THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43071, 21 March 1907, Page 4

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

We have no idea in New Zealand of the extent of the preparations made in connection with the Presidency of America.'" To us it may savor of sensationalism or bribery and trickery, but the conditions are peculiar to America, and would not perhaps, be tolerated elsewhere. Already the America party leaders are preparing plans for the next Presidential campaign, and of course the newspapers are playing their part and speculating concerning the probable candidates. Mr Roosevelt ha® declared definitely that he is out of the running, because he “ adhere® to the unwritten law against • a third term. If be would accept nomination, the Republican difficulties would be almost at am end, but be is himself showing a lively interest in the discovery of his successor. He is said to favor the candidature of Mr W. H. Taft, the present .Secretary for War, who is definitely before the country as a candidate. Mr Taft recently expressed his own views in a modest .statement, provoked by persistent inquiries from newspaper correspondents. “I wish to, say,” .he wrote®, “that my ambition is not political; that-1 am not seeking the Presidential nomination; that Ido not expect to be the Republican candidate, if for no other reason, bemuse of what seem to me to be objections to my availability, which do not appear to lessen with the con t in'ied discharge of my official duties ; but I am not foolish enough to say that- in the improbable event of the opportunity to run for the great office coming to me, I should decline it,', for this would not be true.” In saying that his ambition is not political, Mr Taft refers to his well-known personal desire to become a member of the Federal Supreme Court. He was a Judge before he was appointed Administrator in the Philippines, where he was brilliantly successful, and since his return to Washington he has ad-xjtjWe’-rvJ the War Department very capably. The- paragraph concerning h : s “avai l ab’T'ty” is a reference to the ■ fo ot that the party machine in Ohio, V-‘o State, is controlled by men bocffHa to him. Other politicians menas -possible Republican candi- ? .r™ are Mr Fairbanks, the present Woe-President, and Speaker Cannon, nV tV House of Representatives. Mr W. .T. Bryan is. of course, in the running for the Democratic nomination, "tUrfr so'"far he ha® failed to reconcile the various sections of this once great party. Mr Hearst is regarded as impossible after his defeat for the Governorship of New York. Possibly the Convention will be persuaded to accept a compromise candidate like Judge Parker, and the name of Dr. Woodrow Wilson, President 6f Princer ton, University, is being .mentioned.