Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1910 — PRESIDENT PLANS TO REUNITE PARTY [ARTICLE]

PRESIDENT PLANS TO REUNITE PARTY

Intents to Restore Federif Patronage to Insurgents. WILL TREAT LEADERS ALIKE Views Are Outlined in Letter to Politician in lowa —LaFollette, Bristow and Others Placed Back on List by Action.

Beverly, Mass., Sept. 16. —President Taft has taken the initiative in an effort to reunite the Republican party. He announced, through his secretary, his intention of restoring federal patronage to all insurgents. This announcement is regarded here as an expression of willingness on the part of the president to align himself more closely with the progressive forces. It amounts to an acknowledgment by the president that the progressives in several states now ' constitute the party.

The president and his advisors fully realize that his action will be construed in some quarters as a bid for progressive support and as an effort to follow the trail blazed by yOl. Roosevelt. On the contrary, the president, it is contended, is actuated chiefly by a desire to accord to the progressives what he regards is their due now that they have been sustained in the primaries and in the nominating conventions. “The people have spoken,” says the president’s secretary, “and as we

face the fall elections the question must be settled by Republicans. Of every shade of opinion whether the differences cf the last session shall be perpetuated or shall be forgotten.” The president’s .attitude, as his secrelary fra pit ly outlines, it is that Mr. Taft had cut off the patronage of several of th,e insurgents because he believed in the last session of congress that they were obstructing his efforts to fulfill the party’s platform pledgee. Seme of the president’s advisors have contended that the removal of the ban at this late date would do ! more harm than good; that it would lay progressive representatives elected in November open to the charge of having finally thrown their support to President Taft because offices were handed to them. j Notwithstanding their arguments the president .himself gave the question careful consideration, and finally authorized his secretary to embody his I views in a letter to a politician in | lowa. It was this letter which was made public. The name of the man to whom the letter was sent was not given out, but it is supposed to have been one of the regular Republicans ,in lowa who have been dispensing j patronage over the heads of Senators i Cummins and Dolliver. | LaFollette, who won overwhelmingly at the senatorial primaries a rew dajs ago, is one of the men who are put back on the president’s patronage list. Senator Bristow, of Kansas, is another insurgent who fell under the Taft bah and who has been making a great outcry.