The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-08-25
(By William Randolph Hearst)

| (By William Randolph Hearst.)
 Paris, Aug 25.-Two years ago l declared vigorously in defense of MT. Taft; first, because I believed that he was being unduly and unreasonably embarrassed by the press and polf- ticians of the country; second, be- cause I had sincere hope of the full 1llment of his announced programme, and, third, because I felt that any new President, regardless of party, should be accorded a, fair hearing and free opportunity for the development of his political policies.
 MT. Taft in the past two years has done many things that are distinctly | good, and those things l have unre- servedly praised, but he has recently done one thing so surprisingly and | imposingly evil that l feel l should not, and therefore will not, withhold II the severe condemnation 1t deserves.
 The farmers of America for long time have borne the heaviest part of the oppressive burden of tariff taxa tion.
 The farmers have received at any time but little protection for their products. and but little advantage of any kind to compensate them for the l burden of tariff taxation which they have sustained.
 l To secure Canadian reciprocity and to confer a general benefit upon the whole consuming public, the farmers in the country were called upon to sacrifice a considerable part of even the small measure of protection which had grudgingly been given them.
 To remedy this injustice and to give proper consideration and compensa- tion to so important an element of the community the Democratic House and the Democratic and insurgent Senate passed the farmers free list | bill.
 For the further benefit of the gen. eraI consuming public Congress also ! passed the bill providing for reduc- | tions in the woolen schedule. | Before MT. Taft vetoed the meas ures he should have considered the | obligations he was under to the Dem ocratic and insurgent majority of | Congress for taking up and passing his reciprocity suggestion which a | Republican Congress had scornfully I rejected.
 He should have considered the es- sential justice and propriety of the Farmers Free List and the Woolel Schedule bills. and he should have considered, finally, the sacredness of his own campaign conservation to the | cause of tariff reform.
 | MT Taft should remember that he 1 is not wholly responsible for recipro- city.
 | man had done before him. It was the Democratic House and the Democratic and insurgent Senate which passed the reciprocity measure and made it into law.
 | These bodies passed the reciprocity programme with the full intention Of having the tariff reform bills pass with it, and Mr. Taft played an un- wise and unworthy trick, not only up- on the public. but upon those of his | tot {nc ir, Y, he was under the greatest obligations, when he vetoed the two tariff reform measures which Congress wanted and the country needed.
 | MT. Taft was elected President as a tariff reform candidate on a tariff reform platform, and upon personal pledges of tariff reduction made in sistently and impressively throughout his campaign.
 MT. Taft's repudiation of his plat form and his pledges occurred when he signed the outrageous Aldrich bill
 This bill not only failed to reduce the tariff in accordance with MT. TaftS pledges and the Republican party's platform. but actually increas- ed the tariff duties for the direct benefit of plundering interests which MT. Aldrich was in the Senate to rep resent.
 The people in the United States were shocked and astounded at that act of MT. Taft's.
 Many regarded it as a complete surrender to the interests.
 Even those who felt kindly to Mr. Taft recognized his action to be an absolute abandonment Nof his profess ed principles and an actual betrayal of the citizens who had given him their confidence and their votes.
 Most of the people attributed Mr. Tafts signing of the Aldrich bill to his easy going good nature or to his timidity, or to his ineXperience, or even to his inefficiency. 1 There were but few who attributed 1t to downright political dishonesty.
 But now, upon the heels of Mr. Tafts approval of the Aldrich bill, comes MT. Tafts veto of the Farmers Free List bill and the woolen bill mild and moderate measures of tariff ures which give the overburneded public part, and yet only small part, of the relief which MT. Taft's party platform promised to give them, and which MT. Taft personally and publicly pledged himself to give them.
 These mild and moderate measures | of long-promised tariff reduction these cautious and conservative em- bodiments of MT. Taft's own tariff reform professions, MT. Taft ruthless ly rejects.
 Not even those who are most kind ly disposed to MT. Taft, not even those who are most anxious to be- lleve in his honest intentions, can find any explanation of this latest and | largest repudiation of his pledges | other than base betrayal of the citi- zens and squalid surrender to the political power of the tariff protect | ed trusts.
 Truly MT. Taft is the legitimate successor of the late lamentable Mr. 1 Roosevelt; truly he is the direct and immediate inheritor of MT. Rooseve;t's famous-or, rather, infamous-poli- l cies.
 1 Not Roosevelt himself could have carried out better than Taft those promise to the people and fruitful | service to the trusts
 l MT. Taft, like MT. Roosevelt, has saved the nation.' and, like Roose- velt has saved it for the trusts. | MT. Roosevelt in his day strenuously | threw himself into the financial l breach, and by liberal and illegal con- 1 sessions to his campaign contributors succeeded in stopping a panic of his l own creation some time after it had