The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-07-10
Republican and Democratic Par
ties Scored Today
TAFT BITTERLY ATTACKED
Chairman Howard Made Sensational
Speech at Opening of Prohibition
National Convention in Atlantic
City To-day.

Atlantic City, n. j., July io.-A SEN
sational attack upon President Taft, Col
Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican
and Democratic parties in general,
marked the beginning here to-day OF
the eleventh national prohibition con
vention. Clinton n. Howard of Roch-
ester, Y. ", temporary chairman Of the
convention. made a speech which bristled
with denunciation of the "boss-riddcn,
liquor controlled old parties He de.
clared nothing in the way of real re-
form was to be gained from either of
them or from third party dominated
by Col Roosevelt.
"No other president since the fountla-
tion of this government declared Mr..
Howard, "has surrendered more ablect-
ly to the liquor interests of this ma
Tion than has William Howard Taft.
His record is too recent, familiar and
odoriferous to require review in this in
telligent presence.
Mr.. Howard said it would be a Grim
inal waste of time to argue that the
liquor traffic could be stamped out
through the Republican party "by its
silent platform, its present and I'M
worthy leadership, its long consistent
liquor record and its present monopoly
nnrtured candidate who obtained his
nomination at the hands of conven-
tion which Theodore Roosevelt declares
represents nothing but successful DO
litieal fraud perpetrated in the inter
est of political and financial privilege
and who more than any of his predeces-
sors has become the wet nurse for the
saloon"
"And what better results can be OK
pected from the Democratic party Not
only as little as less than nothing at
ALL
Exactly the same influences that pois
oned the Republican party at Chicago
were in control at Baltimore.
ut may be said in truth that the
splendid Woodrow Wilson was not Mr..
Murphy's choice; but the campaign ban
ner, decorated with his picture, was flung
to the breeze in front of Tammany hall
one-half hour after his nomination on
the order of Charlie Murphy by long
distance telephone, and the candidate has
sent his regrets that a prior engagement
prevented his presence at the Tammany
Fourth Of July"
The temporary chairman said that
while Gov. Wilson was known as a
good man. the prohibitionists ARE not
here to elect a good man, but to kill
the liquor traffic" Mckinley and Har
rison were good men" in the White
House, he added, .but they went out OF
office with the country more saturated
with rum than when they went in"
After severely criticising the Demo
cratic House of Representatives for its
failure to enact legislation prohibiting
the shipment of liquor into prohibition
territory in the South, Chairman How
ard turned his guns upon Col. Roose
welt.
How about the promised progress
sive Roosevelt party?' he asked.
"We already have two whiskey par
ties and do not need another. From the
standpoint of the prohibtionist, by his
record, public utterances and confessed
personal habits, he is the least desirable
of them all.
Posing as the Thou shalt not steal
candidate because his partisans were not
preferred over President Taft's in the
convention, he brazenly boasts that he
stole the isthmus of Panama from Co
lombia and Let Congress debate about |
it afterward'
"If the Chicago convention played the
same trick, they got the cue from him.
His title to the Panama strip was
as good as stolen Taft credentials in
the hands of boss-made delegates, and |
no better.
Stealing is stealing, Mr.. Roosevelt |
When you taught that the end justities
the means, you gave every thief pass
port to heaven"
Mr.. Howard referred by name to. the |
various bosses" at the two old party |
conventions. concluding with this sally: |
And to think of Billy Finn, the vice
protector and promoter of Pittsburg, and |
Timothy Woodruff of Brooklyn mas
querading as Roosevelt 'progressives'
What hope is there for reform in Amer
lea at such unclean hands? Absolutely |
none"
The speaker predicted that the pro-
hibition party was certain of ultimate
success and informally declaring the con-
vention ready to transact business, urged |
that "all things be done decently and in
order"