The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-05-06

again in speeches and in messages to
congress while 1 was president. He was
then in my cabinet and repeatedly e2-
pressed his approval of what l thus
said.
Mr. Taft says I have said that the
antitrust law ought to be repealed. Mr..
Taft well knows that this is not true
1 have always explicitly stated that it
ought to. be kept on the books and
really enforced mot merely nominaliy
enforced as had been done by Mr. TAFT
in the Standard Oil and tobacco trust
cases) against all trusts guilty of anti
social practices, but have always said
and now say, that by itself the anti
trust law will never solve the problem
of dealing with the great corporations
and that to control the great industrial
Interstate corporations we should have
a law akin to the present interstate
commerce law-but without the mis-
chievous interstate commerce court.
Mr.. Taft says that I criticize him
because he prosecuted the Standard Oil
and tobacco companies to the supreme
court and got decisions there. On the
contrary, Mr.. Taft knows well that I
criticized him, not Cor having thus con-
tnued the prosecution of the suits that
1 had begun, but because after he had
gotten these decisions he then permit
ted the department of justice so to
shape matters that the result was q
complete notification of all the good re-
suits of his suit.
Charges Insincerity.
His conduct in this respect is quite
incompatible with any sincere purpose
really to enforce the antitrust law. As
a result of his action the stocks of the
corporations in question rose greatly in
value, the rise in Standard Oil stocks
being over $2O0, 200, 900. Mr.. Taft can
hardly have failed to notice that fol-
lowing his institution of a suit against
the harvester trust, harvester stock
went up two points.
Evidently Wall street has made up
its mind that Mr.. Taft's prosecution;
are fake prosecutions, whereas the bit
ter hostility of Wall street TO me shows
how lively is it's memory of the fact
that my prosecutions were really prose-
cutions and hurt the persons prosecu-
ted
Colonel Roosevelt refers to the pend
ing investigation of Judge Archibald, of
the commerce court, and asserts that
the Judge was appointed to placate a
Pennsylvania politician, although the
appointee's alleged unfitness for the
office has already been called to Presi-
dent Taft's attention. The statement
continues:
York city and elsewhere Mr.. Taft knows
well that the delegates elected for him
represent barefaced frauds. He stands
guilty of connivance at and condona-
ton of these frauds: he stands guilty
of approving and encouraging fraud
which deprives the people of their right
to express their will as to who shall
be nominated.
I'm all these primaries and conven
lions 1 have stodd for absolute honesty
and fair play Mr.. Taft has stood for
crooked Misrepresentation of the will of
the people.
LAS for the Lorimer case, the facts
are these: 1 fought Mr.. Lor1ner hard
and in the open for eighteen months.
Mr.. Taft was secretly against
Mr.. Lorimer AS the Illinois primaries
Mr.. Tafts followers in the
senate supported Mr. Lorimer. Mr.. Lori
mer was the leading Taft worker in ILL
nois. AS long as there was hope that Mr..
Lorimer might carry the state for Mr..
Taft, Mr. Taft was silent about Mr.. Lori
mer. But as soon as Illinois was lost Mr.
Taft rushed to Massachusetts,, where
there were no Lorimer votes, and repu-
Hated Mr.. Lorimer.
Now. it was wrong for Mr.. Taft TO
keep silence about and therefore realty |
to help Lorimer, as long as Lorimer
could be of use to Mr.. Taft, but it was |
not merely wrong, it was wrong in. a
peculiarly mean way, after having thus
to use him while he might |
help Mr.. Taft, to turn around and for
the first time openly condemn him when |
the chance for using him had vanished"