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Show H l WHAT WILL TAFT DO? H J One of the most significant political editorials which has ap- H peared in a Republican paper since the campaign of 190S is that in H j the New York Press of Saturday, November 18. The editorial in 1 I ' full is as follows: HLl "With Theodore Roosevelt now out as an open and enthusi- HL astic assailant of the administration in Washington, 'with the Pro- j gressive league hurling tomahawks at the White House from all over H the western hunting grounds, with farmers bitterly resentful of what H ' they deem tariff heresy, and with Big Business in the East grown H Btraugely cool to President Taft, because, while stocks went up after M his election, they have had a passion for darting downward since his H inauguration, the federal machine, which is intrusted with the mis- H sion of making a ticket for the national convention to take, may be H said to be surrounded, besieged and stormed by insurgeucj', insur- H rection, rebellion and very nearly-every other variety of hostility. H "It is tradition to believe that chief magistrates can be loved H by the masses for the enemies they have made among the classes. But j it yet remains to be doubted that in the Republican party Colonel H i Roosevelt commands the popular allegiance that is not extremely 1 radical. We suppose that nobody questions that the more radical j element goes horse, foot and dragoons, with the Progressive Repub- H lican League, which is demanding that candidates for the Presidency j submit their ambition for nomination to the popular test of direct j primaries. So much for the voting power of the party. As for the H sinews of war, it is needless to emphasize that they arc in the' keep- H ing of the exalted minority which constitutes Big Business. H "With the lines thus drawn it would be idle to deny that the H situation of today presents itself as a crisis for the Republican H party. This is not to our liking. No more can it be to the liking of " others who see the interests of the country best insured when there is a Republican president in the White House, with a Republican House of Representatives and a Republican Senate in Congress. What the likelihood is of such a result, following the national election elec-tion of next year, what the likelihood is when the party is threatened, threat-ened, not with mere dissension, but with actual separation into several sev-eral fragments, is a subject for the careful consideration of everybody every-body for Mr. Taft it is a matter of deepest concern. "Anticipating something of what has now conic to;pass, Mr. Taft has confessed the possibility of party defeat. Did he have it in mind then, when he intimated his misgivings to decline a renom-mation? renom-mation? We say decline a renomination, rather than atrial for it, because we take it that, if he should be so minded, the federal machine ma-chine uould march to the convention the delegates necessary to place him at the head of the ticket. For it is federal office holders who, in person or by proxy, man the nominating engine of the national convention. "But, though he might be willing to face, or even court, defeat at the head of his "party, in a fair and square contest, Republican host against Democratic host, could he be willing, could he be expected expect-ed to be willing, to go upon the political battlefield without a great party, perhaps without so much as a fraction of his party behind him? Such is not our opinion. We believe that the public will not be left long unaware that such is not the opinion of Mr. Taft. In any event, there must be immediately some very dramatic developments develop-ments of a situation that so suddenly has become all but tragic' |