Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-12-03


 those combinations which do good and those combinations which do evil. |" Y Often railroads would like to combine for the purpose of preventing a big shipper from maintaining improper ad- vantages at the expense of small ship pers and of the general public. Such combination, instead of being forbid den by law, should be favored. It is a public evil to have on the statute books a law incapable of full enforcement, because both judges and juries realize that its full enforcement would destroy the business of the country, for the result is to make de- cent men violators of the law against their will and to put premium on the behavior of the .willful wrongdoers. Such result in turn tends to throw the decent man and the willful wrong. doer into close association and in the end to drag down the former to the latter's level, for the man who be- comes a lawbreaker in one way un- happily tends to lose all respect for law and to be willing to break it in many ways. No more scathing con- demnation could be visited upon law than is contained in the words of the interstate commerce commission when in commenting upon the fact that the numerous joint traffic associations do technically violate the law they say: The decision of the United States su- preme court in the transmissouri case and the Joint Traffic association case has produced no practical effect upon the railway operations of the country. Such associations, in fact, exist now as they did before these decisions and with the same general effect. In justice to all parties we ought prob- ably to add that 1t is difficult to see how our interstate railways could be operated with due regard to the inter- est of the shipper and the railway without concerted action of the kind afforded through these associations
 This means that the law as con strued by the supreme court is such that the business of the country can not be conducted without breaking it."
 As I have elsewhere said:
 Not New Proposition.
 | "All this is substantially what have said over and over again. Surely it ought not to be necessary tS say that it in no shape or way represents any hostility to corporations as such. On the contrary it means a frank recogni- ton of the fact that combinations of capital, like combinations of labor, are natural result of modern conditions and of our national development. As far as in my ability lies, my endeavor is and will be to prevent abuse of power by either and to favor both so | long as they do well. The aim of the national government is quite as much to favor and protect honest corpora 1 tions, honest business men of wealth, as to bring to justice those individuals and corporations representing dishon- est methods. Most certainly there will be no relaxation by the government authorities in the effort to get at any great railroad wrecker-any man who l by clever swindling devices robS in vestors, expresses wageworkers and does injustice to the general public. But any such move as this is in the interest of honest railway operators, of honest corporations and of those who when they invest their small say 1 ings in stocks and bonds wish to be assured that these will represent money honestly expended for legitimate business purposes. To confer upon the national government the power for which asked would be a check upon overcapitalization. But it alone would nean an increase in the value, an in crease in the safety. of the stocks and bonds of law abiding. honestly man aged railroads and would render 1t far believe in proper publicity. There has been complaint of some of the investi- cations recently carried on, but those who complain should put the blame where it belongs-upon the misdeeds which are done in darkness and not upon the investigations which brought them to light. The administration is responsible for turning on the light, but it is not responsible for what the light showed. I ask for full power to he given the federal government, be- cause no single state can by legisla- ton effectually cope with these pow erful corporations engaged in inter state commerce and. while doing them full justice. exact from them in return full justice to others. The conditions of railroad activity. the conditions of our immense interstate commerce. are such as tO make the central govern ment alone competent to exercise full supervision and control.
 Grave Results of Abases.
 "The grave abuses in individual cases of railroad management in the past represent wrongs not merely t0 the general public. but. above all. wrong tO fair dealing and honest cor pOratiOns and men of wealth. because they excite q popular anger and dis. trust which from the very nature of the case tend tO include in the sweep of It's resentment good and bad alike From thc standpoint of the public cannot too earnestly say that as soon as the natural and proper resentment aroused by these abuses becomes in. discriminate and minimizing it also be comes not merely unwise and unfair but calculated to defeat the very ends which those feeling it have in view