The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-03-19
AS TO TARIFF RECORDS.

Doesn't it come with pretty poor
grace for some of the enthusiastic sup
porters of Colonel Roosevelt to criticize
with severity the tariff record of Presi-
dent Taft? What sort of a tariff rec
ord has their candidate that they can
submit in comparison? AS a matter OF
fact Colonel Roosevelt and the tariff
are as strangers. Except for one speech
he delivered on his tour through the
west just after his return from Africa,
Colonel Roosevelt has been as silent on
the tariff during the many years of
his prominence in the public arena as Is
the proverblaI clam That was a ref
erence to the tariff along most genera
lines. Certain it is that during his
two terms of incumbency in the presi-
Dental Office he ignored the tariff and
its revision as though it were a pestI-
lence. During the last months of his
second term, and after the election OF
Mr.. Taft to the presidency, when Col.
Roosevelt was urged to take some steps
towards efecting a necessary and pro-
per revision of the tariff he caused
tremendous laughter in the galleries
by remarking: Every man must skin
his own skunks, and the tariff is Taft's
skunk"
AS a matter of fact the tariff and
its revision was just as much a Roose-
Welt skunk as it was Taft's. In one of
the last speeches he made before his
assassination, the late President Nc
Kinley, an ardent disciple of a high
protective tariff, expressed the opinion
that the time was drawing near when
there should be something of a revis-
ion of the tarII1. He urged that the
time was at hand when the matter of
arranging reciprocity trade treaties
with foreign countries should be given
serious consideration: Such reciprocity
treaties are an ideal method of tariff
revision in the right way. Every ore
knows of the solemn promise MI.
Roosevelt made on his assumption OF
the presidency, to bend every energy
to carry out the activities and the ideas
of William Mckinley in the administra-
ton of the affairs of the government.
Surely Mr.. McKinley's pronouncement
on the need for reciprocity treaties and
tariff revision was one of the legacies
thus voluntarily accepted by Colonel
Roosevelt.
But what steps did he take during his
carry out this policy projected by Nc
Kinley Just before he went to his un-
timely death? He didn't take a single
one. His tariff record, While he was
president, is as barren. of any sort of
action as is a Mexican hairless dog OF
heas. If Colonel Roosevelt had done
his full duty to the tariff while he was
president, there would probably by this
time have been something approaching
a settlement of this important ma
ter of tariff revision. Colonel Roose-
welt, however, lodged the tariff wit
most successful agility when he was
president. He seems to be lodging it
yet There was no mention of the tariff
in his famous Columbus speech which
is considered the platform on which
he is campaigning for a third tern.
And yet the tariff issue
promises to be the paramount one in
the forthcoming presidential campaign.
every move that the Democrats
are making in congress shows this to
be
President Taft's tariff record Is one
of gigantic accomplishment when COM
pared with the Roosevelt tariff record,
that is, if it is possible to compare
something with nothing. President
Taft has never lodged the tariff issue
for an instant. Every one knows just
where he stands on it, He is for a
tariff revision downward that shall be
based on facts and figures procured
through tn Investigations of a tari-l
board or a tariff commission. All fair
minded men, when they are not play
ing politics, will admit that this is the
only proper way to revise the tar4I,
if there is to be a tariff at all.