Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1908 — BRYAN AND TAFT PUBLICITY. [ARTICLE]

BRYAN AND TAFT PUBLICITY.

Mr. Taft calls attention to the fact that the treasurer of the Bryan national committee, Governor Haskell, of Oklahoma, hails from a state which has no law requiring publicity for campaign contributions. The point is urged in behalf of the Republican publicity program that Treasurer Sheldon comes from New York, where the law requires the publication of campaign contributions. But this is of no consequence. The publicity provided by the New York and other State laws is not before election, but after election. The publicity provided by the Bryan program is before the votes are cast. But so far the Taft plan does not contemplate the opening of Treasurer Sheldon's campaign books until after the ballots are polled. So it makes very little difference to the voters whether Mr. Sheldon’s publicity is voluntary or compulsory, so long as in either case it conceals the contributions from the public until after the votes the contributions are meant to influence are cast and counted. Nor does it matter whether the treasurer of the Democratic national committee is acting under a State law requiring publicity after election if he publishes an account of his funds during the progress of the campaign. An ounce of publicity before election is worth a pound of it afterward. But the Bryan treasurer also promises to publish a detailed account of his expenditures after election, and this is just as good as if he did so by compulsion of law, because‘there is no doubt that the promise will be kept.

There Is no use denying that the Bryan program of publicity is better than the one so far outlined by Mr. Taft’s managers. It would not be possible for them to satisfy the voters with concealment of their con-’ tributions until after election If that policy should persisted in while the Bry*an accounts were open to the eyes of the world.—New York Evening Press (Rep.)