OCR Text |
Show TAFT DECLARES VICTORY CAN NOT BE OVERESTIMATED Washington. President Taft Issued the following statement Saturday night after he had learned of the final action of the convention: A national . convention of one of the greatest parties is ordinarily important im-portant only as a- preliminary to a national na-tional campaign for the election of a president. The Chicago convention just ended is much more than this and is in itself the end of a pre-con-vention campaign presenting a crisis more threatening and issues more important im-portant than those of the election campaigns which is to follow between the two great national parties. The question here at stake was whether the Republican party was to change its attitude as the chief conservator con-servator in the nation of constitutional constitu-tional representative government and was to weaken . the constitutional guaranties of life, liberty ana property prop-erty and all other rights declared sacred sac-red in the bill of rights, by abandoning aband-oning the principles of the absolute independence of the judiciary essential essen-tial to the maintenance of these rights. The campaign carriect on to seize the Republican party and make it the instrument of reckless ambition ambi-tion and the unsettling of the fundamental funda-mental principles of our government was so sudejen and unexpected that time was not given clearly to show to the people and the party the dangers dan-gers which confronted them. It was sought to break the wise and valuable valua-ble traditions against giving more than two terms to any one man jn the presidency and the danger from its breach could not be measured. The importance of the great victory which has been achieved cannot be overestimated. All over this country patriotic people are breathing more freely that a most serious menace to our republican institutions has been averted. It is not necessary to speak of the result in November on the issue3 which will arise between the Republican Repub-lican and Democratic parties in the presidential campaign to follow. It will be time enough to do that after the action of the Baltimore convention. conven-tion. It is enoug-h now to say that whatever may happen in "November, a great victory for the Republican party and the United States has already al-ready been won. The party remains as a great powerful organization for carrying out its patriotic principles as an agency of real progress in the development of the nation along the constitutional lines upon which it was constructed and has ever been maintained: and its future opportunity for usefulness is as great as its achievements in the past. |