The Columbus journal. (Columbus, Neb.) 1874-1911, 1911-03-01
A DEMOCRATIC VIEW.

~
Somehow it is difficult to get away
from the suspicion that President Taft
may have sprung Canadian reciprocity
as a measure of retaliation. When
Just after the close of the last session of
congress, large portion Of his own
party broke into a chorus of protest
against the high cost of living and
the enormous eXactiOns of the tariff
system, and he undertook at Winona,
Wis, to apPease the so-called progress
sives, he simply made matters worse
within his party and aroused the in
surgents to still greater indulgences in
denunciatory invective.
To everyone u ho sympathized with,
and lent support to, the insurgent
cause it is almost a matter OF chagrIn
to reflect that the cutlery that was made
against the Payne, AlLrich bill may
have determined the president to give
the insurgents, and disafiected republi
cans generally, more in the way of
tariff concessions than they had dared
10 ask.
True, it does not exactly reflect
credit upon the president to suspect
that he was goaded into this reciproc-
ity agreement, but it is about as credi-
table to him as it is to calculate that
he was driven into it by the fear Of de-.
mocratic ascenIancy in case no tariff
concessions were made, and his utter
ances have indicated that that was one
of the considerations which had weight
with him.
Perhaps it would be doing the pres.
ident no Justice to conclude that he
made up his mind from the political
evolutions of his two years in the white
house that the American people were
determined to get relief from the exac-
tions of the great protected interests,
and that the time was here, and he the
instrument, to afford them that relief.
One can hardly avoid admiring the
diplomacy of the partisan republican
press in its announcements of the re-
suit of the vote in the lower house of
congress upon the endorsement of the
presidents policy. Almost unanim-
ously the papers announced that the
agreement had been endorsed with
the aid of democrats.
Surely they did not overs,ste the
agency Of the democrats. The deed
was done by democrats, in fact, with
the aid of republicans" When one
notes that 1I3 democrats voted to sus-
tain the presidents policy, and only
Is republicans, he can realize how
giDgerly the republican press conced.
ed that the republican president had
received an endorsement of his chosen
policy from the hated democratic par
ty, and that more representatives of
his own party voted against than with
him.
1t cannot be denied that there was
something great.hearted in the action
of the democrats in supporting Presi.
dent Taft. True they believe in the
policy which their vote endorsed, but
it has not always been customary,
or even occasionally SO, for hostile
congress to support the titular leader
Of the opposition. 1t is this free will
Offering of conciliatory support that
comprises the promise of relief which
the consuming masses now enjoy.
Approval of the reciprocity policy
has swept the country like prairie
fire. Only here and there has a voice
been raised againstit Legislative as
semblies have FASTENED to proclaim
their favor for j: and the press of the
nation is almost unanimously for it.
So overwhelming has been its approx
al that those who at first sought to op-
pose it have now been forced to resort
to OVERRIDING their approval by serious
~ proposing annexation, in the hope
of thus arousing a feeling in Great
Britain and Canada that will defeat it
ut that end.
The strategic position which the pre-.
sident occupies makes him the master.
Only the fact that he has the power to
call . special Session of the democratic
congress elected last fall, and the GER
tainty that it would unhesitatingly en-.
dorse his policy, has rendered him i'm
mune from the severest denunciation
by his party and its masters. Such a
6sstiyal of political medicination has
not occurred within the memoryof the
current political Observation-Disclosures
Start.