The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29
|NSURGENTSAR
 FULL OF COURAGE Taft and Wilson Seem to Be
 Leading BOB TAYLOR'S STORY Economy and Efficiency Commission Will Soon Make a Report.
 Belgium Count Going to
 American School
By RALPH VI. wHITEs1DE

By RALPH VI. WHITESIDE | Washington, October 2s.-(Spedial.)- The progressive republicans at least have the courage of their opinions. They have 1 placed Senator LaFollette sduarely in | the field and are very positive in their assertions that they will nominate and elect him. The gentleman from Wiscon- sin is going to camp on President Taft's trail from now until the nominations are
 made and there are gloomy hints that if | the big chiefs are not able to get his | scalp before convention time that the young braves will jump the reservation
 and pull hair in November
 l These claims arc not taken seriously 1 by administration leaders so far us the l renomlnation of MT. Taft is concerned. They tro confident that when the vote is taken in the republican national con- vention it will be found that Taft will l have at least three-quarters of them. | Provided there is no truth in the report
 that one Theodore Roosevelt is likely to
 permit the use of his name. The story goes that Mr. Roosevelt is convinced that l the split in the republican party is so deep that neither Taft nor LaFollette has any chance for election and that he I has consented that his name may be
 used as the one republican who can lead
 the party to victory. While this report
 is discredted it does cause some worry ] for Roosevelt is to the republicans as 1 Bryan is to the democrats.
 l The leaders say that they are as has
 been in politics and say it With 0 great show of bravery, but beneath this ex- pressed confidence is a very serious ele-
 ment of doubt and a sneaking belief that
 if the sage of Oyster Bay or tho Texas Onion King should say the word there
 would be things doing in their parties. l In the meantime the best opinion of
 such statesmen as are in Washington now, except the dyed-n-t -the-wool sup
 porters of one of the other candidates is I that Taft will be named by an over | whelming majority by the republicans; that Wilson has the edge for the demo- cratic nomination, with Champ Clark in second place, with about an even chance | for deadlock and dark horse. Senator Bob Taylor of Tennessee is not
 ordinarily what you would call a mean
 
 | to water and more than one pang of | homesickness when he told of his recent visit home.
 | "Yes, I saw all the boys and the girls, 1 too," said the senator. "They were all there. We had little speaking one night
 in Jonesboro, and then we kinder got to- gether and had q reunion. Old Bob
 Thomas was there, and HenW Jackson,
 and Judge Hacker, and the rest of them. 1 ''Alf Taylor, too, was there with his | fiddle. And Ali can fiddle. When he i drew that bow across the strings. l knew by the way he did it that he would l play some that night. He struck up 1 old Granny Rattle Trap and soon the | buildings rocked as hundreds of feet beat l time. Ali was in a weavin' way He played Arkansas Traveller and then | Sourwood Mountain; and the first thing l knew old Old Bob Thomas jumped out in the center of the floor and began to cut the pigeon wing I joined him in | moment Then Ali handed the fiddle over to another and got into the ring, and We danced the dances of old time in
 Tennessee and were boys again together And such eating you never saw in your life. At Frank Brittains we had an old time east Tennessee country dn- ner. Country hams fresh from the smoke house, savory and rich; great slices an 1 inch thick and fried brown with plenty ol HHin SraNy-nlahe l man hungry 10 smell 1t d mile off. And fried corn Washingtonians don't know that corn will fry-and hoecake, the kind we made | in the good old days; and fried chicken, great yaller legged fellows that grow | biggest and best and taliest and long | leggedest and tenderest in east Tennes- see mountains, and vegetables of all kinds; preserves and pickles made at | home, black coffee with rich, real cream a a in I tAl l up in east Tennessee. No wonder the | talest mon in the world are found right around Jonesboro.'
 President Taft's once famed economy and efficiency commission is about to re- turn a report. It has been at work more than a year and has at last reached a point where it can propose some econo-
 mics. The first section of the report will be given to the President about Decem- Der l.
 This body was the result of a pet idea In the head of former Executive Secretary Charles D. Norton. Before MT. Norton left the treasury he had an unsuitable appetite for economy and during the few weeks when Secretary MacFeagh turned the department over to him Tor the pur- pose of ehecting some money saving schemes, he almost reorganized the whole department.
 After leaving the treasury Mir. Norton's ambition to reform the government took on bigger phase. He told the President he could save the government millions and was allowed to ask Congress for
 s2G0,000 to create commission to work out the details. The commission was duly created and business begun. Just what he recommended is kept
 secret. Many jobs, of course, are involved in the report, many salaries will be re-
 garded as too high, and many changes
 in accounting and bookkeeping will be proposed. But nothing of 6 definite na-
 t''"" csn be learned of the recommenda-
 tions
 Count Guy de Buisseret scion of the
 Belgium nobility and son of Count Con-
 rad de Buisseret. minister plenipotentiary of the Belgium court to the court of St
 Petersburg, and who is just years old,
 is going to be allowed to slip from under
 the shackles of a too strict convention
 for the next two years, and romp with
 the democratic little Americans in pli- vate school.
 Most grown up folks haven't travelled
 half as much as the S-year-old nobleman did in getting here, where he will live
 with his grandmother. Mrs. James w.
 Story. wife of Major General Story
 United States army.
 There was nobody to come over with the little fellow and so he bravely went
 Al.