Show OFFENSIVE PARTISANSHIP The president has removed Mr Ir Lincoln Avery verj collector of customs of Port Huron Mich for violation viola viola- violation tion of the law forbidding assessments and has also removed one of the special deputies for excessive partisan activity The assessments were turned overto over oyer overto to one of the Port Huron banks in accordance with ith witha itha a long established custom Of this the collector pleaded entire ignorance The assessments were paid only by a certain number of the older employees the themore themore themore more recently appointed ones not paying and seeming seeming seeming seem seem- ing not to know the practice But the offense was clearly proved and the president held that the responsibility responsibility responsibility re re- re- re for the enforcement of the law rested with the head of the office and after an investigation he lie removed him This is commented on favorably in the east and it being the law is all right but the men who paid the assessment did it of their own free will there was no compulsion the party needed the money and I while it is right that no man in hi office should be assessed assessed assessed as as- because the law forbids it we know of no law that prevents a man from voluntarily giving a proportion of his salary to help meet the needs of his party in a great campaign But the paying of th the assessment was not Dot so bad badas as the pernicious act activity ity of some officeholders When the president in the interest of Mr Taft put putout putout putout out his ills letter assailing Mr 11 Bryan and Mr lr Hitchcock Hitchcock Hitchcock Hitch Hitch- cock we think his offense was very much greater than that of an officeholder who gives up a little of his salary to help his party The influence of the president of the United States is supposed to be very great Counting on that we presume the president supposed that his letter would have a decided effect upon a large class of voters We do not believe it did We believe that it lowered his great office more than ihan it did his candidate any good and moreover it was an act most unseemly because the president is not the president of the Republican party but of the United States and full respect for the whole country and all its people and for his office ought to have r re restrained restrained re- re strained his hand and kept him from writing that letter |