Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-04-16
President and Working men.

| The charge has been feebly made ny
n few weak-minded and poorly m
formed persons that President koose-
Welt is not actually a friend OF the
workinsmen. The statement is too ao-
surd to gain any Roadway among the
! thinking people and that includes inc
whole American people. His record Is
most ably summed up by the Kansas
City Journal:
President Roosevelt has always been
consistent friend of labor. AS
member of the state assembly OF Ne"
York, he voted for bills abolishin3 ten
ement house cigarmaking in New YORK
city; restricting child labor in facto-
ries; regulating labor hours for chll-
dren and women in workshops: safe
guarding lives and limbs OF factory
operatives; regulating wage rates OIL
municipal laborers; making employees
preferred creditors: prescribing lleH
rights for working women and mechan-
les; protecting laborers engaged III
sinking gas and oil wells; abollShlls
child contract labor in reformatory III
stitutionS, and establishing a commas
sion to examine into the system OF ell
ploying convicts; establishing bureau
of statistics: for n scent fare on Ne"
York elevated railroad; for free baths
i'm New York. and for industrial peace
AS governor of New York, ne APP
proved measures creating a tenement
house commission; regulating sweat
shop labor: empowering and directing
factory inspectors to enforce scal1old-
ing law and the act regulating eight
hour law on railroads; amending fac
tory act so as to give security and COM
fort to workmen, women and children,
And in addition to the foregoing ne rec
commended legislation in regard to en-
ployers' liability, state control OF en-
plOyment offices. state ownership OF
printing plant: and derising means to
prevent competition of convict labo"
with free labor
As President of the United States he
signed bills which renewed the Chinese
exclusion act. extending its provisions
TO the nations insular possessions;
prohibited the employment of Mongo-
liam labor or irrigation works, and pro-
viding that eight hours shall constitute
a days labor thereon; abolished slavery
and involuntary Servitude in the Phil
ippine islands under the penalty OF
$4,000 tor each OffenSe; protected the
lives of laborers in the coal mines Of
the territories. by requiring careful
ventilation, etc; Increased exemption
rights in the District Of Columbia: i'm
proved the act relating to safety appli-
ances on railroads; increased the re-
strictiOns upon immigration Of cheap
foreign labor. which prohibited the
landing of alien anarchists; and Great
ed the department of commerce and la
Dor, making its head 4 cabinet officer.
There is no Democrat available as
n candidate for the Presidency who has
an official record more safely and judic-
iously friendly to labor than this one of
Mr.. Roosevelt. As the friend of the Ia
boring man, Mr.. Roosevelt stands is
the successor to Marcus 4. Hanna. AS
Il counselor and supporter of a conser-
vative interests of the country he rep
resents the policies inaugurated by
William Mckinley, and these are tn.
causes which make him peculiarly
strong and popular in the Republican
party and in the nation.