The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-14
LAFOLLETTE CALLS DOWN PRESIDENT IN UNSPAR|NG TERMS Says That Taft Has Been a Traitor to Roosevelt
 Policies RECIPROCITY BILL IS WARMLY DENOUNCED Bristow Says the Measure Is Intended as a Punishment for the In-
 surgent Farmers of
 the West

D SNashing ton, July 13.-Senator LaFol- . ite, in a speech against reciproe- " today reviewed. act by act, the ad- o ninistration of President Taft In un- 'sparing terms and declared the con test involved was the fight between 1 the plain people and confedera ted priv | ilege.s
 considered as measure of reef proeity," said Senator LaFollette of the | Canadian agreement, 'it violates every | tariff principle of reciprocity hereto fore Expressed in the platform, decar- atoms of the republican party and rec ! commended by former republican pres idents Considered as a tariff bill il violates every tariff principle and plat form promise upon which William IL , Taft was elected President of the Unit ed States.
 'In the beginning it was heraded as blessing to consumers. So was the tariff bill of 1909. It promises to reduce duties for the benefit of the people. It reduces no duties, the effect Ol WHICH Cdn eftl Itdtll tIlt ptOpits put 1t does reduce duties for the millers, the packers, Standard oil, the brewers, the coal combines and in some measure for the already protected interests It Is nothing that it pretends to be and professes nothing to be that it Is. II is a little brother to the Payne-A AL drich bill. the greatest legislative wrong inflicted upon the American peo- pie in half century"
 The speaker said the pending legis- lation based on the Canadian pact was so related to the strange course of MT. Taft upon the tariff question and the protective policies which he was elected to maintain that the real stable worth of hts recommendations could not be fairly judged without review ing the all important issues involved in his election and the most important acts of his administration.
 Continuing his criticism of Mir, Taft's Iadmjntstrat an. senstor Toilette sif l.
 Roosevelt Was Forgotten
 Throughout the first pages of his first general messages be found no space to say word for the great measures that had made the name of his predecessor re- vered and loved everywhere In the United States. It Is to be wondered at that the republican voter In 1910 felt that he had several scores to settle? A President whom he had elected and believed him to be the custodian of the Roosevelt pol icies. had dismissed the Roosevelt cabi- ret and appointed in their places men in the main of known hostility to those pol icies.
 "The congressional investigation of the Alaska coal scandal" said he, confirmed the public opinion, which had already reached the stage of conviction, that Bal finger was using his official power to aid the Morgan-Guggenheim interests in wrongfully acquiring control of the Alas kan coal fields. The subsequent history of the Alaskan coal lands scandal sim ply confirms the bad faith and betrayal of public interest. which the earlier tes- timony so clearly established.
 Heir to the Roosevelt policies as a presidential candidate, Mir Taft was a pronounced progressive and the most en- thusiastic Roosevelt champion from the first to the last of the campaign Three mouths after he was inaugurated he seemed to have forgotten that there had ever been well known Roosevelt policies. He had no sooner taken his oath of office than he sacrificed the progressive cause for the support of Aldrich and Cannon and their reactionary programme
 BristOw Defends Amendment
 In a general speech in support of his amendment to the Canadian reciprocity bill, providing for reduction of the duty on sugar, Senator Bristow of Kansas, republican insurgent, today denounced what he characterized as an alliance of certain stand-pat republican senators with the democrats to pass the measure, and permit the inequalities of the tariff to remain.''
 He referred to the bearing of this Iegis- lation on the coming national elections, intimating the democrats might use their record in the. House on this issue to urge Speaker Champ Clark for the presidency.
 If this had been an honest effort to relieve the American people from the bur dens of the excessive tariff taxation the high duties on trust-controlled products would have been first attacked" he said But the sugar trust, the American Wooen company, the steel trust, the smelters trust, the rubber trust, and all of these great concerns that have monop- olized the American marked and used high protective duties to charge excessive prices to the American people are left un- touched. while the President of the United States and the democratic majority In both branches of Congress have joined in an attack upon the duties of the agricul- turists' schedules, duties that have never been a burden to the American people, because they have never materially in creased the price of the products upon which they were imposed.
 Democratic leaders have for half century made violent attacks on the duties that protect the manufacturing barons' of the east, but now when they have an opportunity to relieve the people of the burdens of which they have so bitterly complained, they refuse to do t.
 To Pass Unamended
 "The combination on this floor between certain pat republicans, representing great manufacturing states, and majority Of the democrats have, we are told. decided that no amendments shall be attached to the Canadian bill, and that soon after it is passed Congress is to adjourn. This combination is to visit its wrath on the farmer and give the trust a chance to escape any immediate disturbance.
 of the plan succeeds. the standpat- ters save their high duties on manufac- tlred articles, the President gets even with the nsurgent farmer of the west and makes friends with the newspapers. A friendship which he has sorely needed durine the past two years, and the demo- crats are given an issue for the campaign newt year, which is the thing they most desire. They will point with pride to
 
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