THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 10 August 1908, Page 3

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

W. H. TAFT; REPtJBLICAN CANDIDATE. SCHOOLBOY POLITICIANS. A Republican or a Democratic Convention in the United States must be one of the wonders of the world. The place of meeting is vast — that of the recent Republican Convention held 13,000, people — and every inch of the interior is decorated' Tilth flags and portraits. All the thousands who attend sethn to be afflicted with/ the spirit of Mafeking night: Everyone' carries a miniature national, flag, and waves, it freely. As the Americans are said "to combine the excitability- of children ■with the lungs of adults," and bands and whistles "are used to swell the tumult, the noise must be something terrific. Members'* ( of a State delegation" come by special train, "accompanied by tbe banner of the State, a band, an infinity, of flags and cigars, and enough whisky and champagne to float the train." At the recent Convention at Chicago the most spectacular success was scored by a delegation from Pennsylvania, 300 strong, dressed in blue suits, blue collars and shirts, and blue hats and shoes, and .carrying, in their buttonholes enormous roses, which, in obedience to a hidden spring, were suddenly metamorphosed into photographs of Senator Knox, the Pennsylvania, candidate. Other campaigners roamed the streets chorusing : B-i-double-1-y Taft spells Billy Taft, Sure he has the qualities within him. Divil a wan can say a word agin him. B-i-double-1-y Taft, His name great fame has ever been connected with. Billy Taft. Yep, that's he. He'sr^ great big man, fi~ , Don't you ever doubt it. ( ;$\ And he'll keep on growing, ' -'; ) That's all there is about it. | When he is the President We will always shout it, And everybody knows he's from Ohio. Delegates; are really very like schoolboys or undergraduates. A huge pair of trousers, manufactured from Texas cloth,, and presented by the Texas dele-gation-to Mr Taft, was hoisted on a pole and carried roiind the Convention, preceded by a banner bearing the candidate's portrait. Above the garment was a flag with the device: As' pants the hart for cooling , streams, ' So Texas pants for Taft. The delegates from thirty-three Statesrose from their seats and marched round the building with their banners for half- an hour, cheering wildly, and singing Taft; songs. "Taft, Taft, big Billy Taft, we want him!" they kept yelling, and. they got him. "A MAN TO TRUST." Mr ' Taft ,-is described as a sort of epitome of 'America's aspirations, big in every way. His huge size is said to be ' a - great burden to him, but he can turn a joke againjt it very effectively. vTo a "heckler" who taunted him with being fat, he retorted that he preferred being surrounded by honest adipose deposit- to being wrapped up in conceit and ignorance. His capacity for work is immense. It is quite common for him to work from seven in the morning till midnight, and he has often exceeded this. -'He is a good, earnest, honest, manly, better-than-average man to look at. If the boat were sinking; and he could swim and you couldn't, you'd hand him your £10,000— if you had it— saying, 'Give this to my wife,' and she'd get it, if he lived to get ashore." Such is the character given him by a political opponent. , One of his nick-names is "General Utility Bill,'' for it is said that when the President is overworked he turns persistent callers over to the Secretary for War, so that w See Taft about it" has become a by-word. Biographers are recalling the part he played, in the railway strike of 1894. The American Railway Union, 250,000 strong, was trying to block every train that carried a .Pullman car, and their leader came up before Judge Taft. The, trial' lasted a week, and caused great excitement,, the strikers declaring that if , the accused was ponvicted the Judge would not leave, the Court alive. 'Mr Taft took four days to consider his- verdict, and- then sentenced the c men to "s^x .months'- imprisonment. "I want you tq, understand,-'? he thundered at the., crowd I , of \ strikers, in Court, /bringing his first, <down on, his desk with a bang,, "that if therWis' any power in the. ,army, of the v United States ,tq run .those trains, jfchoge strains shall, be. run?? / He , passed *»ut: dfUheCourt unmolested, and ..the i-BtriW shortly . afterwards - collapsed j ', butLabor has. not forgotten.'-: It-Was typical of his tact that.w hen he wentto p;ut the /Philippines in order one /of his first s,teps was to learn the Spanish quadrille, the popular' dance", and be-; fore long, in spite of < his twenty stone^ he hftd danced himself into hearts of the islanders. Of affectation^ Vl any kind he has no trace., Mr^Sydney Brooks draws an interesting .ture of .him at his room in the War Department, munching a sandwich, a leg over the arm of his chair, and relieving his waistcoat buttons of their normal functions, in I spite of the presence of the Japanese Ambassador. This acute observer of American life describes him as thinking like the Duke of Devonshire, and acting like a mountainous edition of Mr Lloyd-George. '