Republican Responsibility and Performance; Democratic Responsibility and Failure
Performed by William H. Taft
Recorded August 27, 1908
I have already pointed out
that the Republican party long ago passed the Antitrust
Law and is vigorously enforcing it. I have already
stated that it passed the Interstate Commerce Law
and its amendments, the Elkins Law and the Rate Bill,
and is vigorously enforcing them. I have already dwelt
on the great change for the better that has been brought
about by this administration. I have said that the
extent of the abuses were not known or realized during
the time when the burden of the Spanish War and its
consequences had to be met or until revelations were
made early in this administration when the work of
remedying them was at once begun. If these abuses
were always well known, as now plain, and the necessity
for their radical and drastic reform was clear to
all and especially to the Democratic party under its
present leadership, it would seem that of all the
possible agencies for reform, the Democratic party
is the one least entitled to any credit. For while
the resolutions of its platforms in 1896, 1900 and
1904 denounced the abuses of corporate wealth, they
never proposed feasible plans or made the prominent
and chief issue of any campaign, the carrying out
of what have now become known, and properly known,
as the Roosevelt policy. On the contrary in 1896 the
party made the chief issue a disastrous financial
experiment which would have retarded the progress
of this country a quarter of a century and sullied
its financial honor. In 1900 the Party reiterated
its adherence to this suicidal policy of repudiation
of national and private debts and obligations and
then advanced to the paramount issue of the campaign
not the trust, not corporate wealth and abuses
- but rather the repudiation of all our international
responsibilities growing out of the Spanish War and
the destruction of what they called the growing cancer
of imperialism in the policy of this country. Again,
in 1904, instead of selecting the abuses and evils
for which they now seek to make the Republican party
responsible as the main issue of the campaign, the
burden of their contention was the usurption of the
powers of the Executive Office for President Roosevelt
including his settlement of the anthracite coal strike
and the violation of the federal constitutional limitations
by the Republican party, while the extent of the trust
evil was minimized by the statement of the then party
candidates that the common law furnished sufficient
remedy to suppress it, and for the general party declaration
that nothing but safe and sane policies were to be
adopted under the administration which should follow
its success in the election. The people in 1896, by
a substantial majority, rejected the plan of repudiation
of the Democratic party. In 1900 the people again,
by even a greater majority, rejected the plan of the
Democratic party to repudiate the national responsibility,
and in 1904 they again rejected the same party which
had temporarily assumed its ancient character as a
preserver of the Constitution. This is the record
of the party whose policies it is claimed Mr. Roosevelt
and the Republican party have stolen in the actual
abolition of railway rebates and discrimination, in
the active enforcement of the anti trust law, in the
passage of a pure food law, in the passage of a meat
inspection law and in the actual demonstration that
corporate interests and influences do not control
the passage of laws or the enforcement of them under
the present Republican administration.