Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1908 — INDEPENDENT VIEW [ARTICLE]

INDEPENDENT VIEW

Springfield Republican Compares Candidates and Endorses Taft. The Springfield (Mass.) Republican Is the greatest independent newspaper in the country. It endorses candidates that have proved true and made good and supports measures that are for the welfare of the republic. In a twocolumn announcement it compares the records and fitness of the candidates and concludes as follows: The Republican accepts Judge Taft as the best exponent of the national purpose to enlarge within the republic the dominance of genuine democracy, and believes that he will look to that end with ffked resolution and purpose unchanged by the blandishments of the reactionaries. The national conventions of the year—all of them — have registered the determination of the American people to make special privilege subordinate to the public welfare. To that doctrine Judge Taft is pledged, no less than Mr. Bryan o'r Mr. Hisgen. Beyond these two, Judge Taft seems fitted by experience and temperament to make the popular will effective, so far as it lies within the power of the Executive to do this. “Experience and temperament” and especially the former. In point of administrative experience in statesmanship, and of demonstrated large ability in such statesmanship, there is absolutely no comparison between Mr. : Taft and Mr. Bryan.

Why? Because in that field Mr. Bryan’s ability is an entirely unknown and conjectured quantity. Mr. Bryan is an orator and a theorist. He may possibly be a statesman; but whether he is that or not nobody knows. He has never been in the slightest degree tried out in that capacity.. Would it be the part of wisdom to put Mr. Bryan in the presidency on the bare assumption that he might prove to have executive ability if given a chance to show what he can do ? Would it be compatible with American common sense to take any such chances? We are not denying Mr. Bryan’s good intentions; his amicable personality; the sweetness of his smile; his purity of character; his mental and lingual gifts. What we say is that in the field of practical administration, of executive responsibility, in a word, of statesmanship, he has never been tried in any large executive capacity whatever.

There is a homely old proverb about the folly of “buying a pig in a poke.” It fits to a “T” this proposed folly of taking Mr. Bryan’s statesmanship entirely on trust and for granted by making him president.

As for Mr. Taft as an administrator and statesman in high office, there the record speaks eloquently for itself. It forms the best and most conclusive eulogy of the Republican candidate for president.