The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-04-20
ONE TERM FOR TAFT.

| On Il TERM tNJE6 4-AE
One of the absorbing topics for con-
versation these days in national polit-
ical circles is the intimation given by
| President Taft in some speeches. ne
delivered at a couple of functions IN
| Washington last Saturday night that
he expected to retire to private life on
his completion of one: presidential
term. Some of the wiseacres at Wash
ington express the opinion that the
J president was joking. Others think
that his real purpose was unfolded I'M
der his smiling words and that he has
no intention Of being a candidate for
denomination and reelection.
If this is true the country will be
the real loser and the majority of the
people in it viii begin &c appreciate the
fact by the time Mr.. Taft's term of
Office is expiring that he has made q
great president, that he has proven
himself to be a constructive statesman
of the highest type, and just the kind
of a man the country needs in its chief
executives chair during the present
era. That Mr.. Taft's feelings have
been hurt by the criticism which has
been leveled at him is probably true.
And no wonder. Few presidents have
been more bitterly assailed by men
who have claimed to be of their own
party. And none of them have been
attacked more unfairly and unjustly.
Much of the criticism against Mr.
Taft concerns the new tariff law. Yet
any honest student of tariff matter will
be forced to admit that it is the most
progressive law towards a revision
downward that the Republican party
has yet passed. 1t does not go far
enough in all particulars. This is adj
rnitted by Mr.. Taft who rightly calls
II the best tariff law ever passed. But
it is a step in the right direction and
indicates that the tariff revisons of the
future will be of the downward type.
Those who are most severe in de-
nunciation of the president and the
tariff law appear to think that II Mr.
Roosevelt had been in Office a much !
different law would have been enacted. |
They believe he would have cudgled
congress into doing his will. But he |
did not have nerve enough to try the
issue during the seven years he was in
office. The need of 4 tariff revision
was announced by William Mckinley
just before his assassination. He had
plans for bringing about such re-
vision. When Mr.. Roosevelt assumed |
the presidency he committed himself |
cies. But he never took the tariff mat |
ter up with congress. There was just |
as much need for tariff revision during |
the entire presidential incumbency of
Mr. Roosevelt as there has been for |
the past eighteen months. Mr.. Roose-
Welt was too crafty politician, though,
to undertake II. He we'll knew that no |
matter what kind of "a tariff law was |
enacted it would call down objurga-
tions on the head of the man who
would have t. sign it. And when he
was urged to have the tariff revision
settled before he retired from Office he
Every man has to skin
his own skurks and the tariff is Taft's
skunk
Mr.. Taft went into Office not with
any reforms aud policies of his own to
put in operation! His task was to
clean up the work left over from the
last administration. He has bent his
back to the tnankless job and by the
time his four years term draws to a
close it will be found that he has done
this work well and that the famous
Roosevelt policies" have been worked
out in a concrete and effective way. To
pronounce these policies was one
thing. To enact them into just and
equitable laws is another and one that
Roosevelt was evidently not capable Of
doing. That has been the Taft task
and he's going to accomplish it if he is
given half a show.