Who Are The People
Performed by William H. Taft
Recorded October 1, 1912
I cannot think that the American people, after the scrutiny
and education of this campaign during which they will
be able to see through the fog of misrepresentation
and demagoguery, will fail to recognize that the two
great issues, which are here presented to them, are:
First, whether we shall retain on a sound and permanent
basis, our popular constitutional representative form
of government with the independence of the judiciary
as necessary to the preservation of those liberties
that are the inheritance of centuries, and second,
whether we shall welcome prosperity which is just
at our door by maintaining our present economic business
basis, and by the encouragement of business expansion
and progress through legitimate use of capital. May
we not hope that the great majority of voters will
be able to distinguish between the substance of performance
and the question of promise? That they may be able
to see that those who would deliberately stir up discontent
and create hostility toward those who are conducting
legitimate business enterprises, and who represent
the business progress of the country, are sowing dragon
seed. Who are the people? They are not alone the unfortunate
and the weak. They are the weak and the strong, the
poor and the rich, and the many who are neither. The
wage earner and the capitalist, the farmer and the
professional man, the merchant and the manufacturer,
the storekeeper and the clerk, the railroad manager
and the employee, they all make up the people, and
they all contribute to the running of the government,
and they have not, anyone of them, given into the
hands of anyone the mandate that speaks for them as
peculiarly the peoples representative. Especially
does not he represent them, who assuming that only
the people are the discontented, would stir them up
against the remainder of those whose government alike
this is. In other campaigns before this, the American
people have been confused and misled and diverted
from the truth, and from a clear perception of their
welfare, by specious appeals to their prejudices and
their misunderstanding. But the clarifying effect
of a campaign of education, the breaking of the bubbles
of demagogic promise, which the discussions of a campaign
made possible, have brought the people to a clear
perception of their own injuries and to a rejection
of the injurious nostrum that in the beginning of
the campaign it was then feared they might embrace
and adopt. So may we not expect in the issues which
are now before us, that the ballots cast in November
shall show a prevailing majority in favor of sound
progress great prosperity upon a protective basis
and under true constitutional and representative rule
by the people.