Evening star., 1903-07-21
GOV. LA TOILETTE
Wisconsin's Executive Caus-
ing Much Uneasiness.
HIS RADICAL SPEECHES
SOME OF HIS MOST RECENT Ut
TERANCES.
Belief he Aspires to the Vice Presi-
dency and Wants to Strike
Popular Chord.
HIS RADICAL SPEECHES

the present course of Gov. La Toilette of
Wisconsin, which Is causing them some
concern. The governor has been a thorn
in the side Of the conservatives of his party
in his own state for some time, but now he
is beginning to worry the national leaders
Gov. La Toilette has been going about
the country for a month or two delivering
speeches Of a very radical nature against
corporations and advocating the primary
system for all elective purposes. In his
talks against the corporations he assumes
that the government is owned and run by
influences more favorable to the corpora
tons than to the people and breaches as
the only cure for this alleged evil the seiz-
ure of all governmental functions by the
mass of the people, acting through pri-
mares.
Republican Party Made Sponsor.
Wherever Gov. La Toilette speaks he is
as the republican governor Of a
staunch republican state and his words
therefore are taken as those of republi-
can, and the republican party made spon-
so", in measure, for his views. That is
where the shoe pnches the republican ma
tional leaders and where their interest
comes in. The watchword of these men
now is that the goose honkS high and ev-
keep on standing pat; don't disturb any
thing 1t annoys them to have a republican
governor arousing the suspicious of the
people that there may be fly in the oint-
ment.
While Gov La Toilette confined his cam
paign to Kansas and Nebraska and the
middle western states not much attention
was paid to HIM in the east. The managers
w:nked and said that was the line of talk
suited to the prairicS and would do no
stakes and moved on the east, where he is
the same slogan. AT Chautauqua,
N. Y, July 1s, he delivered a speech before
a vast aSsemblage on The Corporation
Against the Individual"
Some Recent Utterances.
The published report of that speech quotes
him as using this language:
rs our government of city, state and ma
tion thoroughly representative of the peo-
pie? Today great aggregations of cor
porate wealth buy immunity from taxation
in our legislatures and throw the burden
upon every individual taxpayer.
Taxation without representation is as
much crime against just and equal gov
ernment in 1903 as it was in 1776. There
can be no such thing as commercial slav-
cry and individual freedom. Industrial
means political servitude. Monop
oily in transportation and coal and iron and
the food products makes mockery of
political freedom. The people are losing
control Of their own government. Its foun-
dations are being sappeu and it's integrity
destroyed. The gravest danger menacinY
republican institutions today is the over
balancing control of city, state and national
legislatures by the wealth and power of
public service corporate
The danger IS not Il new one. 1t Is not
limited to any section of our country"
The danger point in our system is
the law-making power. Every executive
1af 81 nfN, m
is corrupt is to be controlled by the
lobby agents of the great corporations
IF there were no further evidences"
said the governor, "of the power of the
railroads in legislation than that which
is afforded by the records of the inter-
state commerce commission it ought to
arouse the entire country to such action
as will bring Congress to a sense of it's
responsibility to the people for some
measure Of justice. The plan DEVELOPED
ard OIL monopoly, the anthracite coal
trust, the elevator combination and the
beef trust are indicative of the power
of the railroads in combination. Yet these
trusts and combinations must be made to
yield to the law to share the same bur-
denS in government that all citizens owe
to the state; however great the difficulties
the supreme authority must be MAIN
tanned"
A Government of Corporations.
wherever We bring any serious and
phase of this inquiry to light,
we discover that 1t is the inseparable
of the political machine with
corporate power that corrupts legislation.
This is government by corporations.
1t Is not government by the people Are
We helpless and hopeless In the presence
of this great danger? No. no-the rem
edy is at hand. Let US begin at the
bottom. The control of the nomination
of candidates must be placed directly in
the hands Of the people. No power must
be permitted to come between the cand-
in Importance are involved in suffrage;
ona, the making of the ballot; the other,
the casting of the ballot.
THE average citizen takes but little in
terest in the caucuses because they are
controlled by the men allied to the politi-
cal machine. You should substitute for
the caucus a primary election law pro-
viding for the selection of candidates for
elective offices and for the nomination
of United States senators. Under such
a primary election the citizen can enter
the polling booth and cast his ballot for
the man of his choice from United States
ser ator down to alderman. The pro-
vision for the nomination of United States
solves in a simple way the vexed
pr oblem of making the United States sem
ators a body directly accountable to the
people.
ITO secure a more direct expression of
the will Of the people in all things per-
tanning to the peoples government is the
dominant thought in American politics to-
day The spirit of democracy is abroad
in the land. Government is to be brought
back to the people,"
Aspires to the Vice Presidency,
There has been some speculation among
the national leaders as to Gov. La Follettes s
aim, outside of his well-known hobby of
primary elections. A dispatch from Wis
consin says the belief is growing there that
the governor aspires to the vice presidency,
and Is trying to strike a popular chord
which will sound his praises for the nomi-
nation
Some Of the managers fear that the gov
ernor's speeches will rebound to the benefit
of the democrats and the socialists rather
than to the republicans. as, according to
their views. his speeches tend to di-
rect thought more to socialistic and demo-
cratic principles than to republican doc
trtnes
AS stated in The Star a few days ago,
the conservative republicans OF Wisconsin