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PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DAY.

"The Presidential campaign," according to a cablegram which reached us from New York last week, "has degenerated into a test of physical endurance." Fortunately for Mr. Taft, the rules are nob those of an ordinary athletic contest. In the last Marathon race the unfortunate cnampion of Italy was disqualified because, despite a good lead, he was unable to stagger the last few yards to the winning-post without help from his friends. Mr. Taft, who in the message above cited was reported to be "almost voiceless," has no such fate to fear. Had his voice collapsed altogether, his friends could still have made the running for him. His colleagues in the Ministry, and other friends, hired orators, phonographs and graphophones, and above all President Roosevelt himself, could still keep the tumult going, even after the unfortunate figure-head was no longer able to work. Mr. Bryan has been able to etand the strain much better than his opponent, and he may be congratulated upon the fact, for his voice and magnetic personality count for far more than the personal apparatus of Mr. Taft. On the Republican side, the magnetism is supplied by Mr. Roosevelt, whose immense popularity^ while a valuable asset for the party's candidate, has had the counterbalancing disadvantage of dwarfing his importance and his independence. It was not till towards tho close of the first week in September that the uneasiness of the Republican managers prompted the decision that Mr. Taft should undertake a speaking tour at all, and before he got to work his claims had been duly set forth, by the President in a letter which ran. to three newspaper columns. Mr. Bryan's comment that "the country would bo better satisfied if Mr. Taft spoke for himself, instead of having his views interpreted by the President," would cer tainly hold good of any British community. But as the restless Roosevelt has kept the game going right up to the poll, Mr. Taft and the party may be presumed to have liked it, and the candidate's loss of voice has not been the irreparable calamity that it would have been to Mr. Bryan, and many others. The President's latest is to denounce Mr. J. D. Rockefeller's declared intention to support Mr. Taft as " a palpabie trick on the part of tho Standard Oil Trust to defeat the President's friend."

The Trust has many friends in private, and is usually irresistible in the lobbies, but at election times both parties are equally shy of the connection. Yet "the President's friend," whose remarks have for once been deemed as well worth cabling as those of the President himself, has given a very good reason, why tho Standard Oil magnate should prefer to support tho Republicans. "The issue before the electors," says Mr. Taft, "is whether the TrusfaTShall be regulated by tho Republican party, or extirpated under Mr. Bryan." It is hard on Mr. Rockefeller that he should be denounced as a hypocrite because he prefers regulation to extirpation, but it is, of cours«, possible that he really prefers a futile attempt at extirpation to a regulation that would be drastic and effective, and 1 that, in his opinion, the best way to ensure the one is to simulate a preference for tho other. "Tho maintenanco of the home market for American products, giving labour its proper reward," is described by Mr. Taft as the fiscal policy of his party, in contrast with the attempt of the- Democrats to "cripple industries by making tariff ieductions, regardless of the difference in wages paid at home and abroad." On tho other hand, Mr. Bryan declares the 'issue to be: "Shall the people rule?" Probably the Republicans do not object to this statement of the case, though they put their own gloss upon it. Whatever the result of the great struggle which is being decided to-day — and the last mail advices show that in spite of diminished majorities in Vermont and Maine, and very dubious prospects in New York, the Republicans were etil] expected to avert defeat — thp country will get for its President a good man, standing upon a sound platform.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19081103.2.63.2

Bibliographic details

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 108, 3 November 1908, Page 6

Word Count
690

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DAY. Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 108, 3 November 1908, Page 6

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DAY. Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 108, 3 November 1908, Page 6

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