Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1909 — GORE ANSWERS PRES. TAFT. [ARTICLE]

GORE ANSWERS PRES. TAFT.

Senator Calls President’s Tour “Comedy of Errors” and Predicts Defeat as the Probable Result. Oklahoma City, Okla., October 19. —“The enemies of good government everywhere will approve the President’s denunciation of our Constitution. It must be opposed by all who favor special privileges, gifts and graft to the few at the expense of many, and by all who believe that the jeweled hand of greed should be licensed to pick the threadbare pockets of need.” This is the reply of United tSates Senator Gore to President Taft’s criticism that the Constitution of Oklahoma is a “zoological garden of cranks.” Continuing. Senator Gore said: ‘ The present tour of the President has been a comedy of errors—a tragedy of blunders—ever since the curtain went up, -and probably will be until the curtain conies down. “The rules of the senate forbid any senator to make a disrespectful allusion to any state- This rule is the dictate of common sense and common decency, as well r.s patriotism, and should be observed, even if it were not an expressed requirement.

“It would seem to be a wise precedent to be observed of all the officials of the government, whether legislative, judicial or executive. The influence ancf prestige of thef* President always should be used for the upbuilding of every state, and never should be abused to the disparagement of any state. “I regret the President so far forgot both his dignity and duty as to assail the fundamental law of a sovereign state over whose destiny he has been called temporarily to preside. It seems to me his denunciation was as undignified as It was undeserved, and as unnecessary as It was unavailing. “I was opposed to appropriating $25,000 to the President to carry on this crusade against progress and the progressive Republicans and, it seems, against the Constitution of my own state, and in behalf of ship subsidies for the building up of a steamship trust, and a central bank In behalf of the mightiest and most dangerous trust In the land. “I have reversed rpy views. The money has been well Invested. It probably will lead to the defeat of Mr. Taft by Roosevelt, La Follette, Cummins or some ether progressive Republican, or else by a Democrat. As between Roosevelt and Taft, I confess that I prefer the former- If Roosevelt did not sway, he did not serve Aldrich and Cannon.”