The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-05-20
mcnt and the building inspector get
Tries TO DIscREDIT TAFT.

On Friday morning, the dispatches
gave TO the public President Tart 8
reckoning OF his strength in the Ma
tional Republican Convention. Ihat
reckoning showed that he had at that
time 543 delegates, or three more than
necessary to nominate him. These ng-
ures were confirmed by Representative
Mckinley, who is managing the cam
paign for President Taft That reck-
oning has been received, quite prop
erly. by President Taft's supporters as
authoritative and conclusive. So far
as we are concerned, it is impossible
for us TO imagine that President TAFT
would give forth figures of this kind
without being fully satisfied as to their
accuracy; and as President Taft is a
great lawyer and Judge as well as q
great President, the likelihood Of his
BEING deceived by false evidence in
this respect is extremely small.
1t is. therefore, with unfeigned sur
prise that we see the Smoot organ,
which is supposed supporter Of Pres
ident Taft. especially in the easy pros
pect of the President g winning, come
out with big table showing that the
President still lacks eleven votes of
having enough to nominate. The Des-
eret News on Saturday evening, to be
sure carried substantially the same
figures. but then nobody expects any
particular accuracy, consistency, or
even devotion to any political cause or
individual, from the News, which is,
first of all. the organ Of the church,
and, after that, practically nothing;
its interest is for the church, all else
excluded. But the Smoot crgan claims
to be in politics, it claims to be sup
porter of President Taft Its chief
boss poses in Washington as the great
friend of the President, and the ex-
ponent of his policies and desires. And
yet the organ of that boss here in Utah
not only disparages the President
claim in his own behalf, but undertakes
to show definitely and positively that
the President is wrong in his claim of
strength, and that. as matter of fact,
he is a good deal weaker before the
Chicago Convention than he thinks he
is.
This is another evidence of the hol-
lowness of the professed support which
the Federal bunch and the organ of the
big boss has been rendering to Presi-
dent Taft. At any and all times that
organ has been ready to desert the
Taft standard and to climb into the
Roosevelt band wagon. So insincere
has been the support which that bunch
and its organ have given to the Presi
dent. that the organ comes out openly
and saws that if it had not been for
a "threat; by The Salt Lake Tribune
that genuine Taft delegation would
be sent in case there were treachery
at the Provo convention, that treach-
cry would, in fact, have been carried
out, We can well believe it, although
The Tribune. as we have said hereto
fore. made no threat in the matter, but
merely announced as a matter Of news
the tendency which it felt to be surely
But the Federal bunch is tied up
with a pledge for President Taft which
It bv no means intended to give. And
now. in order to vent its vicious rage
at finding itself tied fast when it ex-
Dected TO be loose and deceptive, it
challenges President Taft IS figures, de-
Drecates his Judgment, and says that
he is over-con6dent and claiming more
delegates than he has got. An out-and-
out Roosevelt paper could not exhibit
4 more unfriendly attitude toward
President Taft than the Federal bunch
organ is doing right here and now in
Utah