The Hocking sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1871-1906, 1904-07-14

SPEECH OF TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN Williams


ty. and which the Democratic party had
failed to enforce have been fear
lessly enforced
Here are three stateemnts, first, that
the Republicans, instead of both parties,
enacted the laws, which is not true; sec
ondly, that the Democratic party had
done nothing. which is also not true; and,
third. that the Republican party has en-
forced the law, which is only partially
true.
Fight the Trusts.
Attorney General Harmon, under
Cleveland's administration. found the suit
of the governments against the Trans
Missouri Freight Association lost, reviv-
ed it and won it. He then instituted suit
against the Joint Traffic Association and
also against the Addystone Pipe Com
pany. The principle established in the
case of the government against the
Trans-Missouri Freight Association-the
principle there contended for by Cleve-
lands Attorney Generals the principle
which gave life to the proceedings in the
Northern Securities case, and which led
Gov. Van SAINT, and not the Republican
party, as has been falsely pretended, to
inaugurate that case.
| One of the chairmen of the Republi-
can convention says it has "enjoined the
beef trust" The Injunction does not
seem to have had any practical effect
upon the beef trust or upon the price of
beefsteak.
| The boast that the administration has
executed the antitrust laws is ridicu-
lous. The Attorney General, in response
to resolution of my own, frankly con-
fessed- that nothing had been done, and
left the inference that nothing would be
done, toward the criminal prosecution of
the men found guilty by the Supreme
! Court in the Northern Securities case of
having violated the law and incurred its
penalties.
The Attorney General, in answer to
another resolution, failed to show that
anything substantial was being done,
civilly or criminally, against the anthra-
cite coal carrying railroads and anthra-
cite coal mine owners, constituting, in
violation of law, one of the greatest
trusts in this country, although a private
American citizen had proceeded at great
expense to get up the evidence.
This same trust BUSTER" Attorney
General Knox, has just been appointed
by the Governor of Pennsylvania a Sem
ator from that State, on the demand, so
the newspapers all say, of the very men
who constitute this unlawful combina-
tion, or who are at any rate the presi-
dents Of the railroad companies and the
owners of the mines constituting it.
The Republican platform reads: Tar
if rates should be readjusted only when
conditions have so changed that the pub
lie interest demands their alteration
Public interest, in this connection, to
the man who wrote it, and the convcn-
ton which adopted it, really means PRO
tected interests"
Does not everybody who knows any
thing know that the Republican party
has no idea of making any alterations in
the tariff, unless they can thereby pur-
chase the support Of additional special
interests, or tie to them already bought
| special interests by yet closer bonds?
Are there no conditions" demanding
changes in any Of the schedules of the
present tariff law, when dozens of highly
protected steel and iron products, includ-
| agricultural implements of American
| make are being sold daily in competi-
/ ton with the so-called pauper labor of
| the world, in the home of this same pau
| per labor? And when they are sold, af-
ter freight has been paid and profit OBJ
| tained, at less price than the same
goods are sold to Americans in American
markets five miles from the factory?
The platform then goes on to say that
these alterations cannot be safely COM
mitted to any other hands than the Re
! publican party" What has been the
matter with the hands of the Republican
party for the last four years? Who be-
| lieves for a minute that the party which
has refused every tariff alteration thus
far proposed intends to recognize any
sort of conditions" or any sort of de
mand" or any public interest" in con-
nection with the question?
OF course, this platform had to con-
tain the usual historical untruths-to
| wit: That "a Democratic tariff has al
ways been followed by business adver-
sity-a Republican tariff by business
prosperity"
There is cunningly concealed in the
Republican platform the hydra head of n
yet worse form of special legislation,
| namely, special legislation by direct SUBJ
| sidy, taking money out of the treasury
and handing it over bodily to special
class-in this case the class of shipbuild-
ers and shipowners.
Things have almost reached the old
decadent days of the Roman republic
when government consisted chiefly in
distributing bread and giving circuses.
| The worst of all this is that it is sought
to be justified, like protectionism. upon
the pretext that it is done for the benefit
of "Amepican labor"
1t would be far more justifiable to
pass law to give to every sailor and to
every man and woman in the United
States earning less than 81 day an in
crease of 80 per cent than it would be by
protectionism or ship subsidy to pretend
to have that end in view.
As to Southern States.
The Republican platform, to sum it all
up, obeys the>precept to 'stand pat" in
every respect except one. That is the
plank in which this language is used:
I'VE favor such Congressional action as
shall determine whether by special dis
INT elccliNe III
State has been unconstitutionally linn
ited," followed by the promise made, in
that event, to reduce Southern represen-
tation in the House of Representatives
and in the electoral college.
Whether or not the suffrage has been
unconstitutionally limited is a matter for
the courts to determine. The real object
of the Republican party, however spe-
cious the phraseology in which it is
clothed, is to reduce Southern represen-
tion, without reducing that of Massachu
sets, Connecticut and other Republican
States.
Disfranchisement of negro in Mis-
sissippi for ignorance is Il horrible thing;
disfranchisement of a white man for ig
norance in Massachusetts or Connecticut
is part of New England higher civil
ization."
Let not the business interest of the
country deceive itself; let those control