The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-02-24
Regarding Speech the Presi-
dent Made in New York.
is DRIVING At ROOSEVELT
That Is the Construction Put
Upon the Explanation
By Friends Who Recall the
CoIonePs Columbus Speech.

Washington. Feb. 24l-Presdent
Taft today denied emphatically that
in a speech in New York on Lincoln's
birthday he said that the people are
not fitted for self government.
In the first official statement of this
kind that the White House has ever
issued during the Taft administration
the president calls the circulation of
this story a falsehoOd.
The White House statement follows:
Among the falsehoods that are
now being assiduously circulated by
persons and papers opposed to the
president is one that in his Lincoln
day speech the president argued that
the people are not fitted for self gov
ernment.' President Taft said nothing
on that occasion which possibly could
be tortured into any such eonstruc-
ton.
The speech in which the president
made reference to popular govern
ment was delivered at the banquet OF
the state bar association in New orr
on the night of January 20. Wnat
he then said on this subject and II
was correctly quoted in the newspa-
pers the following day was TINS; up
ular government we all eeheNe ~
There are those of us who do not pc
i=vf all people are fitted for popular
s-overnnent The fact is we know
thev are not some of US dare not say
so. but I do; and the question WheIs
a DeoUle is fitted for popular sen
government so as to make that gov
eminent best for the people IS deter
mined bv the ability of the majority
of that people to place on itself the
restraint by which the minority shaii
-ece;x-a iustice from the majority II
is the question of Self-imPosed re-
sfraint that determines whether
people is fit to govern itself.
Driving at Roosevelt.
While Z is not admitted by any one
AT the White House who mas authorlty
to speak for the president tnat ms Coz cor
rection of the Interpretation placea
bv some people upon his New ofk
sneec7 included Col. Roosevelt, political |
leaders here believe such to pc the /
case.
/. .sserted that Col. Roosevelt had Mr..
Taft in mind when in his Columbus
speech he said:
..Many eminent lawyers who more or
less frankly disbelieve in our entire
American system of government for,
Nv and of the people violently antag-
o-,s1s this proposal They believe, and
some times assert that the American
naon1e are not fitted for popular gov
ernment- and that it is necessary TO
keen the judiciary Independent of the
ma iority or of all the people, thdl liiete
must he no appeal to the people from
lh,s decision of court in any case and
that therefore the judges are to be es-
-ablfshed as sovereign rulers over the
people. I take absolute issue with al
hose who hold such a position
In the same connection Col. RoOse-
relt also said:
IF the American people are not fit
'or popular government and if they
should of right be the servants and not
he masters of the men whom they
themselves put in office. then Lincoln's
work was wasted and the whole system
If government upon which this great
republic rests is failure =
After speaking at length of THE
position which these eminent lawyers
axe and applaud" Col. Roosevelt said:
THE only tenable excuse for such a
POSITION is the frank avowals that the
,eople lack sufficient intelligence and
to be fit to govern them
elves"