The Washington times., 1911-09-29
MR.. TAFT'S DEFENSE IN
DETAIL.

Twelve of the thirty-six paragraphs
of President Taft's Waterloo speech
begin with the first personal pronoun
That is evidence that it is distinctly
personal statement.
1t surely is. 1t is the most inclu-
siVe attempt, in a single speech, to
defend the Administration, apologize
for its failures, and appropriate other
peoples achievements, that the Presi-
dent has made since the beginning of
his tour.
In this one speech the Chief Execu-
tive gives a truly wonderful elucida-
tion OF the railroad regulation, trust,
tariff, and currency questions. He be-
gins by enumerating and labelling them,
SO that there can be no mistake as to
what he is talking about. On the
whole, it is as well to put the labels
on the packages, for otherwise some
of his involved and turgid observations
might not be understood as relating to
the problems apparently under discus
sion.
At the outset he discusses his Ad-
ministration's achievements in rail
road regulation. One familiar with
that record would assume that at least
the President would deserve COM
mendation for courage in referring to
this subject. Everybody who knows
anything about the 1910 session, which
passed all the railroad legislation of
this Administration, knows that it was
a succession of defeats and repudia-
tions for the President.
He began by drafting a measure and
demanding that it be passed without
change. Not an "i' was to be dotted
or a st" crossed otherwise than as he
and his advisers had arranged in the
official draft. The bill was sent to
Congress with the assurance that it
was the last word from Ultimate and
Inspired Wisdom. 1t must not be
profaned by the degrading processes
of amendment, or questioned in the
course of infidel debate. 1t must be
adopted: no more, no less.
What happened, all the country
knows. Congress gasped bit at this
assumption of Executive omniscience,
put on it's spectacles, and studied the
measure. It found that instead of
long forward step, there was proposed
a fatal backward one. 1t found that
within the intricate sentences of the
Administration bill was written repeal
of about all the useful provisions thus
far enacted into interstate commerce
law. 1t found that the wide-heralded
progressive measure was, in fact, the
reactionary, from its enacting clause to |
the blank space left for the signature.
For this service to the nation in
studying out and exposing the intricate
viciousness of this bill, Albert B. Cum
minis is entitled to a gratitude and ap-
probation that have never yet been ac-
corded to him. He led the fight which
made an honestly progressive, useful
of the Administration bill.
And in his Waterloo speech the
President attempted to claim all the
credit for that measure. Is it wonder
that Senator Cummins, in whose own
State this astounding misrepresenta-
ton was projected, declined to travel
with the PresidentH
Following this amazing assumption
Of responsibility for a measure which,
in fact, reversed all his recommends
tions, the President took up the anti
trust legislation and the relations of
the Government to the great combina-
tions. This section of the speech,
Janus faced, looks toward Wall Street
and also toward the insurgent West. It
damns the Democrats for unwilling
ness to permit Federal control of the
great corporations, and then, turning
around, denounces as social
istic the efforts of foreign countries
that have imposed such regulation.
On the tariff, the President repeats
his former defense: that he could not
sign reduction measures until the diff
ference between cost of production at
home and abroad had been determined
and was written into the schedules.
He forgets his former declaration that
this differential was obviously a mat
ter not to be accurately ascertained,
but which must be finally a conclusion
Of the best possible Judgment. The
President is very strong for determin-
ing exact differences in cost of produc-
ton; three years ago he was just as
strong in the declaration that they
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