Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1910 — PRESIDENT TAFT IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT [ARTICLE]

PRESIDENT TAFT IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT

Addresses the Conservation Congress at St. Paul Ten thousand people heard Mr. Taft speak on conservation at St. Paul at the Auditorium, and 25,000 more at the state fair grounds gave their approval by cheers and waving of flags, and scores of thousands of others lined the pavements over which Mr. Taft whirled, declared it, too, in no uncertain fashion. In the hotel lobbies where the politicians congregate the verdict was: "He made a great speech at the conservation congress.” The shadow of Mr. Roosevelt, who came to talk to the conservators later, did not stalk before. Mr. Taft praised him freely, frequently and is unstinted terms. The first mention of the colonel’s name brought cheers' long enough and strong enough to make the president pause, but that was all. His own entrance into St. Paul and late last night into Minneapolis, and his appearance at the conservation congress brought forth applause that surpassed that given for Col. Roosevelt.

To the conservators the president laid down the administration s policy.. He set it out unequivocally, praising the work of his predecessor where he thought it ought to be praised, and damming some of the conservation policies of the colonel’s administration in the next sentence. Mr. Taft dodged once. He left to congress the decision of the question as to whether or not water power sites shall be controlled by the general government or by the state government.

At the state fair grounds the president made an attempt to conciliate the labor unions. He was speaking to a Labor Day crowd. He was blunt when he talked about class legislation; he was opposed to it "But there is a kind of legislation,” he said, "which I refer that does not come under the head of vicious class legislation, and I hope I can make the distinction clear between this and what I have been describing. A number of statutes have been pased in the states against combinations or conspiracies to restrain trade, to suppress competition, or to maintain prices; and there has been some times an attempt to insert in such statutes a proviso or section exempting fanners or other classes from operation of the statutes, so as to enable the exempt classes to corner products and raise prices while no other class in the community can do so. The supreme court has held that such a law gives undue privilege to a particular class in the community, creates an unjust exemption from the operation of a useful law, denies the equal protection of the laws, violates the constitution and is invalid. “Again the federal anti-trust law has been held by the supreme court to denounce combinations to obstruct or restrain interstate trade, and to prohibit, therefore, illegal boycotts to injure the interstate trade of any person. In the last session of congress in an appropriation bill some $200,000 was appropriated for the enforcement of th* anti-trust law. To this appropriation an amendment was proposed providing that no part of the $200,000 should b* used in the prosecution of workingmen engaged in a boycott in violation of the statute. That is not the way the amendment read, but that was its necessary effect The majority of the house after a very heated discussion rejected the amendment on the ground that it was vicious class legislation,” With Mr. Taft at his two public ap pearances were Senator Clapp and Senator Knute Nelson, of Minnesota; Gov Brady, of Idaho; Congressman Madison of Kansas, and Senator Sutherland of Utah. The president left St Paul in the private car Mayflower at 8:15 p. m. for Chicago and Beverly.