Barton County democrat., 1904-12-09

eighth congress which declares it to be
unlawful for any person or corporation
to offer, grant, give, solicit, accept or
receive any rebate. concession or d1scr1m-
ination in respect of the transportation
of any property in interstate or foreign
commerce whereby such property shall
by any device whatever be transported at
less rate than that named in the tariffs
published by the carrier must be en-
forced For some time after the enact
ment of the act to regulate commerce 1t
remained a mooted question whether that
act conferred upon the interstate COM
merce commission the power, after 1t hao
found challenged rate to be unreason-
able. to declare what thereafter should,
prima facie, be the reasonable maximum
rate for the transportation in dispute
The supreme court finally resolved that
question in the negative, so that as the
law now stands the commission SIMPLY
possess the bare power to denounce
particular rate unreasonable Wh1le
am of the opinion that at present 1t
would be undesirable, if 1t were not i'm
practicable, finally to clothe the conmls-
sion with general authority to fix rail-
road rates, 1 do believe that, as a fair
security to shippers. the commission
should be vested with the power, where
a given rate has been challenged and
after full hearing found to be unreason-
able, to decide, subject to judicial re-
view, what shall be a reasonable rate to
take it's place; the ruling of the COM
mission to take effect Immediately, and
to obtain unless and until it is reversed
by the court of review. The government
must in increasing degree supervise and
regulate the workings of the railways
engaged in interstate commerce; and such
increased supervision is the only alterna-
tive to an increase of the present evils
on the one hand a still more radical
policy the other. In my judgment the
most important legislative act now need
ed as regards the regulation of corpora
tions is this act to confer on the inter-
state commerce commission the power to
revise rates and regulations, the revised
rate to at once go into effect, and to stay
in effect unless and until the court of re-
view reVerSeS it.
Steamship companies engaged in inter-
state commerce and protected in our
coastwise trade should be held to strict
observance of the interstate commerce
act
City Of Washington.
In pursuing the set plan to make the
city of Washington example to other
American municipalities several points
should be kept in mind by the legislators.
In the first place, the people of this coun-
try should clearly understand that no
amount of industrial prosperity, and
above ali no leadership in international
industrial competition, can in any way
atone for the sapping OF the vitality of
those who are usually spoken of as the
working classes. The farmers. the me-
chanics, the skilled and unSkiQed labor
ers, the small shop keepers. make up the
bulk of the population of any country;
and upon their Well-being, generation
after generation, the wsll-bsing of the
country and the race depends. Rapid de-
velopment in wealth and industrial lead
ership is good thing, but only IL 1t goes
hand in hand with improvement. and not
deterioration. physical and moral The
overcrowding of cities and the draining
of country districts are unhealthy and
even dangerous symptoms in our modern
life. We should not permit <overcrowd-
ing in cities. In certain European cities
it is provided by law that the population
of towns shall not be allowed to exceed
a very limited density for a given area,
so that the increase in density must be
continually pushed back into a broad
zone around the center of the town, this
zone having great avenues or parks with
in it. The death-rate statistics show a
terrible increase in mortality, and espe-
cially in infant mortality, in overcroWded
tenements. The poorest families in tene-
ment houses live in one room, and it ap
pears that in these one-room tenements
the average death rate for a number of
given cities at home and abroad is about
twice what it is in two-room tenement,
four times what it is in a three-room
tenement, and eight times what it is in
a tenement consisting of four rooms or
over. These figures vary somewhat for
different cities, but they approximate in
each city those given above; and in all
cases the increase of mortality, and espe-
cially of infant mortality, with the de-
crease in the number of rooms used by
the family and with the consequent over
crowding, is startling. The slum exacts a
nSdVy IOla1 OIL O6dIn from CnOS0 VINO
dwell therein; and this is the case not
merely in the great crowded Slums of
high buildings in New York and Chicago,
but in the alley slums of Washington.
In Washington people cannot afford to
ignore the harm that this causes. No
Christian and civilized community can
afford to show a happy-go-lucky lack of
concern for the youth of to-day; for, If
so, the community will have to pay a ter
rible penalty of financial burden and
cial degradation in the tomorrow. There
should be severe child-labor and fac
tory-inspection laws. 1t is very desirable
that married women should not work in
factories. 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 fnsig-
nificance when compared with the tre-
mendous, the vital Importance of trying
to shape conditions so that these two
duties of the man and OF the woman can
be fulfilled under reasonably favorable
circumstances. If a race does not have
plenty of children if the children do
not grow up, or If when they grow up
they are unhealthy in body and stunted
er vicious in mind, then that race is de-
eadent and no heaping up of wealth, no
splendor of momentary material pros
perity can avail in any degree as offsets.
Need of Model Government.
The congress has the same power of
legislation for the District of Columbia
which the state legislatures have for the
various states The problems incident
to our highly-complex modern industrial
civilization, with its manifold and per-
picking tendencies both for good and for
evil, are far less sharply aceentuated in
the city Of Washington than in most
other cities. For this very reason it is
easier to deal with the various phases of
these problems in Washington. and the
District OF Columbia government should
be a model for the other municipal gov
ernments of the nation, in all such mat
ters supervision Of the housing OF the
Door, the creation of small parks in the
districts Inhabited by the poor IN laws
affecting labor, In laws providing for the
taking care of the children, in truant