Arizona republican., 1904-12-07


 possess the bare power to denounce Q
 particular rate as unreasonable. While
 I am of the opinion that at present it
 would be undesirable, if it were not inpracticable finally to clothe the
 commission with general authority to fix railroad rates, I do believe that, as
 a fair security to shippers, the com mission should be vested with the pow CT, where a given rate has been chal- lenged and after full hearing found to be unreasonable, to decide. subject to Judicial review, what shall be a reason
 able rate to take it's place; the ruling of the commission to take effect inn mediately, and to obtain unless and
 until it is reversed by the court of review. The government must in in
 creasing degree supervise and regulate
 the workings of the railways engaged
 in interstate commerce; and such in- creased supervision is the only alterna-
 tive to an increase of the present evils
 on the one hand or still more radical policy on the other. In my judgment the most important legislative act now needed as regards the regulation of corporations is this act to confer on the interstate commerce commission the power to revise rates and regula- tions. the revised rate to at once go into effect, and to stay in effect unless and until the court of review reverses it.
 Steamship companies engaged in in terstate commerce and protected in our coastwise trade, should be held to strict observance of the interstate com merce act.
 CITY OF WASHINGTON
 In pursuing the set plan to make the city of Washington an example to other American municipalities several points should be kept in mind by the legislators In the first place. the peo- pie Of this country should clearly Un- derstand that no amount of industrial prosperity, and above all no leader srip in international industrial compe- tition, 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 mechanics the skilled and unskilled laborers, the small shopkeepers, make up the bulk of the population of any country; and upon their well-being, generation after generation, the well-beinS of the coun- try and the race depends. Rapid de- velopanent in wealth and industrial leadership is a good thing, but only if it goes hand in hand with improve
 
 and moral. The overcrowding of cities and the draining of country districts are unhealthy and even dangerous symptoms in oul modern life. We should not permit overcrowding in cit ies. In certain European cities it is provided by law that the population of towns shall not be allowed to exceed very limited density for a given area, so that increase in density must be continually pushed back into a broad zone around the center of town, this zone having great avenues or parks within it. The death rate statistics show a terrible increase in mortality, and especially in infant mortality, in Overcrowded tenements. The poorest families in tenement houses live in one room, and it appears that in these one room tenements the average death rate for number of given cities at home and abroad is about twice what it is in a two-roCm tenement, four times what it is in three-room tenement, and eight times what it is in a tene- ment consisting of four rooms or over. These figures vary somewhat for diff ferent cities, but they approximate in each city those given above; and in all cases the increase of mortality, and of infant mortality, with the decrease of the number of rooms used by the family and with consequent overcrowding is startling. The slum exacts a heavy total of death from those who 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 can not afford to ignore the fIaf and civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-luclzy lack of concern for the youth of today; for, if so, the community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the tomorrow There should be severe child labor and factory inspection laws. It is very desirable that married women should not work in factories. The prime duty Of the woman is to be the mother, the house. wife. All questions of tariff and fin ance sink into utter insignificance when compared with the tremendous. the vital importance of trying to shape conditions so that these two duties of the man and he woman can be fulfilled under reasonably favorable circum- stances. If a race does not have plenty of children, or if the children do not 6AOW dpB UT II Nnen they grow up they are unhealthy in body and stunted or vicious in mind, than that race is l decadent. and no heaping up Of wealth i no splendor of momentary material can avail in any degree as offsets.
 The congress has the same power of l legislation for the District Of Columbia | which the state legislatures have for ! the various states. The problems incl l dent to our highly complex modern in dustria1 civilization, with it's manifold l and perplexing tendencies both for 1 good and for evil, are far less sharply |. accentuated in the city of Washington than in rc-t other cities. For this very reason it is easitr to deal with | the various phases of these problems | very reason it is easier to deal with | in Washington, and the District of Columbia government should be a | model for the other municipal govern i ments of the nation, in all such mat i