Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1912-05-17
ASSAULTS ON TAFT

The magazines are doing their best
to destroy Taft, that is, some of the
magazines that have developed the
progressive stripe of politics, having
exhausted all other muck raking'
schemes for their exploitation that
could be found
Sometimes, of course, the pictures
they draw are very much distorted and
overdrawn, fault that the lurid writ
er of politics for this class of journals
speedily falls into. For instance, AL
fred Henry Lewis, in the Cosmopol-
itan for this month, tells why Taft is
sure of defeat. While there seems to
be no gainsaying the fact that Taft is
foredoomed to defeat, either in the
convention of his party or in the
broader arena before the entire pub
lie, Lewis lays the paint on with
rather too free a hand in dissecting
the presidents character and discov-
ering his especial weaknesses for the
readers of his magazine article. But
just as sample of the extremes to
which the opponents of Taft go, equal
ling in the intensity of their express
sions the mudslingers of the admin
istration side, these extracts are Of
value.
Mr.. Taft is to blame for the situa-
ton he faces. He has boiled and toll
ed and schemed to be unpopular. Gu
perhars it was a talent for blunder-
ing, an utter genius to be tactless.
Mr.. Taft signed the robber Aldrioh-
Payne tariff, when he ought to have
, vetoed it; and, as though that were
| not bad enough, he then went uD and
down the land in its defense. He
broke into the recall war, when it was
none of his battle, and soured Yves.
/ tern retard by seeking to slam ii
statehood door in the face of Arizona
! He turned his Interior Department
over to the avaricious mercies of the
| Guggenheims, and in defiance of the
people would have chung to a Baling
err. He flattered the Mormons, who
are always Mormons and never Amer
leans, and to prove the sincerity 0f
j his admiration had himself introduced
/ by Mormon Smoot to two Mrs. Proph-
ct Smiths at once. He vetoed every
! tariff bill meant to tighten the burd-
ems of the people, and, by way of
| Matchmaking the magazines, threaten
ed them with an eXtortionate postage.
! Pretending one moment to be with the
! people, and the next moment to be
with criminal money, he at last goes
over to Wall Street, horse, foot, AMI
guns.
Betrayed by vanity, mislead by
what he didn't know, Mr.. Taft capped
the climax of error by insulting the
people. Moved by no one knows what
motive. inspired by no one may guess
what fool impulse, he boosted vacu-
ously to the New York Bar Associa-
ton that There are those among us
who do not believe that all people are
fitted for popular government The
fact is. we know they are not And
then he braggingly added, as might
some girthy but empty Ajax, who
lacking wit--feared not the ballot
lightning, Some of us don't dare say
so, BUT l DO
LAS contrasting a party beginning
with a party end. Lincoln with 4
Taft, consider what upon the same
subject was the Lincoln feeling. Said
Lincoln: This country, with its in
situations, belongs to the people. Why
should there not be a patient conf
dence in the ultimate justice of the
people? Is there any better or equal
hope in the world?
Mr. Taft has been destroyed by
his own personal inadequacy. The
New York American painted his pOT-
trait, editorially, with the fidelity of
! He is a man of prejudice and putty,
a mere weaklng with a temper. He
is as shifting as the winds, as irres-
olute as a weather-cock. He is an OPP
portunist pure and simple. He dallied
and DELAYED with the Insurgents as
I long as they gave him a hope of their
support Now that they have slapped
| his aspirations square in the Presi-
| Dental face, he makes ready to fight
! them with the desperation of cow
| ard in a corner And he is fighting,
net like a President and statesman,
! but like choleric Bourbon in a rage
He is travelling over the country,
growing red in the face in denouncing
as 'cranks and neurotics' and inca
pables of government powerful fac
j ton of his own party and distinct
majority of the people His speeches
are making it impossible for the pro-
e essives of any party to support him
in November. He is out for the votes
Of the stand-pat faction of his own
Marty to give him the nomination. And
to gain the nomination he Is every day
idc1"ing his reckless willingness 70
l~ae the election. To save his political