Arizona republican., 1912-07-04
The President

dn not now know and anyway so far as arguments for and against the candidates of the two great parties are concerned. that is immaterial. Mir. Roosevelts party if it shall be | formed, will be for MT Roosevelt alone and the place hunters behind l him and such favor seeking classes, 1 CMr. Bryan's invention of the tcrm, as the steel trust and the harvester trust, long since bcneficiaries of his l favor There will be no definite platform of q Roosevelt party, no declaration of principles that can be understood or that will be meant to be understood.
 Thus all intelligent discussion of l the presidential campaign must be between the advocates of President Taft and those of Governor Wilson the representatives of clearly defined l though opposing principles.
 1 The records of both candidates will be widely and we hope sensibly con sidered in which case MT. Taft will appear before the country in q more 1 favorable light than has ever shonc upon him since he was first made the target of undescrvcd abuse and the grossest misrepresentation.
 l We believe. and we believe that be- fore November ,, the country will be made to understand that since the death of Lincoln, there have been combined in no other president of the United States, such qualities of statesmanship, courage and hon esty as are merged in Mir Taft. His weakness has been q lack of dip lomacy and lack of skill as d poIi- tician. This weakness has been made the point of attack by his enemies. To say that Mir Taft has not erred would be to say that he is super human We believe that he erred in dealing with Arizona. in his disap- provaI of our constitution, though in doing so he exercised only such au- thority as had been conferred upon him by the enabling act. He con- strued that authority to be q duty, whereas a more skillful politician would have waived his authority
 But whatever may have been his error in this respect We must set against it the determination and en- ergy with which he impressed upon congress the necessity of carrying out the pledge of the national republican party. to provide for the admission of the territories. Without his insistence
 there would have been no enabling act no constitution. no state.
 If the average anti Taft republican
 or democrat is asked to state upon
 what part of the presidents record his objection is based, he is at loss to reply He may say loosely that he is a weakling; that he has ac- compished nothing. Yet in the foul years of his administration he has wrung more legislation from an un- willing congress and from an ad- verse majority of his own party ir
 congress, than stands to the credit oI any of his predecessors. He proved
 himself a most determined and sue cessful fighter. He has accomplished more in the prosecution of the trust | tI,or, IaH hoar, 1cI,ia1-aI hK- al r,ray-i- | ous administrations since the enact
 ment of the Sherman law. The growth of trusts and monopolie! which had flourishcd so prodigiousl!
 under the Roosevelt administration
 was checked
 Complaint has been made of tht democratic tariff legislation. Yet h' only insisted that this Legislation | should await the report of the tariff
 board which q previous congress haC declared was essential to intelligen tariff legislation. and in this declara ton leading democrats joined and w' may anu IhAu. even hF. 1Soo9cNclI II f his brief and evasive remarks on tho
 subject of the tariff has suggested the collection of data by q board ol commission.
 We have mentioned briefly these few achievements of MT Taft unde the utmost difficulties, because the!
 have been made the basis of the more
 violent attacks upon him, or concern
 ing which. there has been the mos
 wicked misrepresentation. We believe
 that within the next four months MT
 Taft will be made known to the peo
 pie of this country as he ought to bt
 known.