Salt Lake Tribune | 1908-10-15 | Page 6 | Their Treachery to Taft

THE IE TEEAOHEEY TO TAFT. The sacrifice of Mr. Taft's interests as a Presidential candidate, which is manifest in tho Smoot ring withdrawing withdraw-ing tho Republican electors from the Taft American ticket, shows the absolute abso-lute bad faith of Smoot and his gang. There is no one here to protect tho interests in-terests of Mr. Taft as tho Presidential candidate, no ono to mako the fight for him. excent the American Republicans. The Smootite Republicans, the Federal Fed-eral ring, or "bunch," as it is called, are entirely willing to sacrifice Mr. Taft. And, in fact, they have sacrificed sacri-ficed his interests and lost him thousands thou-sands of votos by withdrawing their electors from tho American Republican ticket. It is contended, of course, by tho Smootites, that as long as tho Taft electors remain on the ballot anywhere, they can be. voted for. Which is quite truo. But that simply shows tho disreputable dis-reputable tactics of the ring in insisting insist-ing that tho .Taft electors shall bo only over the ring ticket. The hope, of course, is that certain persons who want to vote for Mr. Taft may bo ap-prohensivo ap-prohensivo of their skill in handling the machine, and will be afraid that if they do not vote the straight Taft ticket their vote will not count, and that, therefore, they will vole the whole Smoot ticket. This, however, is a fallacy. The Republican Re-publican Americans can generally vote for the Taft electors if they wish. Those of them who do not care to put their vote in any hazzard or to undergo under-go any risk in casting it. will simply ignore the Presidential ticket altogether, alto-gether, and will vote tho straight American local ticket, without, any Presidential electors on it at all. Of course, the most of tho American Republicans Re-publicans will be able to vote for the Taft electoral ticket without any doubt or uncertainty. But a good many will resent the Smoot ring tactics in this, and will be disposed to ignore the Taft electoral ticket altogether in resentment of those tactics. But the withdrawal of those Republican Republi-can electors from the Taft American ticket leaves no room for argument as io the disregard of the Sniootitcs for Taft. They uttorty spurn all idea of helping Taft, and are devoted to tho one proposition that Taft must help them in electing their local legislative ticket so as to return Apostle Smoot to tho Senate. That is all there is about it. It is simply a piece of malignant, selfish, partisan chicanery, which will go far eventually to breaking up tho Smoot ring altogether. And that is precisely what ic should do. For a ring so utterly unscrupulous, selfish, malignant, malig-nant, and obedient to church counsel, has no business to exist anywhere within with-in tho bounds of the Republic.