To Urge Taft Cause Before Congress.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 20, 1912:
Speeches Defending Method of Chicago Nomination to be Made in Both Branches.ROOT IS SENATE SPOKESMAN
Oratory to be Printed as Campaign Document — Ex-Senator Mason  Pledges Illinois for President.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, July 19.— President Taft and his campaign advisers have decided to do everything in their power to get before the country their side of the contested delegate cases settled by the National Committee in Chicago. In an unusual manner, the whole matter will be taken before Congress, and in both houses prominent supporters of the President will speak in behalf of the justice of the action of the National Committee as it was ratified later by the convention.
    Senator Root of New York has been asked to present the President's case in the Senate, and he is expected to do so. Mr. Root was first Temporary and then Permanent Chairman of the convention, and is thoroughly conversant with the course of events leading up to Mr. Taft's renomination. It is said in some Quarters that Mr. Root's quasi-judicial, position then as presiding officer over the great fight makes him reluctant now to take sides, and his health is advanced as another objection. But the Presidents friends to-day said they thought in the end he would make the effort.
    In the House the President's fight will be waged by Representatives Bartholdt of Missouri and Mondell of Wyoming, with perhaps some others. Mr. Mondell is a straightout reactionary, and sat on the National Committee in his own right. He was, besides, a member of the Credentials Committee, and will discuss particularly that committee's work in seating Taft delegates. Mr. Bartholdt is also of the conservative complexion, and he sat in the committee under proxy of Secretary of Commerce and Labor Nagel. Their speeches will be available under frank as campaign material.

Roosevelt Camp Is Worried.
    This plan of the Taft leaders came to light to-day through the suspicions of the small Roosevelt following in both houses. They at once took the alarm and threatened all sorts of retaliation.  Mr. Norris of Nebraska said he would even make a speech himself rather than let the Taft side go unanswered.
In the Senate, it is said that Mr. Clapp of Minnesota and Mr. Bristow of Kansas are expected to come to the rescue or the Colonel's fortunes. Mr. Poindexter of Washington, the only other Roosevelt man in the Chamber, may also speak, though what headway these gentlemen can make against Mr. Root reduces itself already to a matter of mathematics.
    Of course, these speeches will lead to no expression of Congressional opinion in any sort of vote, as the Democrats would gleefully vote both ways and laugh at the muddle which would ensue.   But the speeches will serve to start a campaign of publicity which the President expects to wage to clear his candidacy of the charge of fraud brought against it by Col. Roosevelt and Senator Dixon.
    The war will not be entirely defensive.  Mr. Root, it is understood, is prepared to charge the intent of fraud against Col. Roosevelt's managers almost in their own words.   He will point out how the contests in most of the 252 cases were so flimsy and so fraudulent that in many of them the Roosevelt sympathizers on the committee voted against them.
    While Mr.  Root's personal friendship for the Colonel may restrain him, it is suggested that he might also refer to the fact that when some of the contests were reported  against the Colonel the sage of Oyster Bay drew out a notebook to show that he was not downcast and pointed out that the contests in questlon he had marked in advance against himself.
    The formal answer to all the charges of stolen delegates that is now being prepared by ex-Senator Dick of Ohio, who managed the President's side of the contests before the two committees, is almost ready for publication. A summary of the statement of about 4,000 words in length will soon be given to the press, and the defense in full will be printed in volume form as a campaign document for the instruction of the Taft orators.

Promises Illinois for Taft.
    "We are going to carry Illinois for Taft and the Republican ticket on the tariff issue — the tariff-for-revenue plank of the Democratic platform," said ex-Senator Mason of Illinois at the White House to-day. Mr. Mason was nominated in the Illinois primaries for Representative at Large from Illinois, and says he expects to be elected.
    "The Democrats always win in the Summer and lose in the Fall," went on Mr. Mason, but on the tariff issue — that of protection to American industries and workingmen — they cannot carry Illinois."
    Mr. Mason said there was no trouble in Illinois over the Republican Electors. The Illinois Republicans took the trouble to see that men of the right faith were nominated as Electors. The Roosevelt people will be compelled to put their own ticket of Electors in the field if they wish to make a contest there, Mr. Mason said.
    Mr. Mason is to have another talk with President Taft as to the situation in Illinois. The White House to-day received, addressed to Charles D. Hilles, a one-dollar bill from a minister in New York State. The minister offered the money as a contribution to help in the re-election of President Taft. He said it was all he could spare, but that he thought the country should aweken to a spirit of fair treatment for the President and bring about his re-election.
    President Taft, in a speech in the East Room of the White House to a delegation from the National Civil and Political Negro League, to-day publicly acknowledged his debt of gratitude to the negro delegates to the Republican National Convention, pledged and instructed for him, who stood with the Taft forces through the fight.
    "I want to say to you," said the President, "how much I appreciate your standing firm in my behalf at a time when it was intimated to the country that we could not depend upon you. You demonstrated there your appreciation of the accomplishments of the Republican Party for your race in the past and your abiding faith in its future friendships; you stood like solid rock."

Mr. Taft on Lynchings.
    The delegation presented resolutions to the President asking for the restoration of the battalion of the Twenty-fifth Infantry which was involved in the Brownsville affair and urging him to recommend a Federal statute against lynching. Mr. Taft said in reply that he had done everything possible under the law in regard to the Twenty-fifth Infantry. He deplored lynchings, he said, but did not believe that the Federal Government
could interfere with the States in criminal cases.
    "I say to you, gentlemen," the President added, "that a man who has been engaged in a lynching within the Federal jurisdiction who comes up to me for Executive clemency will have his petition received with that feeling on my part that there is no crime that ought to be more severely punished and more completely condemned."