Volume 14 , Issue 38

100 Years Ago Today - 17 September 1912

One hundred years ago today, Tuesday, 17th of September 1912, New-York Tribune, reported that the "Western States In Line For Taft." President Taft received encouraging reports from Ohio, Nebraska and various other sections. Negroes were turning to Taft because they deeply resented the treatment of their race in the third term convention and the attitude of its candidate.

Beverly, Mass., Sept. 16, 1912 -- "From both Ohio and Nebraska, as well as from other sections, reports of an encouraging nature reached the President today. In Ohio the Republicans have chosen Tom Lewis, formerly president of the United Mine Workers' association, for their candidate for Secretary of State, a nomination which commands the cordial approval of the labor organizations not alone in Ohio but in other states. Mr. Taft has a high opinion of Mr. Lewis, and has sent him a telegram congratulating him in the most cordial terms on his selection."

Senator Norris Brown wrote from Nebraska that conditions there had greatly improved during the "last two weeks" and that legal proceedings were about to be instituted to put off the ticket certain electors who had expressed the intention of voting for Roosevelt if they were elected. Senator Brown's observations on conditions in the West were in accord with those received from other sources and made it evident that the campaign in that section was being conducted with much vigor and with evident expectation of success.

Even a prominent negro clergyman wrote from Washington that members of his race would vote almost as a unit for the President. They deeply resented the treatment of the negro delegates to the Roosevelt convention and the tacit endorsement by the third term candidate of the disfranchisement of the negro in the South. They asserted with much reason that there was nothing so raw perpetrated in the Republican National Convention as the unseating of some of the regularly elected negro delegates to the convention of the third party.

As it turned out the negroes were disgusted with Col. Roosevelt's cries of fraud when he was hurt, when he did not hesitate immediately to order far worse things done by his personally conducted national committee when he believed the elimination of the negro world promote his political fortunes.

President Taft's negro correspondent pointed out that the advocates of woman suffrage should take heed, as they will doubtless be treated with the same inconsistency and lack of consideration whenever Colonel Roosevelt decides that it would promote his personal interests to repudiate them.

Managers of the Republican headquarters in Chicago said that a personally conducted canvass of the Slavs and Italians in that city and other cities, like St. Louis and Milwaukee, showed that they were indignant against Woodrow Wilson and would vote for President Taft with unanimity. Their indignation grew out of the reference tot he people of their races in certain of Wilson's political and historical writings.

If those in charge of the President's campaign in Connecticut were to be believed, the third party campaign in the Nutmeg State was finding its road a rocky one. They were certain connecticut would give President Taft a large majority, and declared the men who were seeking to create Roosevelt sentiment were doctrinaires and soreheads, who, in a small state like connecticut, cannot disguise the motives back of their defection.

President Taft had received a telegram from the Veterans Association of the Charlestown Navy Yard assuring him of the appreciation by its members of the steps he took to avert a suspension of work at that yard and to insure them uninterrupted employment, and pledging him their support in the election and in every way they are able to exert influence in his behalf from now until the election.

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