The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1904-12-15
It's loathsome, It's Disgusting.
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.

PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.
IMPORTANT SUBJECTS TO WHICH AT
TENTION OF CONGRESS- IS DIRECTED.
The nation continues to enjoy note
worthy prosperity. Such prosperity is
of course primarily due to the high in
dividual average of our citizenship,
taken together with our great national
resources; but an important factor
therein is the working of our long con-
tinued governmental policies. The peo-
pie have emphatically expressed their
approval of the principles underlying
these policies, and their desire that
these principles be kept substantially
unchanged, although of course applied
in a progressive spirit to meet changing
conditions.
The ever increasing casualty list upon
our railroads is a matter of grave pub
lie concern, and urgently calls for action
by the Congress.
| believe that under modern indus
trial conditions it is often necessary,
and even where not necessary it is yet
often wise, that there should be organi-
zation of labor in order better to secure
the rights of the individual wage work
er. But when any labor union seeks
improper ends, or seeks to achieve prop
err ends by improper means, all good
citizens, and more especially all honor
able public servants, must oppose the
wrongdoing as resolutely as they would
oppose the wrongdoing of any great
corporation.
1t is an absurdity to expect to elimi-
nate the abuses in great corporations
by State action The national gov
eminent alone can deal adequately with
these great corporations. To try to deal
with them in an Incorporate, destruc-
tive, or demagogic spirit would, in all
probability, mean that nothing what
ever would be accomplished, and, with
absolute certainty, that if anything
were accomplished, it would be of a
harmful nature. :. But these corpora
lions should be managed with due re-
gard to the interest of the public as
whole. Where this can be done under
the present laws it must be DONE Where
these laws come short, others should be
enacted 10 supplement- them.
Above all else, we must strive to keep
the highways of commerce open to all
on equal terms; and to do this it is nee
essary to put a complete stop to all re-
bates.
The prime duty of the man is to work,
to be the breadWinner; the prime duty
of the woman is to be the mother, the
housewife. All questions of tariff and
finance sink into utter insigniicance
when compared with the tremendous,
the vital Importance, of trying to shape
conditions so that these two duties of
the man and of the woman can be full
filled under reasonably favorable cir
cumstances. If a race does not have
plenty of children, or if the children do
not grow up, or if when they grow up
they are unhealthy in body, and stupted
decadent, apd no heaping up of wealth,
no spleDdor of monetary material pros
perity can avail in any degree as offsets.
The attention of the Congress should
be especially given to the currency
question, and that the standing com
mittees on the matter in the two houses
charged with the duty take up the mat
ter Of our currency, and see whether it
is not possible to secure an agreement
in the business world for lettering the
system; the committees should consider
the question of the retirement of the
greenbacks, and the problem of secur-
ing in our currency such elasticity as is
consistent with safety Every silver
dollar should be made by law redeem
able in gold, at the option of the holder.
There is no danger of having too
many immigrants of the right kind. 1t
makes no difference from what country
they come. If they are sound in body
and in mind, and, above all, if they are
of good character, so that we can rest
assured that their children and grand
will be worthy fellow citizens
of our children and grandchildren; then
we should welcome them with cordial
But the citizenship of this country
should not be debased. It is vital that
we should keep high the standard of
well-being among our wage-wOrkers,
and therefore we should not admit
of men whose standards of liv-
ing and whose personal customs and
habits are such that they tend to lower
the level of the American wageworker;
and, above all, we should not admit any
man of an unworthy type, any man
whom we can say that he |
will himself be bad citizen, or that
his children and grandchildren will de-
tract from instead of adding to the sum |
Of the good citizenship of the country.
we should take the greatest /
care about naturalization. Fraudulent |
the naturalization of i'm
proper persons, is a curse to our gov
eminent; and it is the affair of every
honest voter, wherever born, to see
that no fraudulent voting is allowed,
that no fraud in connection with natu.
ralization is permitted.
Even where it is not possible to
secure in other nations the observance
Of the principles which we accept as
it is necessary for us firmly
to insist upon the rights of our own
without regard to their creed
Or race; without regard to whether they
were born here or born abroad. 1t has
proved very difficult to secure from
Russia the right for our Jewish fellow
To to