Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1912-11-01
HARMON HITS THEM.


largely attended meeting on Saturday night
last, at which Governor Harmon, of Ohio,
made the following vigorous speech, ar
raigning Mr.. Taft and Mr.. Roosevelt for
deserving the people and serving the trusts
in considering the three leading candi-
dates for President, among whom the
choice must lie. the President naturally
comes first. He and his party have long
controlled the Government and asked the
approval of the country by his reelection.
"As he was nominated only by bare
majority in the face of most bitter opposi-
ton, which has since taken the form OF
an organized break in his party he comes
before the voters discredited by nearly, il
not quite, half of his own political COM
rades.
THE causes of this most unusual and
unhappy plight of renominated President
are mostly the same as those on which
Democrats found their opposition. He
broke his party's promise, and his own, to
relieve the people by reducing tariff taxes
and, instead. approved bill, which in many
important respects made them higher.
And he added insult to injury by full
some praises of this perfidy and of the
men who accomplished it. He received the
office as the gift of his predecessor, as he
admitted in letter produced by Colonel
Roosevelt last spring This does not put
him in an attractive light and closes his
mouth against discrediting the author of
his political being when that author testi-
hes to his defects and shortcomings, though
the witness ought to have known of these
when he forced the nomination.
The President and the Colonel are like
two boys with toy. Let me have it,
says Theodore. But you gave it to me, re-
plies William. 1Onlylet you have it to hold
a while, now ] want it back, returns Theo-
dore. Indian giver cries William, and
they clinch.
I'VE may well rest the case on what
these two say and tell about each other.
Colonel Roosevelt indicts the President for
the broken promises of tariff reform. The
President retorts that the Colonel during
his Presidency of nearly eight years, never
turned hand nor once aimed his mighty
vocabulary against the tariff abuses.
Il do not recall what the Colonel has said
about the Presidents vetoes of the bills
passed by the House and the Senate re-
lieving the agricultural interests of the
country from the gross discrimination
against them which the President made in
fixing the terms of that treaty.
But the Presidents attempt to justify
his conduct were most lame and impOtent.
So were the reasons he gave for vetOing
the bills to correct this wrong and to re-
duce the tariff charges on WOOL cotton and
other goods of universal necessity which
he himself had repeatedly admitted were
high.
He made this admission from common
knowledge, but blocked the partial relief |
these bills afforded because he said he had |
to hear from his tariff commission before |
he could tell whether the reductions might |
not possibly be too great.
THE President is now resOrting to the
old scare cry of calamity if the Democrats
should be allowed to disturb the system of
favor taxes. But nobody can be fooled in
that way since the disaster which befell
he country five years ago with Republi-
ian administration, of which Mr. Taft him
Ielf was member, in entire control of the
Government, and the Dingley tariff in full
orce.
THE desperate straits he is in might ex-
use that attempt, but it cannot excuse
lis repeating again the stale falsehoOds
hat the hard times of 1898 were caused by
he Wilson Tariff bill, which was not passed
Until the following year and had so little
efOrm in it that President Cleveland de-
Iounced and refused to approve it.
las for the Colonel himself, the candi-
ate, regret, as think the people at large
%, that he has put himself in the position
e now occupies. He is our only living ex-
resident. AS such he would have en-
Dyed the respect of all citizens, no matter
that they might think of his conduct in
instances or his general attitude
Dward constitutional government and the
ssential principles of liberty under law.
But, evading by pretext unworthy
4 criminal lawyer with desperate case,
lis solemn promise to the American peO-
lie he became candidate for a third term
'efOre the convention of his party. AS
resident he had snapped his fingers at
he explicit limitations of his authority
md tried to impose his will on both the |
legislative and judicial departments of the |
government. So he might have been ex- |
'ected to derlde as old fogyism the UNI
written law laid down by Washington and |
Confirmed by Jefferson and all his success
0rs, save one, and to prove himself big
Ter man than old Grant by succeeding
where Grant failed. But when he gave his
written pledge after his reelection in 1904
lie blocked his way to another term by his
personal honor too.
He is now appealing to every element of
discomfort, ignoring the fact that he is
more responsible than any living man for
The chief causes of discomfort which exist
among the people He is holding out in
definite assurances of a millennium for
if only he is made President
again.
THE party to which he owes his politi-
AxyapN Al.
grand old party if it had given him the
nomination he had sought from it. This he
does not deny. Because il preferred an
other it became in his eyes only an instru-
ment of evil, and he turns his murderous
the nomination was stolen from him. Yet
there was nothing done at that convention
which was not done by him or in his be-
half or that of his chosen successor in the
preceding conventions, and nothing which
was not attempted by or for him in this
very convention.
He is greedy for power and brutal to
everything and everybody that stands in
the way of his getting and using it as he
pleases. And the only definite thing he
proposes is to put the great private indus
tries Of the country, which have no public
character like the railroads, under control
of commission to be appointed by the
President. This is the most mOnstrous
proposal ever seriously made in a free
country. Ii would fit no Government but
an absolute monarchy. 1t would put in
the hands of the Chief Magistrate of our
republic a power unsafe in the hands of
anyone.
THE candidacy of Colonel Roosevelt puts
American citizenship to the test. Have