The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1911-12-15
Shall Mr.. Taft Withdraw?


with Theodore Roosevelt now out as
an open and enthusiastic assailant of
the administration in Washington, with
the progressive republican league hurting
tomahawks at the White House from all
over the western hunting grounds, with
farmers bitterly resentful of what they
deem tariff heresy, and with Big Bust
ness in the east grown strangely cold to
President Taft because. while stocks
went up after his election, they have
had a passion for darting downward
since his Inauguration, the federal ma
chine. which is intrusted with the mis-
sion of making ticket for the national
convention to take. may be said to be
surrounded, besieged and stormed by in
surgency, insurrection, rebellion and very
nearly every other variety of hostility.
1T is tradition to believe that the
chief magistrate can be loved by the
masses for the enemies they have made
among the classes. But it yet remains
to be doubted that in the republican
party Colonel Roosevelt commands the
popular allegiance that is not extremely
radical, say. We suppose that nobody
questions that the more radical element
goes horse, foot and Dragons, with the
progressive republican league, which is
demanding that candidates for the presi-
dency submit their ambition for nomina-
tion to the popular test of direct prim-
aries. So much for the voting power of
the party. As for the sinews of war, it
is needless to emphasize that they are
in the keeping of the exalted minority
which constitutes Big Business.
with the lines thus drawn it would
be idle to deny that the situation of to-
day presents itself as a crisis for the re-
publican party. This is not to our lik-
ing. No more can it be to the liking of
others who see the interests of the coun-
try best insured when there is repub
lican president in the White House. with
and republican senate in congress.
What the likelihood is of such a result,
following the national election of next
year. what the likelihood is when the
party is threatened, not with mere dis
sension. but with actual separation into
several fragments, is subject for the
careful consideration of everybody
Mr. Taft it is matter of deepest con
Germ.
Anticipating something of what has
now come to pass, Mr.. Taft has con
fessed the possibility of party defeat.
Did he have it in mind then, when he
intimated his misgivings, to decline a
denomination? We say decline a re
nomination, rather than trial for it
because we take it that, if he should be
so minded, the federal machine could
march to the convention the delegates
necessary to place him at the head of
the ticket. For it is federal office hold
ers who, in person or by proxy, man the
nominating engine at the national con-
vention.
But, though he might be willing to
face, or even court, defeat at the head
of his party, in a fair and square con
test, republican host against democratic
host, could he be willing, could he be
expected to be willing, to 90 upon the
political battlefield without great
party, perhaps without so much as a
fraction of his party, behind him? Such
is not our opinion. We believe that the
public will not be left long unaware
that such is not the opinion of Mr.. Taft
In any event, there must be immediate
| ly some very dramatic developments OF
situation that so suddenly has become
all but tragic"