Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1908 — PREDATORY INTERESTS MANAGING TAFT’S CAMPAIGN. [ARTICLE]

PREDATORY INTERESTS MANAGING TAFT’S CAMPAIGN.

A voter wrote to the Indianapolis News and asked for light upon the following matters: “Will you please give me your wellinformed assistance in solving the following problem, so that I may be enabled to give Mr. Taft’s candidacy just consideration: “Are Harriman, Rockefeller and the rest of the formidable army of predatory wealth now supporting Mr. Taft—whose chief reliance for election is his pledge to enforce the Roosevelt policies—because they fear Mr. Bryan more? “Or are they supporting Mr. Taft because they have been convinced that they have no reason to fear him —despite his ‘logical successorshlp’ to and pledged enforcement of the Roosevelt policies?” Answering the above inquiries the News —which, up to' this campaign, has supported every Republican candidate for president since Grant — made this clear statement:

“We have no way of getting at the precise motives of the Wall street gentlemen. The assertion was frequently made that they were induced to come to the support of Mr. Taft before the convention under threat that if they did not the president would again take the nomination. That they are vigorously supporting him now. though hostile to the Roosevelt policies for which he is supposed to stand, is unquestioned; indeed, when one notes Mr. Hitchcock’s committee, with Cromwell and DuPont and Cornelius Bliss and Boies Penrose its leading spirits, one can hardly escape the conclusion that they are not only supporting Mr. Taft but are controlling his campaign. It is hard to believe that they would be quite so active unless they felt confident either (1) that Mr. Taft would not carry out the ‘Roosevelt policies,’ which they detest: or (2) that he would be easier on them than Mr. Bryan.”