Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-08
in our industrial and social affairs. We
can do something
Must Avoid Hysteria.

III our industrial ana social affairs. We
can do something.
Must Avoid Hysteria.
Il believe we can do a good deal. but
cur accomplishing what expect to see ac-
complished is conditional upon our setting
to work in spirit as far removed as pos
sibie from hysteria. A spirit of sober,
steadfast, kindly Il want 10 emphasize the
word kindly determination not 20 submit
10 wrong ourselves and not 20 wrong 9TH
ers Not to interfere with the great bust
ness development of the country, but at
the same time so to shape our egislatio
and administration as to regulate, if We
cannot remedy, the vicious features con-
nected with that industrial development.
Now, L have said that there can be TO
patent remedy offered There is not any
one thing which can be done to remedy all
the existing evils. There are a good many
things which. II We do them, we will,
believe, make a very appreciate better
ment OF our existing condition. In the long
run, 1t is more comfortable to make promises
that can be kept, instead of making prom
ises which are sure of an immense recep-
ton when made, but which result in terri
Die humiliation when it Is attempted to
carry them out. / am sufficiently fortunate
to be defending now, as President pre-
clsely the remedies that l advocated two
years ago. L am advocating them not in
any partisan spirit, because, gentlemen,
this problem is problem which affects the
life of the nation as whole. am aGvo-
eating them simply as an American ctti-
zen, who for the time being stands as the
chief executive and the special representa-
tive Of his fellow Amer AN citizens of all
parties.
Conditions Have Changed.
"A quarter of a century ago there had
been no development of industries such as
to make it a matter of the least import
ance whether the nation or the state took
charge of the
pervised the great business and Industrial
organizations. OThere had then been no
radical change in any essential features in
the ways of commerce from the days when
the Phonecian galeyb piled the waters of
the Mediterranean.
For four or five thousand years, perhaps
longer, the great civilized nations, dating
back into the immemorial past. when Baby
lon and NtneVeh stood In Mesopotama,
when Thebes and Memphis were mighty in
the Valley of the, Nie-from that time on
through the supremacy of Greece and OF
Rome, through the upbuilding of the great
trading cities like Venice and Genoa in
Italy, like the cities Of the Rhine and the
Netherlands in northern Eroupe-on
through the period of the great expansion
Of European civilization which followed the
voyages Of Columbus and Vasco da Cana
on down to the time when this country be-
came a nation the means of commercial
intercourse remained substantially un-
changed. Those means, therefore, limited
narrowly what could be done by any cor
poratfon the growth that could take place
In any community. Suddenly, during our
own lifetime a nation, a lifetime trivial
In duration compared to the period OF
recorded history-there came a revolution
In the means of intercourse which made
change In commerce and in all that springs
from commerce in industrial development,
greater than all the changes Of the proceed
ing thousands of years.
"A greater change in the intercourse of
mankind has taken place in the last quarter
no In oil hn ,frn do
during which man had lived. The change
in industrial conditions has been literally
unreasonable. Those changed conditions
make necessary governmental changes
through regulation and supervision.
The Nation and the States.
"Such changes were not provided for and
could not have been provided for in default
of a knowledge of prophecy by the men
who founded the republic. In those days
each state could take care perfectly we'll of
any corporations within it's limits
And all it had to do was to try to en-
courage their upbuilding. Now the big cor
porations although nominally the creatures
Of one state usually do business in other
states, and in very large number of cases
the variety of state laws on the subject Of
corporations has brought about the fact
that the corporation is made IN one state,
but does almost all it's work in entirely dit
ferent states. 1t has proved utterly i'm
possible to get anything like uniformity Of
legislation among the states. Some states
have passed laws about corporations which,
IL they had not been ineffective, would have
totally prevented any important corporate
work being done within their limits. Other
states have such lax laws that there is no
effec tive effort made to control any of the
abuses AS a result we have a system Ci
divided control-where the nation mas some
thing to say, but 1t Is a little difficult to
know exactly how much and where the
different states have each something to
hut l,nr
that can speak with authorl.y II is, or
course, a mere truism to say that every
corporation, the smallest as well as the
largest, Is the creature of the state. Where
the CORPORATION Is small there Is very little
reed of exercising much SUPERVISION over
it. but the stupendous corporations of the
present day certainly should be under gov
Ornamental supervision and regulation.
Need Of Centralized Powers.
1.-The first effort to make is to give some
body the power to exercise that supervision,
that regulation. We have already laws on
the statute books. These laws will be en-
forced and are being enforced with all the
power of the nations government, and
wholly without regard to persons. But the
power is very limited. Now, l want you to
take my words at their exact value. think
I cannot say, 1 am sure. because 1t has
often happened in the past that Congress
has passed laws with given purpose in
view, and when that law has been judicially
interpreted it has proved that the purpose
was not achieved-but l think that by legiS
lation additional power in the way of regu-
lation of at least a number of those great
corporations can be conferred But. gentle
men. l firmly believe that in the end power
must be given, probably through consti-
tutional amendment, to the national gov
eminent, to exercise in full, supervision and
regulation Of those great enterprises.
THAT Is not a new doctrine for me. That
is the doctrine that l advocated the
stump two years ago.
Some of my ultra conservative friends
have professed to be greatly shocked at my
advocating governmental control Of cor
porations. I would explain to those gentle
men once for all that they err whenever
they think that 1 advocate on the stump
anything 1 will not try to put into effect
after election. Now, the point is made that
working along these lines will take time So
it will.
The River Illustration
Let me go back to my Illustration of the
Mississippi river. 1t took some time to build
the leVees but we built them And if we