The Washington times., 1911-12-01
PRESIDENT TAFT'S DEFENSE
OF HIS ADMINISTRATION.


must arouse wide interest. II is an
interview written by Francis e. Leupp,
and touches frankly on many of the
things that have been charged against
the Administration.
The tariff, of course, is reached early,
and at this point the President makes
an apology and explanation that might
be offered on behalf of many other
proceedings of his Administration.
Asked if he would repeat the Winona
speech now, the President replied in
part: s.
I'm phraselogy, no; in effect, yes.
l dictated that speech on the
cars between two stations, and glanced
through it only enough to straighten
its grammar. If / had pre-
pared it two or three weeks before
I should have changed the
sentence where I proclaimed the Payne
tariff act the best ever passed. The
comparative would have been a better
description than the superlative; for,
whatever it's shortcomings, the act
still contains less to be criticised than
its predecessors, and il did, as whole,
revise the schedules downward"
The President admits that the Wi
mona speech was not the product of
such care, deliberation and thought as
should have been devoted to such an
utterance. He is right. and that is
a grave trouble with many other ut
terances and formulation of policy
and program by Mr.. Taft. His work
has way of piling up on him, and
then requiring to be dispatched in a
rush which makes deliberation and fin
ished consideration impossible.
1t will be recalled that, just as he
postponed writing the Winona speech
till the last minutes on a train, 80 he
postponed any active, directing, insist
ent interest in the business of making
the Payne bill, till the last days of the
session; till it was too late to undo
much that had caused prejudice against
the whole revision.
The President in effect urges, farther
along in his statement, that it was
impossible to get the tariff revised in
compliance with the Republican pledge,
because, while he had 'long been con-
vinced' that we were OVERRIDING the
tariff business" he could not hope for
Democratic help, and some of the Re-
publicans were just as interested in
defeating as he was in securing down
ward revision.
That sounds painfully like admission
that the Republicans were committed
to a policy that they were simply in.
capable of executing. 1t is not quite
apparent why the President might not
have used Democratic endorsements
to force the policy he believed in. Did
he not, pray, employ them to get what
he wanted as to reciprocity? Did not
Roosevelt use them to get railroad
legislation, pure food, meat inspection
and many other things!
The Presidents discussion of the
railroad legislation of 1910 is rather
astonishing. There was a time when
he was willing to take the credit for
accomplishing what was put into the
bill by the progressives, and to say
nothing about what they left out OF
his bill for him. The merits of that
legislation reside chiefly in the things
which were put in against the Pres
dents wish, and in those that were
left out despite that he wanted them
in. Yet the President in his interview
would give the impression that the
progressive changes in the bill injured
it. The truth about that railroad leg.
islation is so well and SO widely known
that the country is not now to have
its conclusions changed easily.
The Presidents defense of his course
in killing an income tax and substitu
ting a corporation tax will be read
with editication, at least, by people
who learn for the first time that a
prominent motive in his opposition tc
the income tax was the desire to save
the dignity of the Supreme Court; hi
didn't want to force it to reverse it.
self. Possibly other sentiments will
appeal to corporation managers who
read the Presidents cheerful and opti
mistic observation that the tax now
raises $2s,000OOO a year, and if We
want $50 100000 or $s4,OOO,OOO, why
all we need do is to double or tripl,
the rate! Could anything be easier
THE EARLY CHRISTMAS SHOP.