Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-10-13

1oN 90 40 liAS LSSoIu vi tle ueu1OCTdllC
party in respect to the great number of
vicious measures tina 1t has advo-
Gated. it's practice has been even worse.
Whenever and wherever 1t comes into
power, it gives a striking example of
colossal inefficiency Joined to extrava-
giant pretense. It's lack of business
method alone and inability to agree on
a consistent course of conduct has fire.
quently disguised men who might have
been attracted by it's professions.
An example of the impression that the
practice of the two parties makes on peo-
Pile who have no sympathy with either,
is given in a recent article by III @.
Wcoley, 1.-THE presidential candidate Of
the prohibition party, This party. is
made up of a class Of men who are
honest in their convictions and cour-
ageous in their expressions, despite their
delusion in adhering to a theory that has
been repeatedly shown to be impractical
BILE. Yet their characterization Of the
two great parties is valuable to an ex-
tent that that Of either democratic or
republican opinion might fail to be. Mr..
Wooley, in the article referred to, states
his objections to the republican party.
and then adds: II must not seem to give
by silence any aid or comfort to the DEM
ocratic party. 1t is no better than the
other, n infinitely less capable. It has
collected through long years in opposl-
tton a certain water-brash of conscience
phraseology, but Richard Croker's cam
didate . is powerless to raise a
loftier ideal than he serves, or even to
rise in politics to the spoken parts of his
own performance
A striking instance of the difference in
the theories and business ability Of the
W parties is seen in their attempts to
correct the evils that both admit to be-.
long to trusts. The attitude of the dem.
ocratic party respecting these great en-
terprises looks to constant agitation.
with no restrictive legislation: that of
the republican party to such restriction
as will prevent arbitrary advance in
prices, or reduction in wages through
exclusive control, but not the destruction
by legislation or injury by fictitious agi-
tation of legitimate enterprise through
great manufacturing systems by which
production is ~cheapened, prices of manu-
features reduced and permanency of en-
Payment assured. AS far back as the
Ffftieth congress the democrats began
their agitation for effect by the passage
of a resolution authorizing the house
I com m itt 40 m M, ~,
upon an Investigation of the trusts of
the United States. Such distinguished
democratic leaders as Representative
Wilson of West Virginia, Representative
Breckinridge of Arkansas, Representa-
tive Bynum of Indiana and Representa-
Of the committee, and they were given
power to administer oaths, examine wit
nesses, compel the attendance of persons
n the production Of papers,, and make
their investigation a thorough one. More
than 100 witnesses, including H.. A. Have
meyer and Claus Spreckels of sugar
fame, Mr.. Rockefeller, Mr.. Flagler and
others of the Standard Oil and
representatives of the cotton baggine
trust and whisky trust We're examined.
A. thousand pages of testimony. We're
taken and the committee delayed it's
report Until one day before the expira-
tdon of the congress, when it presented
its testimony, but made no recommenda
tfon as to legislation, lowing to the pres
emit difference of opinion between mem,
bers of the committee In the Fifty
second congress the hous judiciary
Committee made another investigation,
and after an examination of many wit
nesses, submitted a report in which |,
declared that none of the methods EN-,
p.oyed by the trust in controlling tho
production or disposition of their prod
ucts are in of the United States
avs, and thai 1T is clearly settled thai
the production or manufacture of tina,
Which may become a subject Of inter-
state and ultimately pass into
protected trade is not commerce, MOI
can manufactures of any sort be instru-
ments of commerce within the meanine
OF the constitution" In 1894 they again
grappled with the trust problem, adding
to the Wilson-Gorman tariff law a series
of provisions purporting ITO authorize the
regulation of trusts, but which neither
the democratic president nor the demo.
cratic officials who We're in power wher
the act came into existence made, SC
far as is known, any attempt to put int
operation.
The difference between democratic
promises and republican performances is
strfkingly illustrated by the enactmen,
of the measure known as the Sherman
antitrust law, which was enacted in 1879,
by a republican congress and signed b,
a republican president-Benjamin Har.
rison. Although the democrats sneered
at the bill, which they commended wa!
simply a piece of buncombe and would
be only a dead letter, the recent decisions