Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1912-09-03
Official Paper Of City ana County
The Register and Leader for Roose-
welt

The Register and Leader for Roose
welt
The Des Moines Register and Lead
er ''has come to the conclusion thai
President Taft's reelection is impos
sible, if not undesirable, in view of the
sort of men who have come into con-
troll of the national campaign 1t be-
lieves that his nomination was brought
about in ways that justify those who
choose to vote for Mr.. Roosevelt" II
asserts that "Mr. Roosevelt was the
plain and unqualified choice at Chicago
of the republican states" 1t believes
that s'the choice lin November) will
lie between Mr.. Roosevelt and Cover
nor Wilson," in which event "there
are certain considerations that will
appeal in behalf of the former to those
of republican affiliation These Seer
tain consideration" center about ''the
republican doctrine of protection
chow can any man who holds to the
republican doctrine of protection, and
who sees in a reasonable adjustment of
the tariff a very powerful argument
for continued prosperity in this coun.
try, prefer Gov. Wilson to MIR. Roose-
velt?" Particularly in view of the as
sured fact that 'the coming Congress
will be hopelessly democratic in the
lower house and safely democratic in
the senate the effect of which will
be to leave the party free to do as it
will" With Mr.. Roosevelt in the
chair, "nothing could be done that
would not be in the nature of fair
compromise, and that would mean that
nothing could be done that the progress
sive sentiment of the country is not
fully ready for. Therefore, without
over-emphasizing the importance of
one man to a great movement" the
Register and Leader proposes (pur-
poses) to advocate the election of Mr..
Roosevelt" As regards the business
of party regularity the Des Moines
paper considers the Iowa republican
platform deals with it in "a just, and,
on the whole, in the only just way-it
is case where each voter must decide
for himself
1t is obtrusively obvious that the
Register and Leader has no stomach
for its job. 1t would be ruinous to the
Register and Leader if it should come
out for Wilson-it couldn't do that.
Yet it must make decision and it takes
Roosevelt in preference to Taft with
face averted from the latter and face
awry toward the without
over-emphasizing the importance of
one man to a great movement, it will
advocate the election of Mr.. Roose-
velt."
Its stated reason for opposing Gov.
Wilson is at best a pretext. The Reg
lister and Leader very well knows that
with the revenue needs of government
as great as they are it would be an alb
solute impossibility, granting demo-
cratic desire to eliminate every ele.
ment of protection from tariff duties,
for democratic congress to do so. It
very we'll knows that fulfillment of::the
democratic platform promise of a
tariff for revenue only must leave in.
cidental protection in some of the
schedules. Far from ushering in an
era of free trade, the democratic con-
gress could not. try ever so hard. get
rid of so-called protection in impost
duties. This is a condition, not a
theory. and we'll known to our Des-
Moines contemporary.
Can the Register and Leader be sin
cere in preferring Theodore Roosevelt
to Woodrow Wilson in the matter of
the tariff? Theodore Roosevelt was
seven years in the White House and
during much of that time the progress
sive republicans of Iowa, standing
back of the Iowa idea, were demand
ing relief to the consumers from the
iniquities of the Dingley law. Did
Theodore Roosevelt move in the d.
rection Of tariff revision? Did he do
aught in those seven years when the
and the power were his to
revise 'duties that afford shelter to
monopoly" to cut down the graft
that Gin a single year amounts to more
than the sum of all the insurance graft
of all time?" He left the tariff
strictly alone. Attempt to revise it
might prove disastrous to him person
ally, as to presidents who preceded
him, and as between suffering himself
and permitting continuance of suffer-
ing by consumers, he elected not to
suffer himself. He would leave it to
his successor to take up the task of
successor whom he chose.
And when his successor failed in the
task, as the record reads, Theodore
Roosevelt jumped upon him with hob
nailed boots and to-day is capitalizing
that successors misfortune for his own
selfish political enrichment, using it for
his own ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. pointing to it
as evidence of infamy in the other and
proof of virtue in himself!
We leave the Register and Leader
and all those whose thought it voices
with their modification and their sick
ly stomachs. Partisanship FORCES their