The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-31
ROOT APPEALS TO HIS PARTY
 TO STAND BY MR. ROOSEVELT
Continued from First Paasl

| - VI. - - - '. = v = = -1- v = terprises which have legitimateIy reduced the cost of production, not to take Ameri- ca out of the race of competition for the markets of the world, not to close the mills and the mines, not to throw mill lions of workmen out of employment and deprive the farmer of his market for the raw material of manufacture.
 outarowth of Congress.
 ''The evils complained of are an out growth of the process of industrial de- velopment of the age. Their regulation Is also a necessary part of that process. Our industrial history shows that the steady course of the process has always been and Is now towards better and not towards worse conditions, that the diff fusion of wealth is outstripping it's com centrauon; that the great body of the people in the United States are climbing up above the hard conditions of poverty which have been the rule in the worlds | life into general comfort, and independ- ence to a degree never before known; that our prosperity is sound and whole some and that courage and hope are | justified rather than despondency. The creation of wealth has proceeded at a rate beyond all precedent in human his- tory. It is plain that in the distribution 1 of this newly acquired wealth the brains | that invest and that organize should have their share; that capital that constructs and maintains should be awarded for It's investment and its risks; that labor | should have higher wages because his labor is producing more; and the consum- CTS should have lower prices, because the product which he purchases is pro- duced with greater ease and at less cost. | The industrial history of the last half century is a history, first of the steady increase of productive power, and second Il aa.I- | tween these four interests, the brains, the capital. the labor and the consumer, i to secure what each considers to be a 1 fair share of the benefits Of the increased wealth That struggle will continue as | long as the increase of productive power and the added increments of wealth that come from that increase continue. The organizers of the great sugar trust made great deal of money for themselves, but we are getting sugar now for less l than 1t cost to make it before the sugar 1 trust was formed. The organizers of the Standard oil company have made a great l deal of money, but the poorest American farmer Is lighting his house tonight at trifling cost more brilliantly than pal aces were lighted a century ago."
 Cost of Food Decreased.
 Not only has wages increased but the cost of food and clothing has de- | considerable length with statistics, in support of his statement, and summing up his review by saying, that every ! dollar of the wage-earners' pay would in 1902 buy more beef and flour and coffee and sugar and molasses and butter and cheese and milk and eggs and clothing than it would thirty years before
 "Let us not in fixing our gaze upon small evils, forget the greater good. The automobiles are of little account. Who own the farm wagon? It Is the impor- tant question. Let us keep our faith in American institutions and deal with the evils that are before us now and that are to come hereafter, along the lines of the same beneficient system which has dealt successfully with every phase of the great struggle for the distribution of wealth in our past.
 '"The republican party proposed to fol- low this course, to regulate and curb and suppress the bad trusts. rather than to dry the good and bad together, and with them the prosperity which brings such beneficient results to all our coun- try. The only federal law to accomplish this result-the Sherman act-was passed | by a republican congress against demo- cratic opposition. If you will read the speech made this month by Attorney 1 General Knox at Pittsburg, you will see how actively and with what successful results he is engaged in the enforcement of the law. The President has suggested | an extension of the law. The attorney l general after careful study. has given his opinion that it can be extended and made more far-reaching and effective. So far as it Is possible to ascertain the attitude of the democratic party, that party Is again opposed to the effort on the part of the federal government to regulate and curb the evils of trusts. The democratic candidate for governor in our own state has formally put him. self on record in violent opposition to what he calls the astonishing centrali- zing policy of the republican party
 Approach to Understanding.
 Addressing himself to the continual Fly recurring contests between capital and labor" Mr. Root spoke of the con tinual approach towards a good under standing of the terms and relations which | are dictated by recognition of mutual and reciprocal interests. If" said the speaker, you will look back at the | change of the railroad business at the | times of the Debs' riots then consider l the relations since established between the railroad owners and the associated employer and you will see a striking H. lustration of the progress to which I re- 1 fer.
 Another illustration is the agreement between employer and employed for the l annual feduJuStuleHl OI wages through out the greater part of the bituminous coal field. The more intelligent parties are, the more readily such relations are reached.
 When our President, in his brave and l direct way acting out of his deep feel ing for the needs of his people, under took to get coal for them against the coming winter by urging the substitu- tion of peace for war in the anthracite region, MT. Hill in New York and MT | Olney in Boston, condemned him; but I have an idea that the people of the coun- try don't agree with them.
 1 What does the democratic party pro- pose to do, if the people of the United States put the power into their hands. to remedy these industrial evils and an- noyances which have come along with our great prosperity? They have made two proposals The first Is to revise the tariff. It is easy to say that the tariff needs revising In the nature of things time must call for changes in every tarifr law because itsis a fixed statute applied from day to day to constantly changing conditions.
 The specific ground upon which the democratic party now says that it should be permitted to revise the tariff is that the tariff protects the trusts Observe