The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1911-09-23
Conservative Republicans Are Too Reaction.
ary and Insurgents Are Too Radical.
MAKES ADMISSION THAT HE'S A POOR POLITICIAN
Says He Would Have Vetoed the Bills He Did If the Act
Had Cost Him His Life--.Avers He Has Always
Tried to Do What He Thought Was Right,
Regardless Of the Penalty

but the truth IL" he continued
that my politics was limited to q
very early stage of my career. Three
or four years after came to the bar
| was pretty active so that l knew
something of ward politics. Since that
time my fate has been such as to
carry me out of politics. But as my
dear friend Senator Cullom says my
ambition lay in an entirely different
direction and was not gratified
Il am not giving you to understand
that ] ran away from the nomination
for the presidency but the fact that
II was not In the line which had
marked out but being nominated and
getting into the fight l did the best
could and being elected I took up
the discharge of the presidency with
certain tendencies. perhaps | ought to
call them. that l had gathered from
judicial experience.
"Of course. / made n great many
mistakes. l shall continue during this
term to make them. That is hardly
to be avoided. But there are certain
things, certain rules, that are rather
easy to follow. One is that when
you have made promise II Is your
obligation to keep It.
Now. something about the vetoes, I
consider with reference to those bills
that / was as much under an obli-
cation toveto every one of them as II
had said when I was on the platform
running for the presidency, that
would veto just those bills. for the
reason that the whole republican
party had taken the position that II
was necessary to maintain the indus
tries of this country by protection
sufficient to give them living
method of competing with foreign
manufacturers. and the whole party
had also said, II You could trust the
resolutions Of the conventions. even In
Iowa and Kansas and Wisconsin, that
they approved finding out the facts by
tariff board before we passed legis-
lation that might strike down our In
dustries. would have vetoed those
bills under any conditions even IL 1t
would have cost me my life.
$50 far as the veto of the Arizona
bill Is concerned, just vetoed that
because ! could not do anything else
wrote my heart into that veto.
Following the Right.
my friends. I have tried to follow
what ] thought to be right In the ad-
ministration of my office. There has
been division In the party and
have been charged with not being
progressive, and therefore to be con-
demned. What one does. this man
thinks Is progressive, another man
thinks Is retrogressiye. There are. how
ever. two great sch0ols--one which
believes that the present Is not per-
feet. perhaps. but that changes from
II would be dangerous. They are the
strictly conservative and, perhaps. are
known as reactionaries. Then there
In another class at the other end which
Ia extreme In Its view that the whole
present condition Is wrong and there
must be radical changes IL we can
i've at all
Now. ! think. perhaps am wrong
about it-but think / am going along
In the middle of the road between
those two; mt least, that is what !
am trying to do, and believe the