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

DEMOCRATICHOPE SIDETRACKED

Taft and Foraker Bhoulder to Shoulder for Republican Principles. Another Democratic hope has been sidetracked. That was that United States Senator Forakar would not support the Taft candidacy, and would thus impair his chances of carrying the State of Ohio. The two big Ohioans fittingly met at the G. A. R. reunion In Toledo, and publicly and good-naturedly cast what differences may have existed between them to the air. Mr. Taft’s contribution to thfc treaty of peace was as follows: “It Is a pleasure for me to be here with Senator Foraker, because when governor of Ohio he gave me my first chance and took a good deal Of risk in ' putting a man of 29 on the bench of the Superior Court of Cincinnati Wo are about to enter—or rather have entered—a great oratorical campaign.... It is a pleasure to think In this presence that we are going to stand in the campaign shoulder to shoulder, with the full strength of the Republican party.”

In response Senator Foraker-denied that enmity had existed between Mr. Taft and himself, and said: “Under the circumstances I hope I may be pardoned if I say here in this presence—the flrat time I have bad opportunity to say it—that there Is not now and so far as I know there never has been the slightest ill feeling of any kind between Mr. Taft and myself. “If there Is anything I.'have a right to claim beyond another, It is that I am Republican three hundred and sixtyfive days in the year. I have my preferences sometimes as to who should receive the hoyers* of the party, and everybody generally finds out what they are. But J am one of those old-fash-ioned Republicans who settle every such question at the convention. When the Chicago convention nominated Mr. Taft to be the Republican candidate for th® Presidency this year, that Instant h® became my leader. He has been my leader ever since, and h® will be my leader until the polls close <Jn the night of the elecKon.” Mr. Foraker followed with an estimate of Judge Taft’s fitness for the office he seeks by repeating what Bishop Fallows had said before him.

“I want to repeat it,” he said, “that bis experience on the bench, In the Philippines, as Secretary of War, in the construction of the Panama Canal, In all the positions * he has filled, has been such as to qualify Mr. Taft almost beyond every other man for -the Presidency. We are going to elect him, and if he does not make a success of It, It will be his own fault”

Senator Foraker followed this statement with a review of his early acquaintance with Judge Taft, and th® favorable Impression he tflen gained of him.