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Editor’s Table: The Presidential Election

Improvement Era, vol. 15, no. 12, October 1912, p. 1120

Joseph F. Smith

Editor's Table The Presidential Election The forthcoming presidential election is one of profound importance, and opens to the student a wide field for the study of applied political economy, as well as for leading social questions that are before the nation to be solved. No reasonable citizen who has investigated the political situation, with a view to learning the true status of the claims set forth by the various political parties, can in any way justlv find fault with the present administration. President William H. Taft has met the just needs of the people and the economic demands of the country with steadfastness and wisdom. In the treatment of the great questions that have come before the nation, he has risen to the occasion and applied such conservative legal remedies as have won him true admiration from patriotic citizens of all parties. The extremely delicate situation with Mexico has been handled by him in a way to establish confidence in his ability, and notwithstanding the criticism of his action, in this matter and in that of the Central American republics, time will doubtless prove that his policy is best. Most people do not understand what intervention in Mexico would have meant when it was most advocated. American colonists, in large numbers, were distributed over various scattered sections of that country, and had not the situation been handled as carefully as it was, war would inevitably have been the result. War would have meant the destruction of railways and perhaps the massacre of many Americans in the interior. It would take a long time for soldiers to reach points where they could be a protection to the colonists, in view of the great stretches of cruel desert which would have to be traversed. The recognition of the rebels, besides making war almost inevitable, would have given them a legal standing. At present they are looked upon as mere citizens in arms, and the Mexican government may be held responsible for their depredations, which