The Republican platform was not prolix or very specific, but on general principles it took a positive stand. It adhered to the traditional American doctrine of individual liberty, protected by constitutional safeguards and enforced by the courts; and it declared the recall of judges to be "unnecessary and unwise." It announced the purpose of the party to go forward with a program of social legislation, but it did not go into great detail on this point. President Taft's policy of submitting justiciable controversies between nations to arbitration was indorsed. The amendment of the Sherman law in such a manner as to make the illegal practices of trusts and corporations more specific was favored, and the creation of a Federal trade commission to deal with interstate business affected with public use was recommended. The historic views of the party on the tariff were restated and sound currency and banking legislation promised. The insinuation that the party was reactionary was repudiated by a declaration that it had always been a genuinely progressive party, never stationary or reactionary, but always going from the fulfillment of one pledge to another in response to public need and popular will. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Taft took issue with all the radical tendencies of the time and expressed his profound gratitude for the righteous victory at Chicago, where they had been saved from the man "whose recently avowed political views would have committed the party to radical proposals involving dangerous changes in our present constitutional form of representative government and our independent judiciary." The widespread popular unrest which forced itself upon the attention of even the most indifferent spectators, Mr. Taft attributed to the sensational journals, muckraking, and demagogues, and he declared that the equality of opportunity preached by the apostles of social justice "involves a forced division of property and that means socialism." In fact, in his opinion, the real contest was at bottom one over private property, and the Democratic and Progressive parties were merely aiding the Socialists in their attack upon this institution. He challenged his opponents to show how the initiative, referendum, and recall would effect significant economic changes: "Votes are not bread, constitutional amendments are not work, referendums do not pay rent or furnish houses, recalls do not furnish clothes, initiatives do not supply employment, or relieve inequalities of condition or of opportunity." In other words he took a firm stand against the whole range of "radical propositions" advanced by "demagogues" to "satisfy what is supposed to be popular clamor." * * * * *