The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1911-09-01
CLARK REPLIES TO
PRESIDENT TAFT
iAHsIva.- ~I~el~~--
Speaker Declares President to Have
Been in Bad Humor Because De-
feat Stares Him in Face.

Quincy, ILL.,, Aug. 80, = Speaker
Champ Clark, in a signed interview
here yesterday, replied emphatically
to President Taft's speech of defiance
to the insurgent republicans and dem
ocrats delivered at Hamilton, Mass,
Saturday He accused the president
of not stating facts. He said he did
not reply for insurgent republicans,
who will, mo doubt, take up the cud-
gels in their own behalf"
He declared, among other things,
that if the tariff board is to be used
as a pretext for delaying tariff re-
vision downward, the democrats will
cut off it's supplies Referring to the
Hamilton speech, Mr.. Clark said:
"The president assumed rather
large stunt by running amuck on both
the insurgent republicans and the dem
ocrats in congress, singing out Mr..
Underwood and myself in particular
as targets. l accept the onslaught
as a badge of honor. The president,
as a rule is most amiabie gentle
man, but at times he seems to have
been in bad temper because he sees
his defeat staring him in the face. The
presidents criticism of Mr.. Underwood
and myself is uncalled for, and is as
Iungrateful a performance as l can re-
member, for had it not been for the ac-
ton of the democrats in the house,
both in the sixty-first and sixty-second
congresses, in lining up in favor of
reciprocity he would have been the
most thoroughly discredited and hum
iliated president since the days of
Andrew Johnson.
with all the influence and patron
age of his great office, he could not
muster the majority of the house re-
publicans for reciprocity in either con-
gress. After we pulled him out of the
hole in the sixty-first, he wrote letter
of thanks to Mr. Mccall of Massachu-
setts and the republicans and not a
word of thanks to the democrats.
The president says we did not play
politics about reciprocity, but that we
did play politics about tariff. The
only politics we played was to keep
faith with the people and to rigorous
ly redeem the promises we made in or
der to win the election in 1910, which
is the best and noblest sort of politics.
If any politics was played on reciproc-
lity, the president himself played it
personally at that,
"He seems to think that we ought
to have adjourned as soon as reciproc-
lity was disposed of-that is, he seems
to think that congress is composed of
lot of school boys to be ordered about
by him as head teacher
IF we had done less than we did
do, we would not have been worthy
of so great a portion of public con-
fidence as we now enjoy. We made the
best record of constructive statesman
ship made by any congress in the same
length of time in a generation, and
that fact is precisely what caused the
president to assail the democrats in
congress.
He had said the rates of the wool
schedule in the Payne-Aldrich tariff
bill were too high and ought to be re-
duced. We reduced them. In the
teeth of his Winona speech, and other
declarations to the effect that said
rates were too high, and ought to be
reduced, he voted our wool bill, which
largely reduced the rates and would
have greatly relieved the people, by
giving them much cheaper clothing
and blankets. He vetoed it, thereby
going over, boots and breeches, to the
standpatters.
I'VE eheerfully meet him on thai
issue. We stand for the best inter
ests of the masses; ne stands for a
, handful OF protected tariff barons, and
by his veto enables them to continue
to levy unjust and exorbiant tribute
upon the consumers of the land. He
appears to hope that the consumers
will kiss his hand, which is the hand
that smote them sorely.
"The president himself is a man oi
large general information. as we'll as
a man of ability, but certainly he is
not enough of tariff expert to justify
him in vetoing tariff bills. which pass
ed the house by majorities of more
than two to one"