Taft Flays Wilson Record

1916

"The Democratic Record" is the title of an article in the October Yale Review by William Howard Taft. In it Mr. Taft analyzes and points out the shortcomings of the Wilson administration, reviews the career of Governor Hughes and points out why the Republican nominee should be elected. "There are enough instances," he says, to justify the conclusion that Mr. Wilson has few, if any, convictions on the issues of the day which exigency in the field of politics may not induce him to give up. Nor does Mr. Wilson waste time in explaining in argument the reason for his frequent changes of view. His facility in this regard robs of special importance his public utterances as a basis for supporting him as a candidate.

"On the other hand, Mr. Hughes is a man whose convictions have always been the guide of his action. I say what the people of the United States know when I say that the chief characteristic of Mr. Hughes is the courage of his convictions in meeting the embarrassment of political opposition. He gives the reasons for the faith that his in him. He argues out his propositions, and he does not depend upon mere facility of expression, mere happiness of epigrammatic statement, mere graceful phrasing of a platitude to support his opinion. He carries conviction by his speech to his audience and he carries his own conviction into action. His strength before the people and the importance to them of his utterances and promises grow out of their confidence that he is not an opportunist, but that no political expediency will prevent his hewing to the line and fighting to the last for his principles. It has been said that there is little difference between Mr. Wilson and Mr. Hughes except that Mr. Wilson has had the presidential experience. This is as far as possible from the fact. Having in view Mr. Wilson's record on nearly every political question and Mr. Hughes's course as governor of New York, it would he difficult to find among the public men of the country, one who is less like Mr. Wilson than Mr. Hughes."

Beginning with the appointment of William Jennings Bryan to the Cabinet, the Wilson administration, Mr. Taft says, has made a series of blunders in foreign and domestic affairs. He points out the vacillating that was involved in our dealings with Germany and with Mexico, the weakness of our policy with regard to China, the emasculation of the Department of the Philippine government, the extravagance of the Democratic Congress and the surrender to the railroad brotherhoods. "The character of the Democratic party," he declares, "which has been manifest through many decades, is itself a reason for relieving it from its responsibilities in the face of such an emergency as the ending of this war is bound to present. It is not a constructive party. Its legislative leaders in a long period of opposition have acquired a habit of mind which looks to political success by criticism and destruction of constructive policies, instead of to the framing of measures for useful affirmative results. The consequence is that when they are thrust into power and devise legislation, they find themselves confronted by their own past arguments, and they injure all their measures by an attempt in each one to coddle some faction of voters and thus greatly impede the normal and legitimate object of the legislation."