The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-11-15
Poor Mr. Taft, Who Does Not
 And Cannot UNDERSTAND


 President Taft breaks silence. talk ing of his own defeat. His remarks are pathetic in their failure to show upon his part any understanding of the thought of the country.
 He was not greatly misled. he says, as to his popularity among the Amer scdr people. A sad misuse of words. The president was. and is, popular enough The people like him. But he is not workman. He doesn't even understand what the Nation wants. and the Nation releases him upon that score, though with some regret and some sorrow.
 .-1ky own theory says the Presi- dent. s4s that REAL PROGRESS does not take place in a very radical way. think progress Is accomplish ed step by step.''
 How piatftudinous is this speech. How far 1t falls short of meeting the eonditions ef history. of every day ex- perfence, or imnsazats political ne- cessify.
 Some progress is of slow growth. rhis is true enough. Civiiization Is A comp1exity of deliberate growth. That is true enough.
 But President Taft and his admin duration were not required to con- tribute much to the totality of csvi- lizakion~ A few acts were demanded Of them. A few measures. more or less radical were wanted They were not forthcoming. There was not even
 
 a clear picture of what was wanted, or of what IS wanted.
 But the President speaks Of real. progress, though what he means is uncertain. for progress is real, or 1t is not progress.
 However. assuming that he means by progress some statute, fact. or act of more than ordinary import ance to the Nation, the race or the wor1d-then he is wrong.
 Progress TOWARD definite acts of beneficial change may frequently be slow. but the CHANGE itself is more apt to be radical. that is to say. sud- den and revolutionary, than not to be- And this is true as we'll in the domain Of spirituax and moral and political things as in the area of ma teriaI things
 Somebody rubs amber. The knovI- edge or new force Is born Present. Iy arrives the telegraph. The pros Eress has been slow, but the change takes place suddenly.
 Today we rely upon the slow nov ing mail service. Tomorrow the thought of our minds speeds to it's destination only less rapidly than the movement of light.
 Comes the telephone. In the twinkIing of an eye men who yester- day might not have speech with each other save face to face, hold con- verse q thousand miles apart.
 Long may men think upon the wrong Of monarchs, but there comes an instant when the pregnancy of time concludes in the birth of demo cracy.
 The ship is slow fin building. but It's launching is a REVOLUTIONARY TRANSITION to another condition.
 The life of the child with it's moth- CT Is after the slow process of evo- 1ution, but it's entrance to the world OF DBnt IS Gatdc1SSnlIc slQ EcfoAH- tionary.
 There is a time when new things prepare to be born. There is per fod in which new order makes ready to replace old disorder. This is the period of evolution,
 But the replacement may be. is api Co be. nay. is almost certain to be radical. revolutionary, overwhelming 1y sudden.
 At moment black men are en- slaved.
 The scratching of a pen and the black men are free men.
 when. Mir. Taft took office the country WAS a. repreaentstiv demo cracy. The people voted, but they voted their power to state Iegis1a- lures and to the congress.
 The courts had some of the peo- ple's power. more than their share of it. More than had been defe- gated to them.
 while MT. Taft was in office the Hftitude Of the people toward theii democracy was transformed.
 The people began to strip theiI representatives their judges and their executives of the authority oi temporary kings.
 Tae people took power of dis charge. They took power of veto Dyer laws. They took power to make af tz,e ballot box their own laws.
 They had been THINKING about those changes for 40 years But they MFanR wrp THHHR RFTNnz fv, a ,-zaf-