Las Vegas optic. (East Las Vegas, N.M.) 1908-1921, 1912-08-01
President MAKES HEARTFELT
SPEECH WHEN NOTIFIED THAT
HE is TO HEAD G. 0. ?. TICKET

~ his statement ia Z letter as the
campaign develops
The supreme Issue that confronts
the voters, the president declared.
was that Of the maintenance of the
nations institutions and the preser--
walton of the constitution, threatened,
he said, on the one hand by the demo-
cratic party and on the other by
those republicans who had left the
party to try their fortunes in new
one.
In discussing the tariff the presI-
dent said that it was untrue that to
its door could be traced the high
cost Of living. AS an issue only less
important than the tariff the presi-
dent placed the regulation Of trusts.
He said the Sherman law had been
enforced with success. Taft did not
mention either Colonel Roosevelt or
Governor Woodrow Wilson by name,
but referred to each
II know that in this wide country
there are many who call themselves
democrats, who view with the same
aversion that we republicans do, the
radical propositions Of change in our
form Of government that are reck-
lessly. advanced to satisfy what is
supposed to be popular clamor," said
the president. TO them appeal
as to ali republicans, to Join us in an
earnest effort to avert the political
and economic revolution and business
paralysis which republican defeat will
bring about
After reviewing the legislative en-
actments Of the republican party the
president launched into bitter at
tack upon those responsible for the
popular unrest Of the present day"
Started by sensational journalism
and unjust and unprincipled muck
raking," he said, "demagogues have
seized the opportunity to inflame the
public mind that they might turn the
peculiar condition to their own adj
vantage"
In the formation of new parties, the
president said. these men have prom
ised the satisfaction Of unrest by the
application Of a panacea.
I'm the ultimate analysis, | fear, the
equal opportunity which those seek
who proclaim the so-called social JUS
tice, involves forced division OF
and that means socialism.
venture to say there is no national
administration in which more real
steps of progress have been taken
than in the present one. But as for
the millennium, condition in which
the rich are to be made reasonably
poor and the poor reasonably rich by
law, we are chasing phantom.
II do not say that the two gentle
men who now lead, one the demo
cratic party, and the other the former
republicans who have left their party,
in their attacks upon existing condi- |
tions and in their attempts to salts
fy the popular unrest by promise Of
are consciously embracing so
cialism The truth is that they do
not offer any definite legislation OF
policy by which the happy conditions
6hey promise are to be brought
about.
THE truth is, my friends, both
those who have left the republican
party under the inspiration Of their
present leader and our old opponents,
the democrats. under their candidate,
are going in direction they do not
definitely know, toward an end they
cannot definitely describe, with but
one chief and clear object, and that
is Of acquiring power for their party
by popular support through the prom
ise Of change for the better
"These gentlemen propose to re-
form the government. whose present
defects, If any, are due to the failure
Of the people to devote as much time
as is necessary to- their political du-
ties by requiring political activity
by the people three times that which
thus far the people have been willing
to assume" I