Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-03-18

town, and ] am descended from seven
teen of them.
During the two hours the President
spent at the City Club he was Joined by
his son Robert, who came over from the
Harvard Law School. accompanied by
the son of former Representative Samuel
n Powers of Newton Young Mr.. Taft
received nearly as much attention as was
given his father.
The two young men will accompany
the President on his trip to New Hamp-
shire tomorrow.
For Safeguarded Primaries.
President Taft declared himself in
favor of preferential primaries surround
ed by certain conditions for the coming
campaign.
wherever full and fair notice of the
election can be given, wherever adequate
election safeguards can be thrown around
to protect a preferential primary for the
presidency wherever the constitution or
the state permits its being made appii-
cable to the present election, L favor IL
and welcome it.
This was the Presidents statement be-
fore the general court of Massachusetts,
1t was his first personal reply to the
challenge to preferential primaries Is
sued some time ago by Senator DIXON,
Col Rooseyeit'S campaign manager
President Taft did not refer to the chal-
1enge, however.
The President made'a rather pointed
reference to the proposition. Let the
people rule" and had something to say
about the recall of the judiciary and the
recall of judicial decisions
irresponsible assaults upon either in
Incorporate language or on baseleSs as
SumptionS of corruption or bias or IN
competency, made by those whose state
ments have influence with any part or
our people, are a serious menace to en-
during government" said the President.
His address. in part follows:
You have recently passed what is call
ed a presidential primary law, for the
election of delegates to the national con-
VentionS. upon which Will fall the duty OF
selecting the presidential nominees of the
respective parties. j have not had oppor-
tunity critically to examine the new law,
hut | am sure it makes proper provision
to meet the obvious requirements. L am
glad that you have done this. The ques-
ton of how delegates are to be selected
TO any political convention, or how NOM
inees are to be selected by a party. was
originally q matter of merely voluntary
and party adjustment, but so important
to the public at large did the character
of the candidates to be selected by each
party become that the state has properly
inferfered so as to throw safeguards
around the exercise by all those VINO be-
long to party of their privilege to have
dates.
Honest Voting and Counting.
81 am not going to stop and discuss in
detail the question of direct primary cleo
tons, their uses and abuses. 1 think
every one will admit, however. that in
order that they may accomplish the good
they are intended to accomplish they
should be safeguarded by effective pro-
vision as to the party eligibility of voters
who participate in them. and by penal
provisions securing conformity to rules of
such eligibility and the honest casting
and counting of the ballot.
Il do not hesitate to say that in my
Judgment voluntary primary outside the
law, known by it's informal character as
soap box primary. is worse than none,
for it gives full opportunity to the in
eligible electors of the other party to cast
unfairyvotes and without the sanction and
safeguard of penal provisions in respect
to casting and counting the ballots is an
open avenue for fraud and violence.
1T is eminently appropriate that in
every election and in the discussion of all
issues that affect the republic we should
discuss and hear much of the popular will
and of the right of the people. This is a
government based 'on popular control
The People Have Ruled.
we oil COHCeue lHat the operations Oh
elections and the operations of govern
ment are not perfect, and are sometimes
subject to corrupt influences and con-
troll and that it is the part of patriot
ism to remove, as far as possible, the OBJ
stacles which prevent honest primaries,
honest elections and the honest admins
tration of the government in the interest
Of the people, but the continued iteration
and reiteration of the proposition Let
the people rule if it has any significance
at all. and is intended otherwise than to
f1atter the people. is intended to be a re-
Election on the government that We have
had down to the present time. Now, in
spite of all the corruption, in spite of all
the machine politics, in spite of every de-
feet in the operation of our government
that can be pointed out, do not hesitate
to say that the history of the last one
hundred and thirty-five years shows that
the people have ruled. They may have
been defeated at times by corrupt and
corrupting influences: Congresses and leg
islatures may have been halted by SUBJ
tefranean methods of carrying out what
the people desire. but in the end. under
our present Constitution and our present
laws. we have had a really popular gov
eminent.
81, don't mean to say that we cannot
make it better l don't mean to say that
we may not remove some obstacles by
which corruption or machine methods
j
that the cry that the people do not rule
and are not in control. or an intimation
to that effect, does not do justice to the
American people or their history, and
holds us up to the world at large in a
light which does not do us justice. Ger
tainly. there is nothing in the growth of
this country from the adoption of the
Constitution until now, or within the last
twenty or thirty years, that justifes any
attack upon our structure of government.
or any sapping of the foundations that
have stood so firmly and upon which our
whole popular civilization has been
reared.
True judicial Reform.
THE occasion for these remarks is the
attack upon our Judiciary ana the pro-
posal by judicial recall or recall of judi
cial decisions TO destroy its independence
and thus to take away from the arch of
government the keystone. l deny that
there is in the decisions of tho co,rfv nv