Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-10-31
FENCE OFF THE PIGS
Secretary Bonaparte's Advice
Given in Metaphor.
LIKENS TRUSTS TO HOGS
But Re Says He Would Not Cut OF
the Feed. -
GIVE THE LITTLE ONES A SHOW
Compared the Growth Of Foreign
Trade Under Republican and Demo-
cratic Administrations.
GIVE THE LITTLE ONES A SHOW

Secretary Bonaparte today spoke at Dem
ton, Md, at the meeting held in favor OF
VIM H. Jackson republican candidate for
the House of Represen tatives. In the course
or his remarks Mr.. Bonacarte said:
The policy of the republican party has not
ueen especially and first Of all, to encour-
age our foreign commerce; 1t has treated
this as Of secondary Importance. compared
with our immense internal trade, and such
increase as the former has shown Is due al
together to the nations growth in numbers
and general wealth. But this growth has
been 50 prodigious that our purchases and
sales abroad have grown with 1t to figures
fairly startling. In the fiscal year 1896, the
last under a democratic administration, our
imports and exports together amounted to
sixteen hundred and sixty millions; in 1905
after ten Years of republican government,
they reach twenty-nine hundred and ninety
millions, an increase of thirteen hundred
and thirty millions, more than 50 per
cent.
Not only has our trade with foreign coun-
tries now grown to dimensions which al
most take away ones breath: but 1t has
grown under republican rule, without spe-
cial care. more than three times faster
than 1t did under democratic rule, when 1t
was the object of particular solicitude.
MOQern consolidation.
But this very prosperity is the source
of some serious embarrassment. When a
nation grows rich the individuals who make
up that nation grow rich also; and in such
cases some of these individuals always
grow far richer than others. We have de-
veloped a crop OF crosuses without pre-
cedent in history, and moreover the long
distance telephone, the ocean cable and the
development of corporate agencies enable
these multi-millionares to unite their
wealth In huge combinations which threat
en- the commercial liberties of their fellow
citizens and even bid defiance to our
laws.
The present situation reminds me of a
story told, with how much truth l know
not, Of the late Johns Hopkins. 1t Is
said that a gentleman visiting Mr.. Hopkins
at the latter's country residence asked him
one day what qualities he thought essential
to fit one to make a great fortune. They
were ar the pigstye at the time and q
loud squealing announced supper time
there. Mr.. Hopkins pointed out to his
friend big. strong, greedy, over-fed hog
which crowded away the other pigs from
their swill and got far more than Its
share. Had that hog been a man." said
the philanthropist. ''he would have been a
millionaire several times over
Now our big. strong, greedy, over-pros-
porous trusts are animals of the like order;
they crowd their smaller and weaker fell
these don't get their fair share OF our ma
ional prosperity; the problem Is how to
so fence off the great beasts as to give
the little ones show. The democrats pro-
pose to cut off the supply of swill, or, IN
other words, to destroy our prosperity by
unsettling all our business relations; no
doubt this process would soon make the
big hogs thin as raZor-backs, but would
the small ones fare any the better?
Show No Favor.
Remember We don't complain of the for
mer because they are themselves big and
fat, but because they keep the others small
and thin. The fatter the Big pigs become
the better for their owner, and the more
money the trusts make the better for the
American people, provided in the one case,
all the little pigs get fat, too; or, at all
events, as fat as these can, and in the
other that all dealers outside of the trusts
have a fair field and the trusts have no
favor.
Our President wants and has always
wanted a square deal for every one,
whether pig or man; and under mis- leader
ship the republican party has tried to put
and keep each Of our trusts in its own
proper pen, where 1t can't crowd out any
of the little fellows around it. To these
ends he has asked the aid Of Congress and
of the courts to keep the corporate and in
dividual wealth of the country in due sub
lection to the law: not to make rich men
poor, for to do this would only make poor
men poorer, but to make rich men law
abiding, SO that poor men may become rich
If they can. And the two houses of Con-
gress, well as the courts, have responded
to his appeal.