The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-05
PRESIDENT TAFTs INAUGURAL
 ADDRESS.

| more contented.
 The declaration that he would carry
 out the policy of Former President | Roosevelt was expected. The new l President could hardly have said less. ! The country has had no special quar- rels with Roosevelt's policies: the trouble has come from the means he
 sought to carry them into effect l Roosevelt never harmed business by prosecutions he sought to have insti- ! tuted against some of the larger cor portations but Roosevelt did harm busi-
 ness and that seriously by his whole sale denunciations. by putting back of | irresponsible charges the weight and ! influence of the office of President. Roosevelt never harmed business by 1 seeking to regulate corporations by le- l gal means, but he destroyed public con-
 fdence by repeated public assaults, 1 against which when the President made them. there could be no adequate
 defense The most powerful force in
 American public affairs is public sen- i timent and for what he did in distort- 1 ing that sentiment to the injury of in- nocent people and innocent interests the retiring President must bear the blame
 The incoming President well says | that the government must reserve to itself the power of restraining Illegal | ~rpad c cnrpOrate or nri- vate. The government must have the power to step in and protect the weak from the strong. There are different ways of doing this. The policy may be the same but the Taft way will be diff ferent from the Roosevelt way. The courts will at least be protected from executive assault.
 President Taft wants a tariff revis- ion bill passed and that quickly, and yet the more ardent of the tariff revision ists will feel disappointed at the tariff paragraphs in his inaugural address. To them it will appear that the Presi- dent is too solicitous for the business | interests which will be affected by a discussion of the tariff question. He says plainly that a prolonged discussion of the tariff question will hamper busi- ness largely because of it's uncertain ty and that while 1t is we'll to revise the tariff it is well to do it quickly.
 President Taft, in one respect at least, occupied advanced ground and that is on the question of increased l Federal authority. He has gone as far as Roosevelt in this respect. and the l adherents to the rigorous tenets of the | makers of the Constitution who were 1 determined in opposition to the en- croachments of the Federal government upon the State governments, can get but little comfort out of President Tafts declarations on the perennial issue. In his advocacy of a centraliz- ed government the new President Is distinctly a Republican. His face is set firmly against the teachings of l Democracy
 The astonishing part of his address and which will be read in the South with pleasure and satisfaction is that declaration that the movement of North erners to give the negro suffrage was failure. Did anybody, either In the North or South in Reconstruction days expect a Republican President, a man who had been voted for by every New England State, to say in his inaugural
 
 was mistake? MT. Taft voluntarily gives his pledge that no effort will be made by the Federal government to prevent the States from dealing with their own domestic troubles of the suff- rage. In other words, the restrictive meth ods adopted by the South are giv- en by inference, an endorsement Ger tainly he has come to the South's way of thinking on the wrong and the harm done by the Republican Con- gresses which arbitrarily and fanati cally fastened Reconstruction on the South.
 President Taft well says that with the elimination of the negro from poli- tics and public affairs in the South there has come a better understand i ing and more sympathy between him and his white neighbor. He points out a fact. not always appreciated by the Northern man. that the true welfare of the negro and his ultimate development rests largely upon the cooperation of the Southern white man. MT. Taft states a patent truth when he says the Southern white man, since negro suffrage has been restricted is dispos- ed to give the negro more kindly and better treatment. A Southern white |. man could well have made this part of the Presidents address.
 The whole address Is judicous, firm and reassuring.
 HE. WILL CHANEEy