The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-03-24
President Wilson is something OF a
diplomat himself.
THE "srANp.PAT" Ru1NATIoN,

|
The Smoot organ in this city docs
not seem yet to have learned what was
the matter with the Republican party
that caused its disastrous national de-
feat in 1910, and again last year. We
referred freely the other day to the po'
sition of the two q. s. Senators from
Utah as contributing constantly and
disastrously to that defeat through
their stand-pat position upon the tariff
revision of 1909 at the extra session of
Congress in that year. That revision
was not only disastrous to the party; it
was directly opposed to the pledges and
desires of President Taft. When some
| Republican Senators ventured to sug-
gest while that bogus tariff revision
was being put through the Senate, that
there was pledge made from high
quarters that the tariff revision should
be downward, stand.pat Senators, with
sneers, wanted to know who had au-
thority to pledge the u. s, Senate TO
any such course. and who had made the
pledge. President Taft was the man
who had made it. The stand pat Sena-
tors, including the two Senators from
Utah, voted with the stand-pat crowd
all the time against the pledges, poll.
cies, and pleadings of President Taft.
That bogus tariff revision brought
disaster to the Republican party in the
election of the following year, and it
1 g. L.
party last year.
| And yet the Smoot organ does not
seem to know what was the matter. 1t
even has the effrontery to say that
"Senators Smoot and Sutherland stood
with President Taft in his policies and
principles {wh:eh emphatically they
did not), and that "The Tribune be-
lieves as firmly in the tariff policies of
Mr.. Taft as do the Utah Senators or as
do we.' II The Tribune did not believe
more firmly in the tariff policies of
Mr.. Taft than the Utah Senators do, it
would consider itself weak supporter.
q treacherous enemy of those policies;
for Smoot never failed to vote for the
obnoxious propositions of Senator Aid
rich from first to last Sutherland
supported them only less unanimously
than did Smoot. And when President
Taft proposed a better revising after
wards, schedule by schedule, Smoot
made a set speech in the Senate demon.
strating to his own satisfaction, that
revision schedule by schedule was i'm
possible.
1t was known to the country all the
time that President Taft was opposed
to that stand-pat programme; and yet,
the Utah Senators we're stalwarts of
stalwarts in support of il. At the very
closing effort of that revision in 1909
President Taft actively intervened,
pointed out the shameful nature of the
revision, and demanded that at least
something be accorded to show the
country that the Republican party was
willing in small degree at least to keep
it's pledges as interpreted by himself.
He got free leather and one or two
small concessions, bat the tone, the gen.
eral purport and practical effect of that
revision was upward and positively
hostile to President Taft's views, and
his Interpretation of the Republican
National platform pledge.
We repeat, that the Utah Senators
had more to do than the Senators of
any other State in sowing the seeds for
the disastrous defeat of the Republican
party. They were absolutely deaf TO
the pleadiugs of President Taft, and
insisted on carrying out the stand-pat
policies in betrayal Of the Republican
National party pledge as interpreted
during the campaign by Mr., Taft. We
repeat, that they have thus disquaH-
fled themselves from assuming to speak
for the Republican party or to guide It's
counsels.
The case is a perfectly plain one
against them. There is no doubt of
the disastrous effect Of that tariff re-
vision upon the Republican party; there
is no doubt of their completely. The
election of 1910 showed what the peo.
pie of the country thought of it by the
great condemnation that the voters
rolled up at the polls, And now for a
paper which appears not to understand
the purpose. effect, and legitimate Sc
quence of the staud-pst policies, to un-
dertake at this late day to try TO recon
cile those policies with President Taft s
is an insult to the intelligence of it's
handful Of readers and mockery Of
the public.