The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-10-03
Reception Committees Are Dr.
vided Into Factions
NOT THE FAULT OF TAFT
Taft's Declaration About Alaska Does
Not Sit Well With the People
of the West Who Are
Quick to Resent.
BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS.

Portland. Ore. October 2.-(special)-
Mr.. Taft and the sun struck Portland to-
gether looking for roundness and redness
not little alike. Both have been going
the rounds. having a hot old time ever
since. Portland is the best town I've
struck yet. not excepting Spokane, which
is the worst-Portland, of which the mem
dacious among the citizens say 1T has
$4,000 people, reposes in a loving bow
in the hills, with a river rolling
through il.
Fifty miles to the east towers Mount
Hood, all majestic and snowy. from which
ignoring the majesty and snow-capping
a water supply is drawn in the most com
monplace way. My taxicab driver-they
have those DEVILS playthings here-toolS
me 10 the top of a nearby eminence-600
feet high it was-and waving a large
patronizing hand toward Mount Hood,
averred it to be pretty swell mount
ing
However, since he later said that "Chi-
nese peasants are swell eating" and
that his scrapheap of a taXicab a
swell machine the adjective lost it's
impressiveness. 1t pleases me to see the
cities we go through-DenVer where the
song of the CRATER is heard in the land;
Salt Lake City, with its temple. it's mist
and mystery of Mormonism: Spokane.
with its ill-manners and general bump
tiousness. l went riding in Spokane and
the horse that was hauling me fell over
bridge. The man on the box called
it an accident" For myself | shall al
ways believe it TO have been deliberate
suicide on the part of the horse, which
had nothing to look forward to save a
life in Spokane.
Badly Managed Trip.
1t is every day more evident that this
iaunt, or junket, or political pilgrimage,
whichever you care to call it, of Mr..
Teft's is badly managed
For one thing. he should have sent
ahead gay cat' as the yeggmen call
it, to spy out the land. He should have
better informed himself conforming local
conditions. Above all, he should never
have allowed himself to be captured by
local committees, which use him TO snub
one faction or insult another or to shove
aside another.
Compalint of this has everywhere been
made. Those $40 dinners in Chicago, in
Minneapolis, here in Portland-only here
it is $12-the one threatened in San Fran
cisco have never failed and never will
fail, to rub the wrong way of the fur of
the yeoman. Then, too, in every town it
is a case of Country club some other
club, or several other clubs, and the day
becomes divided between the hours with
the masses and the hours with the classes.
AS my hill-climbing taxicabist put it when
discussing the matter, and he but repeats
a sentiment 1 have heard voiced 100
times-''he stands a swell chance of be-
coming acquainted with the people, 1
don't think.
Not Taft's Fault.
And all this is not Mr. Taft's fault. only
as he permits himself to be taken prisoner
by selfish cliques and pinheaded cataenes,
who with money and snobbish ambitions
and little else besides employ him for the
purpose of their own local grace and IL
lustrations.
Yesterday, however, above all days, it
was appointed that Mr.. Taft had inadver-
tently, yet no less effectively sat on a
showcase and cracked the glass beyond
every possibility of repair.
Already he is beginning to hear of it.
It was his Yukon exposition declaration
that he did not believe In territorial gov
ernment for Alaska 1t ought, he said,
be controlled by presidentially appoint
ed board like the unregenerated heath at
Porto Rico. Than this blow to home rule
in Alaska there is nothing which in this
corner of the world could have been more
unpopular The population of Alaska is.
almost to man, American, and they not
be trusted to govern themselves? Were
Mr.. Taft to hear the half of what is said
concerning his illumination it would make
his head ring. He argued that the people
OF Alaska are too nomadic"-whatever
that should mean-to be trusted with their
own public affairs. why should ''nomadic"
obtain as reason that they shouldn't?
A man who goes up and down with ears
to hear and eyes to see knows more of the
whole need of his region than he who has
never moved from his own dooryard. Or,
at the worst ought he not have as clear a
conception of what is needed as a parcel
of grating politicians calling itself
board and drawn from elsewhere except
the territory governed by President who
never saw the place? The thought was
fat: the argument flabby, and in the mat
ter of governing Alaska" Mr. Taft might
better come again.
OF late some of the papers with their
CONTINUED ON PAGE A.