The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1911-09-07
sPEAKER CLARK HITS BACK

"A lew Qdy6 d51 WA6A II6S1uCA
Taft made an attack upon Speake
Champ Clark. Maserity leader Un
derwood and the lnsurgent Republi
cans. in a public address, becaus'
they attempted to put tarrif reform
measures upon the statute books, MI
Clark gave notice that he would repll
for the democrats. The speaker wen
on to say that he proposed going af
ter the President with hammer anc
longs" and that is exactly what ht
has done, Replying to Presidenl
Taft's speech at Hamilton, Mass, c4
last Saturday in which the aforesaid
attacks were made. Speaker CLARK
gives out a signed interview making
good his promise to hit back He says
IN part:
"The president essayed the rather
large stunt Of running amuck on both
the democrats and the insurgent re-
ppblicans, in congress, singing our
Mr.. Chairman Underwood and my
sell particularly as democratic tar
gets"
/ accept his onslaught as a badge
of honor.
THE president and / are personal
friends He is an amiable gentleman,
but at the time he seems to have been
n a bad temper because he sees de-
feat staring him in the face. / would
say nothing unkind about him but
l cannot and will not permit his per-
sonal structures and his bald mis-
statement of historical facts to go
unchallenged.
"The presidents criticism of Mr..
Underwood and myself, which is es-
sentially a criticism OF all democrats
in the house and senate, because all
democrats stood together, Is absolu-
tely uncalled for and is as u~ngrateful
a performance as I "a remember for
If it had not been for the action of
the democrats in the house in both
the sixty-frst and -sixty-second con-
crosses in lining up almost unam-
imously in favor of reciprocity with
Canada, he would have been the most
thoroughly discredited and humiliat-
ed president since the days of An
drew Johnson.
with all the influence and patron
age of his great Office, he could net
muster a majority of house repub-
licans for reciprocity in either the
s~ixty-irst or the sixty-second con-
crosses.
''The president says that he did not
play politics about reciprocity but
that we did play politics about the
tariff. The only politics we played
was to keep faith with the people. If
any politics was played on reciproc-
ity, the president himself played it
personal at that.
HE seems to think that we ought
to- have adjourned as soon as reci-
procity was disposed of-that is, he
seems to think that congress is COM
posed~of a lot of school boys 20 Re
ordered about by him as head teach
er. but he was forewarned, by both
Mr. Underwood ard myself the Z
he called the extraordinary session,
we. would pass tariff bills and such
other bills as the democrats deeaei
advisable.
eff we had done less than we did,
we would not have been wccthy Of so
great a portion of public confidence
as we now enjoy. We made the best
~eeord of constructive statesmanship
made by any congress in the same
length of time in a generation a74
that fact is precisely what caused lie
resident &C. assault the democrats in
congress.
Tie had said the rates of the wool
~schedule in the Payne-Aldrich tariff
bill were too high and ought to be
reduced. We reduced them.
In the teeth of his other declara-
tons that said rates were too high,
he vetoed cur wool bill, thereby go
ing owe boots and breaches to the
standnatters.
"The president ~endeavors to cen
vey the impression that Mr.. Under
wood and I advocated hi: tariff corci-
mission. We did nc such thing.
The Congressional Record will fully
and clearly prove my contention here
il stated.
Several members of the house both
republicans and democrats including
Mr.. Underwood and myself have spent
haf a life time studying and de-
batting the tariff.
"The service of scGne house and
senate members even goes back to
The Mckinley bill the Springer bills
the Mills bill and the Morrison bills
Then why should we wait for the YER
dict of the presidents board of tar
if n~on-experts?
ct will be noted, that while the
presidents conscience would nct per-
NIT him to sign a bill revising even
one schedule, he promptly signed the
outrageous Payne-Aldrich-Smoot tar
iff bill without the counsel, advice or
tuition of any tariff board whatso-
ever.
ct might as we'll be understood
now as. later, that if the tariff board
is to be used as a pretext for delay
ing tariff revision downward, its days
will be few, for we will cut off its
supplies. This board already has cost
there CIR four hundred thousand dol
lars and has not given to congress any
irformation to aid in revising the tar
.e