Bisbee daily review., 1906-12-05

tons. both of those who assertod that it would ruin the railroads. and those who asserted that 1t did not go far enough and would accomplish nothing During the last five months the railroads have shown increased earnings and some of them unusual dividends; while during the same per- iod the mere taking effect of the law has produced an unprecedented. hitherto unheard of, number of volun- tary reductions in freights and fares by the railroads. Since the founding of the Commission there has never been a time of equal length in which anything like so many reduced tarins have been put into effect. On August 27, for instance. two days before the Few law went into effect the Commits sion received notices of over five thou sand separate tariffs which represent ed reductions from previous rates.
 It must not be supposed. however. that with the passage of these laws II will be possible to stop progress along the line of increasing the power of the National Government over the use of capital in interstate commerce. For example. there will ultimately be need of enlarging the powers of the Inter- state Commerce Commission along several different lines. so as to give 1t a larger and more efficient control over the railroads.
 It can not too often be repeated that experience has conclusively shown the impossibinty of securing by the ac- tions of nearly half hundred differ ent State legislatures anything but in- effective chaos in the way of dealing with the great corporations which do not operate exclusively within the linn its of any one State. In some method. whether by national license law or in other fashion. we must exercise, and that at an early date. far more complete control than at present over these great corporations-a control that will among other things prevent the evils of excessive overcapitaliza- ton. and that will compel the disclos- ure by each big corporation of it's stockholders and of its properties and business. whether owned directly or thru subsidiary or affiliated corpora tions This will tend to put stop to the securing of inordinate profits by favored individuals at the expense whether of the general public, the stockholders. or the wageworkers. Our effort should be not so much to pre- vent consolidation as such, but so toI supervise and control it as to see that. it results in TO harm to the people. The reactionary or ultraconservative apologists for the misuse of wealth assail the effort to secure such control as a step toward socialism. As a mat ter of fact it is these reactionaries and ultraconservatives who are themselves most potent in increasing socialisticI feeling. One of the most efficient methods of averting the consequences of dangerous agitation. which is sol per cent wrong, is to remedy the 20 per cent of evil as to which the agita-I ton is well founded. The best way to| avert the very undesirable move for the governmental ownership of rail- ways is to secure by the Government on behalf of the people as a whole  such adequate, control and regulation of the great interstate common carri- CTS as will do away with the evils which give rise to the agitation against them. So the proper anidote to the dangarous and wicked agitation against the men Of wealth as such is tn secure hv proper legislation and executive action the abolition of the grave abuses which actually do obtain in connection with the business use of wealth under our present system-or rather no syster1-of failure to exer- else any adequate control at all. Some persons speak as if the exercise of such governmental control would do away with the freedom of individual initiative and dwarf individual effort. This is not fact It would be a yer itabIe calamity to fail to nut prem ! iun upon individual initiative. indi- viduaI capacity and effort; upon the i energy. character. and foresight which ! 1t is so important to encourage in the 1 individual. But as a matter of fact the deadening and degrading effect of