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Show H ' BALLINGER AND TAFT. H I Richard A. Ballinger, the man who has kept Taft's administra- H fl tion in turmoil, has resigned as secretary of the interior .and his suc- H cessorhas been named. H President Taft in accepting the resignation, gives publicity to H ) a letter which will come back to plague him, as did the Norton Hp , patronage letter. Taft, in his farewell to Ballinger, defends that H gentleman's reputation, lauds his virtues and slurs his enemies. The H President pictures Ballinger as an angel. This laudation might be H ' accepted were it not that the great majority of the people saw H Ballinger 's smallness disclosed on the witness stand, when the secre- H tary resorted to every trick of a trickster to avoid telling the whole Hj , truth. Ballinger was at first evasive and finally, when cornered, H j he was "untruthful, as the later admissions of WickersHam and of Taft H himself proved. It remained for clerks in Ballinger 's own office to H 1 place their "boss" in the unenviable position of being a wilful pre- H y , varicator. H Now comes President Taft with a public statement attesting to H .the nobleness of character of Ballinger and condemning in bitter H I terms those who opposed Ballinger 's official acts in the Alaska coal H and timber frauds. The President's effusiveness in a defense so H I unmerited is a source of surprise. H I Ballinger declares he will prosecute his persecutors. With the H j vast wealth of the Guggenheims behind him, he may view the task H J as a pleasant one, but some day the American people may be pro- H voked into rebuking not only a Ballinger, but the masters of the H men of Ballinger 's stripe who, in their arrogance of wealth, set out H . to make the honest, fearless opponents of the predatory interests bow H ' down to a reign of spoliation. This crushing process may .some day H v J be reversed and a Guggenheim may get caught betwen the grinding H . ) I of the upper and nether stones of outraged public opinion. |