aldrich-Beveridge stat = hood hold-uD at the last session :. congress was not only a direct rep :, diation of their party's pledge. bl
 was an out-and-out insult and defanC W of solid national opinion.
 . Neither is there any possible avoi
 ance of the fact that Mir. Taft's lett Il to Aldrich puts him in the light 7 one who countenances the AldriC ' methods and makes him partit ' pant in that colossal wrong of tive i T ty years duration-the denial of stat ' hood to New Mexico and Arizona.