Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1911-09-07
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.
Rv CLYDE 81. Tavenner

BY Clyde H. Tavenner.
Has Taft committed suicide? Has
he, in renewing his warfare on the in
surgents, committed fatal political
blunder, both for himself and the re-
publican party generally?
These queries have aroused discus
sions that are raging like blizzard of
words in political circles all over the
United States.
Still another question that is being
asked and re-asked, especially by re-
publicans, is: If the President does
succeed in driving the progressives
out of the republican party, where will
he drive them to?
And the conclusion most generally
reached is that it is written on the
cards that the next President is to be
a democrat. 1t is practically agreed
that if a standpatter is nominated, the
progressives will smash him; and it
progressive is nominated, the stand
patters will smash him.
What makes the situation still more
hopeless for the republicans is that
the 1912 campaign issue is to be the
tariff, the one subject on which the
two factions cannot get together.
La Toilette After Taft's Scalp
Senator Robert M. Lafollette will
give President Taft hard race for the
1912 nomination. 1t is declared that
the Wisconsin senator believes abso-
lutely that he will win.
The progressive republican or La
Toilette headquarters in Washington
is a beehive of industry. From this
headquarters the progressives are be-
ing organized in every nook and cor
ner in the country. 1t is possible to
present today the substance of the
claims which the insurgents make
They declare they expect to control,
well in advance of the republican ma
tional convention, the delegations
from:
Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dako-
ia, Oklahoma, California, Washington,
Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Mon
tana, Oregon, Iowa, lin part)
There will be big aggressive fights
for Illinois, Indiana, Wyoming and Ne
vada.
The southern states will be pressed
to take UP the anti-Taft fight, on the
ground that Taft's nomination will be
equivalent to defeat, and that if the
party hopes for continuance of the
loaves and fishes of patronage Of the
southern states, it must give its sup
port to the nomination of a man with
a chance to win
A Kept Promise.
When the democratic House of Rep
resentatives convened Speaker Champ
Clark announced that saving of $182
600 would be effected by the applica-
ton of economical business methods
in the running of the House. The Re
publicans scoffed at the idea. They
said it could not be DONE But on the
day of adjournment Chairman Fitzger-
aid, of the Committee on Appropria-
tons. announced that instead of the
promised $4,000 having been saved
1.-The amount was $22S,0O0! 1--WE do
not believe that we crippled the House
by abolishing place in the House or
ganization which had been held for
years by a Is year old girl who never
came to the capital, Congressman A.
Mitchell Palmer, of Pennsylvania, in
explaining the methods by which the
S22S,000 was saved I'VE do not be-
lieve we crippled the operations of the
House by abolishing the positions of
couple of telegraph operators who
had not put their hands to an instru-
ment in years. We do not believe we
crippled this House by abolishing
about 20 policemen who never could
be found around the capitol or by abol
ishing places supposed to be held by
men in this building and carried on
the payrolls drawing 5000 to $1,000 a
year, who were working at the same
time in real estate offices in the city
of Washington. We have simply made
the operation of this House honest.
Taft's Record sIndefensible,'
Nearly three-fourths of Mr.. Taft's
term of office has passed into history
He has sufficient time to have made
progress on lines along which he
promised when he was candidate
for the high office he holds. He made
his campaign on tariff revision
downward issue, and to-day the coun-
try is in the grip of a higher tariff
tax than ever before in it's history, in
spite of the fact that the president
has had two separate and distinct
opportunities to keep his word. In
his three years of Office President
Taft can be credited with having
kept Ballinger in office until the
country was nauseated; to have al
most succeeded in his attempt to
give Alaska away to the Guggen-
helms, and with having quietly CO.
operated with the food dopers in
their campaign to drive DR.. Harvey
W. Wiley out of public life. To this
"indefensible" record should be added
the presidents action in framing re-
jected peace treaties with two nations
with whom we are not in the slight
est danger of ever going to war.
Mail Clerks Prosecuted
How are the railway mail clerks to
make effective their protest against
having to work in wooden cars when
they are forbidden by departmental
gag rules to criticise their condition.
or disclose it to the public, or even