Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1912 — WOMAN HAD TWO KNIVES FOR TAFT [ARTICLE]

WOMAN HAD TWO KNIVES FOR TAFT

Is Arrested When She Tries to See President BELIEVED TO BE INSANE Chief Executive Defends His Vetoes at State Fair Grounds, Colum-., bus, O-, and Starts 1 Back for East. Columbus, £)., Aug. 30. —Provided with two pocket knives, one of which she declared was ‘‘sacred” and which she wanted to present to the president, Mrs. Carolyn Beers of Greenville, 0., was arrested here in the Southern hotel just as Mr. Taft was going in to breakfast. The woman tried to crowd her way Into the elevator with the president and when Detectives Johnson and Homer stopped her she cried out: “I am the president’s wife; I have a sacred knife which I am going to give him.” Has Two Knives on Person. At the city prison she was searched and the two knives were found, one of them having a three-inch blade. She had about S2OO in cash concealed in pockets of her clothing. In interviews with Police Chief O’Neil she said she had seen the president at the Gibson house in Cincinnati last year and that he had told her to go home and stay with her daughter. She Insisted that she is Mrs. Taft. Advices from Greenville indicate that Mrs. Beers has suffered for several months with a slight mental derangement. but has never been violent. Taft Defends His Vetoes. President Taft attended the double celebration of Federal day at the Ohio-Columbus centennial and at the Ohio centenary state fair. In his address at the fair grounds President Taft defended his use of the veto and attacked most of the so* called Progressive measures as “nostrums.” He did not mention the measures specifically, although he declared that the trouble with the men who advocated them was that “they wanted to place reforms into effect %y tomorrow morning’s breakfast." “That is not the way nations grow,” declared the president. “They grow by years and decades and mere change is not necessarily progress. If we desire to make certain progress we must move step by step and with the utmost care.” Referring to his recent vetoes, he said he only did what his conscience forced him to do. Leaves for the East. “When you tsllw a Democratic house, a Senate that is not anything and a Republican president,” said Taft, “the veto is likely to be used. “I used it only moderately. If you will review the history of vetoes in this country you will find out that most of them have been for the public good.” The president left for the east this morning.