The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-09-27
By Ernest G.. Walker.

BEVERLY. Massachusetts, Septem-
Der l2.-Autumn rains have been
drenching the summer Capital and
marring vacation pleasures. But the
downpour has been followed by more
| golden days of the kind that make the
aristocratic North Shore exult in exist
ence. A few days Of political calm
have ushered in another period of brow
furrowing problems, which make ordi-
| nary mortals in politics pass wakeful
nights even IN the vicinity of the nerve
soothing ocean side.
Contests and contentious seem to null
/ tipIy. The face of the Predecessor is
looming menacingly once more upon
the Beverly horizon. 1t has provoked
a serious query among the political
minds as to whether the ''sittight
| policy for the President was wisely
! chosen. Would militant attitude for
| the party leader who is getting his va
| cation at Burgess Point and on the
| Myopia golf links, not have acted as
deterrent and suppressed many of the
! Colonel 5 critical utterances as he
/ whirled from State to State on his
| western tour I
Those who have oeen disposed to
| answer that question in the affirmative
are very emphatic now in their view.
| The Freeport, Illinois, speech III which
| the ex-President threatened to castigate
T.! the crooks of the corporation world
should he return to public life, con
| WINGED the doubters that the Colonel
wants to get back into the White House
again. There is a quite general dispo
! sition now to accept that rather condi-
tionaI utterance as a declaration of in
tentions 10 be a candidate in 1912. At
Oyster Bay he told some of the cor
respondents. it now transpires, that he
was going to round up as many dele
gates as he could. He did not speak
quite as plainly or directly as that ac-
cording to the reports brought to Bev
erly, but he left the inference clear.
What Will Taft Do
Now will President Taft acquiesce in
the ambition of his predecessor to be-
come his successor or Will he deck him
self in war cloth and move into the
open for clash of spear on shield
That question is thrust right into the
congressional campaign by the Freeport
speech. The President s friends can
not ignore it if they would The
Predecessors friends are jubilant, for
they are now proclaiming from the
housetops that they propose to bring
the Insurgent West they have been
singing paeans of praise in his presence.
He believes he can bring to the next
~ o1 AL
gates. The struggle will now be to
bring the East and South into line-as
far as the Colonel's friends are con
cerned- and utterly smother not only
any aspirations that President Taft
! may have for another term but the
aspirations of any one Of the Insurgent
| leaders
1t remains to be developed whether
| President Taft will acquiesce in this.
| He has been much aroused. not to say
| annoyed, by the activities Roosevelt
ian. But he eschews contention He
loves the ease Of office His anxieties
are for the enactment and administra-
| ton of laws. There is a great field of
action in connection with the presiden-
tial office, where he does not choose to
vie. The fierce political combats which
! attach to the functions of Republican
| leader and the efforts to keep abreast
of popular favor are not to President
Taft S liking. In his speeches he uses
| the word ''iudicial" again and again
as the frame of mind that he cham
| pions. The word executive has a
! broader meaning to the Predecessor
than it has to President Taft. And the
! Predecessor is an adept in the exercise
OF what might be called the extra
official, if not the ultra official func-
tions of the highest administrative
office.
Expected to Sit Tight.
All this has. been demonstrated so
| clearly by the events of fhe summer.
and also of the administration to date
that no one now apparently expects the
President to jump into the panoply of
party warfare and try to wrest laures
from Colonel Roosevelt The latter
may hoist his lance on every political
iousting ground where there is a pos
sibility of winning advantage for 1912
and President Taft viii not interfere
BY and by his friends-espec;ally the
official world Of his administration
may try anew to rally him, because of
their hopes Of future favors and future
tSIuic / tIt Will tIpUdblN bc d Gun
vIction that the South, where official
Influence wins national convention dele
gates, and the East, where the populace
is not quite so easily entranced with
preachments and where there are more
influential Republicans of conservative
temperament, can hold out against the
/ bcslegeTs for a third term.
After November, the Deluge.
That, if it comes at all, viii be after
the elections in November. 1t will be
the big political struggle of the win
ter and the ensuing summer. If the
President can be persuaded to under
take such a struggle it viii mean a
campaign of nearly twenty months
duration for the presidential nomina
= ton. The yigoc with which such a
campaign would be waged will depend
much upon the outcome Of the Novem
! rar af.at-lr- -In Ror,1G1irar7 mart Y