The President's Kid-Glove Law
Everett’s labor press tears into President Taft’s Lincoln Day address, arguing the administration’s talk of 'business confidence' is a betrayal of the working class in favor of the trusts.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
President Taft's Lincoln Day address before the New York Republican Club was designed primarily to strengthen his party in the coming congressional elections. Despite the skillfully calculated utterances of a partisan President, it ought not to be forgotten that the people are in distress, and their welfare is of more importance than the success of any party. Joseph W. Folk, former governor of Missouri, noted there are two contending forces: those who advocate special privilege and those who stand for equality of opportunity. Taft, however, signaled to Wall Street that the government would not 'foolishly run amuck in business' by actually punishing criminal trusts. Instead, the administration promised only to ask for changes in 'business methods' while protecting the protected interests that fund their campaigns. The people are tired of government-protected bandits who make the public highways of business unsafe for the honest man.
“They understood that the administration was going to be very gentle and considerate, and that when the hand of the law reached out to the trusts it was to be soft and wear a kid glove.”
This 1910 critique of 'business confidence' prioritizing the donor class over the public good remains a perennial friction point in Everett politics, echoing modern debates over corporate tax breaks versus public infrastructure and affordable housing. The Labor Journal’s skepticism toward political 'verbiage' serves as a reminder that the power of money in elections was the primary preoccupation of the city's organized labor a century ago.
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