Arizona republican., 1912-04-27
Deliberately Accuses Presi- dent of United States of an Absurd
 Untruth"
SPEAKER OUTDOES
 EVEN HIMSELF
Abuse is Heaped Upon the Nations Executive in Roosevelt's Worces-
 ter Speech
iASSOcidted Press DiSbdtch1


 WORCESTER, Mass. April 2G.- Merciless denunciation of President Taft was Colonel Roosevelts reply tonight to the presidents attacks upon him yesterday. Some of Roose- velts assertions were: that President Taft had not given the people of the country a square deal" but that owing to his quality of feebleness" he had yielded to the bosses and the great privileged interests" That one part of the presidents attack upon him was the ''crookedest kind of dear and a deliberate misrepresen- tation." That the president has not merely in thought. but in word and deed been disloyal to our past friend ship, but has been disloYal to every canon of ordinary decency and fair dealing, such as should obtain even in dealing with d mans btterest op- pOnents." That the presidents state ment, regarding federal office hold
 
 an untruth. but it is an absurd un- truth" That Taft convicted himself of insincerity when he signed the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill. That in speaking of Colonel Roosevelts posi- tion in regard to the trust problem; Taft is himself guilty of a crooked deal"
 Colonel Roosevelt then took up Taft's attack upon him point by point When Roosevelt reached Worcester at the beginning of the Massachusetts trip he found the streets thronged. A band and a torchlight procession escorted him to Mechanics hall, where he delivered his main speech. Later he addressed an overflow meeting.
 Roosevelt said in part: Tn this campaign I regard the issue at stake as altogether too important to permit it to be twisted into one of person. alities between Nr Taft and myself But Mir. Taft's speeches yesterday contained statements I must answer. Most of what he said needs no cOm- ment from me. When. for instance, 1 he said I endeavored to minimize the 1 importance of my Columbus speech, l he says what he must know to be i untrue: he cannot have read my l Carnegie hall speech, my speech at St. Louis, my Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Louisviles speeches. without knowing I have elaborated and em- | phasized what I said at Columbus.
 Again. when MT. Taft in any speech speaks of me directly or obliquely as q neurotic or a dema- gOgue, or in similar terms, I shall say nothing, except that to point out that i if he is obliged to use such lang uage he would better preserve his
 own self respect by not protesting it
 gives him pain to do so. No man
 resorts to epithets like these if it
 really gives him pain to use them II have never referred to him in terms even remotely resembling
 these l never quoted his private letters or his private communica- tiOns l have discussed publicly his purpose and actions. Even where was obliged to be severe, I was all ways parliamentary, never hypO- critical Nor do I intend today tC deviate from this standard. although the presidents speech makes neces- sary for me to speak more plainly or
 certain subject than I have yet ispoken.' Roosevelt referred to Taft's texplanatiOn of his statement that
 "ours is a government of all the peO- pie by q representative part of the people," He said: For him to try
 to escape the consequences of his statements by saying he alluded only
 to women and children is trifling witt
 the intelligence of the people, TC speak of such action on his part a:
 a square deal is itself the crooked
 est kind of a deal He is trying tC
 dodge the consequences of his state
 ment by deliberate misrepreSenta
 tion." Roosevelt defined a pOltca
 boss as a man responsible for the lalliance between crooked politics anC crooked business, which has been re
 sponsible for ne-tenths of the cor iruptiOn of American political life"