The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-05-11

great highways of commerce of an en- tiTely different kind. For the first time fin history, we have a highway for the commerce of all the people. under the control of a private individual or a private corporation.
 Now, gentlemen, let me in the first place insist upon this fact, that the men who have built uL the great rail- ways of this country. like the other men who have built up the great industries of this country have as rule made their fortunes as incidents to benefit ing and not to narming the country. As rule benefit and not harm has come from their efforts and in making fortunes for tfernssl-es they have dore gsGJ to all of us. We have all benefit te by the talents of ihe great captains Of industry. |
 Al of this that osse said wish kept in mind steadily in appreciating what I am going to say: for, while acknowledging in the frankest manner the benefits that have come from the development of these great industrial enterprises, also felt that we must recognize that the time has come when it is essential in the interests of the public that there should be and be exercised a power of supervision and regulation over them in the inter- ests of the public.
 Personally believe that the feder- al government must take an increasing control over corporations. I trust there ! will ha m bal f1,a ufa 5xry { of assuming such national control, and ] the first step toward ity should be the l adoption of a law comforting upon some executive body the power of increased i supervision and regulation of the great corporations engaged primarily in in terstate commerce of the railroads And my views on that subject could not have been better expressed than they were expressed yesterday, think, by Secretary Taft, in Washington, as they were expressed by the attorney general in his communication to the senate committee a couple of weeks ago. I believe that the representa- tives of the nation should lodge in some executive body the power to es- tablish maximum rate, the power to have that rate go into effect practical ly immediately and the power to see that the provisions of the law apply in full to the companies owning private cars just as much as to the railroads ] themselves. The courts would retain, $ no matter what the legislature did, the power to interfere and upset any action that was confiscatory in it's nature. am well aware that the action of such a body as I have spoken of may stop far short of confiscation and yet do
 great damage. Tn other words, am well aware that to give this power means the possibility that the power lmay be abused. That possibility we must face. Any power strong enough.
 any power which could be granted
 sufficiently great to be efficient would
 be sufficiently great to be harmful if
 abused That is true of the power of
 taxation. Nevertheless, the power of
 taxation must exist; and also with the
 power of which I speak, 1t must exist.
 It must be lodged in some body which
 is to give expression to the needs of the people as a whole, and the fact that it is possible that the power may
 be abused is not and cannot be an ar B gument against placing it where we
 shall have a right to expect that it 5l will be used fairly toward all. One
 thing I wish detinitely understood: If
 the power is. granted to me to creat
 such board such a commission, or to
 continue in power, if I so desire, com
 mission or board, with increased pow
 CTS shall strive to appoint and re-
 tain men who will do exactly the same
 Justice to the railroads as they will
 exact from the railroads.
 Now for the other side of the ques- I ton. There have been great many
 republics before our time, and again
 and again those republics have split upon the rock of disaster; the greatest and most dangerous rock in the course l of any republic, the rock of class hat
 red. Sometimes the republic became a republic in which one class grew to