Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-02-13
ATTACKED BY TAFT
President Calls Progressives
Political Neur0tiCS.
DEMOCRATS ARE CENSURED
Criticised for Proposing to Reduce
Size of Cavalry Force.
SPEECH AT NEW YORK DINNER
Executive Addresses Republican
Club and Also Goes to Two
Other Banquets.
SPEECH AT NEW YORK DINNER

NEW YORK, February 13.-President
Taft brought his celebration of Lincoln S
birthday to close here last night with
political speech to the Republican Club
at the Waldorf-Astoria, in which he
breathed defiance to the democratic party,
declared that it was his belief that the
republicans would triumph next Novem-
Der, and made it plain that he had little
sympathy with those of his own political
faith who call themselves progressives,
but who ARE political emotionalists or
neurotics.''
His speech came almost at the end of
strenuous day that took him to Newark
and Orange. n. j., and gave him six
hours in New York in which to attend
the political dinner and drop in at ban
quets of the Retail Dry Goods Associa-
ton and the Graduates Club.
While at the banquet of the Republi-
can Club the President received kilograms
assuring him that two delegates to the
republican national convention from the
eighth Virginia congressional district and
two more from Alaska, all pledged to
support him, had been elected yesterday.
Another telegram assured the President
that the Colorado republican state CEN
vote of 103 to 10. Most Of the promi-
uent leaders of the party in the state
were present at the banquet. Otto T.
Barnard, former republican candidate for
mayor of New FORK, was POSTMASTER,
and at the guest table were former
pew, State Chairman William Barnes, jr.
Timothy L. Woodruff, S. S. Koenig, pres
ident of the New York county committee,
and Henry w. Taft, the President S
~ ,-,I
man William l.. Ward, who refused to
attend the Presidents White House din
ner to members of the national committee
last December, also attended.
Democrats Are Attacked.
The President attacked the democrats
especially for their proposition to reduce
the United States Army by eliminating
onethird it's cavalry and by departing
from the time-honored policy of adding
each year two new battleships to the
navy"
'In considering our many responsible
ties in all parts of the world he said,
Il think this a great mistake. Certainly
the diminution in the additions to our
fleet ought not to be considered until the
Panama canal is completed.
In other words, our democratic friends
are doing the very thing that they are
always Teput0Q 10 10, tueS are uOulS IAC
wrong thing at the right time
For nine reasons, the President said.
the republican party could be regarded as
the party of progress. That party. he
said, had provided for the "close regula-
one-third it's cavalry and by departing
the state; had passed and amended the
interstate commerce act; the employers
liability law, and a law for a mining bu-
reau; had provided for workmen's COM
pensation and mediation between rail-
10, ND hair VIZ n
he added, to perfect the judicial pro-
cedure of the federal courts, would revise
the tariff in accordance with sound prin-
ciples of economics, had advanced
policy of conservation, and stood for
world peace.
Guest of Ex-Gov. Murphy.
President Taft came to New York from
Newark, where he was the guest at
luncheon of former Gov. Franklin Muir
ply. He shook hands and exchanged
pleasantries with most of New Jerseys
republican leaders and few democrats.
and placed a wreath on the Cutzon
Borglum statue of Lincoln, in front OF
the county courthouse. From Newark
the President motored to Orange to place
a wreath at the base of another Lincoln
statue.
In Newark and during most of the trip
to Orange the President was greeted by
large crowds. For mile after mile he sat
in the back seat of ex-GOv. Murphy's
automobile with his head uncovered, bow
ing and smiling in responge to the cheers.
From newark to New York he Travelled
by special train, and went directly to the
Waldorf-Astoria for the Republican Club
banquet, at which he was the first
speaker.
In his address before the Republican
Club here President Taft said:
Men praise Lincoln today and attack
the Republican party, altogether forget
full of the fact that in I4incoln's life the
man and the party were closely united
in aim and accomplishment, that the
history of the one is the history of the
other. The truth is that the history of
the last fifty years, with one or two ex-
ceptions, has been the history of the
Republican party. The progress that has
been made has been made by the Repub-
lican party in the legislative and execu-
tive power intrusted to it by the people
at large.
"There are those who look upon the
present situation as one full of evil and
corruption and as a tyranny of concen-
trated wealth, and who, in apparent de-
spair at any ordinary remedy, are seek
ing to pull down those things which
have been regarded as the pillars Of the
temple of freedom and representative
government and to reconstruct our whole
society on some new principle mot def
nitely formulated, and with no intelli-
constitutional and statutory results to be
attained.
Views of Extremists.
with the effort to make the selection
Of candidates, the enactment Of legisla-
ton and the decision of courts to de-
pend on the momentary passions of peo-
pie necessarily indifferently informed as
to the issues presented. and without the
opportunity to them for time and study
and that elaboration that gives security
and common sense to the government of
the people, such extremists would hurry
us into condition which could find no
parallel except in the French revolution,
or in that bubbling anarchy that once
characterized the South American repub-
lies. Such extremists are not progress
sives. They are political emotionalists or
neurotics. who have lost the sense of pro-
portion, that clear and candid considera-
ton of their own weakness as a WHOLE
and that clear perception Of the necessity
for checks upon hasty popular action
which made our people who fought the
revolution and who drafted the federal
Constitution the greatest self-gOverning
people that the world ever knew.
THE Constitution was framed to give
to all men equality of right before the