Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-08-20


 certificate of the commission as val. uable one in the markets of the world, and only railway stock manipulators who look to the floating of watered securities as their best source of profit would have reason to complain.
 "A much used means of eliminating competition among interstate lines serving the same territory is the ac- quisition by one company of the stock in another and the election of directors to represent that stock. This process is facilitated by the uncontrolled power to issue securities beyond the needs of the company for its legitimate business and would be curbed by the restriction proposed. The evil ought further to be directly restrained by making 1t un- lawful for m interstate railway to ac- quire stock in competing line. This is simpler remedy of meeting the evil than by recourse to the antitrust law under the Northern Securities case. In addition to this competing lines should be prohibited from hay ing common directors or officers.
 These suggestions of additional leg islation in respect to the supervision and control of interstate railways have been made by the interstate commerce commission, and I heartily concur in them. They are plainly within the fed eral Jurisdiction under the interstate commerce clause. do not think that, in order to accomplish good which the federal government, with its great CT resources and wider geographical reach. can bring about more quickly and efficiently, the constitutional lim- its upon federal action should be blur red out or an undoubted federal pow CT should be expanded by doubtful belongs to the state. But the right of congress to take any action not confis- catory in the most rigid control of in terstate commerce cannot be denied.
 "Alr. Bryan says he would extir- pate trusts, root and branch.' If MT. Bryan's language Is more than mere rhetoric and he means to seize the property, to divide 1t up and sell 1t in pieces and disassemble the parts, then I am not fin favor of his method of dealing with trusts, because believe that such large combinations legiti- mately conducted greatly add to the prosperity of the country. The attitude of the government toward combina- lions of capital for the reduction in the cost of production should be exactly the same as toward the combinations of labor for the purpose of bettering the conditions of the wage worker and of increasing his share of the joint profit of capital and labor. They are both to be encouraged fin every way as long as they conduct themselves with in the law. They both wield enormous power and if wielded for good can be of inestimable benefit. Their power for evil when in the control of unscru- pulous men is such that if it is to be restrained it needs the use of all the means which the executive and the courts can lawfully command. think 1t entirely possible by the rigorous prosecutions of the law against illegal combinations and by the equal and just operation of railways to prevent a recurrence of what we have had in the past and to restrain within the bounds of legitimate and useful busi- ness all these great corporations"
 On the tariff Secretary Taft said:
 "The present business system of the country rests on the protective tariff. and any attempt to change 1t to free trade basis will certainly lead only to disaster.
 i Tt Is the duty of the Republican par ty, however. to see to 1t that the tariff on imported articles does not exceed substantially the reasonably perma- nent differential between the cost of production in the foreign countries and that in the United States, and there fore when changes take place in the conditions of production likely to pro duce very large reduction in the cost of production in the United States 1t is time that schedules be re-examined and If excessive that they be reduced"
 whenever the tariff imposed is largely in excess of the differential be- tween the cost of production In the two countries then there is formed at once q great temptation to monopollze the business of producing the particular product and to take advantage of profit in the excessive tariff. This denies to the people altogether the economies of production that competition under a protective tariff should develop.
 T had occasion in a speech which I delivered at Bath. Me-, now about year ago to express my individual opin- ion as in favor of an immediate revi- sion of the tarin, but there pointed out, and I only refer to 1t to repeat 1t and emphasize 1t. that the revision of q tariR involves so many different in- terests tho country over as that 1t could not be undertaken successfully by the Republican party and therefore ought not to be undertaken at all until the party as whole Is in favor of 1t. l ventured to express the opinion that the sentiment in favor of 2 revision in the Republican party was crystallizing to such a point that In short time VIC night expect to have action upon the subject. What has happened in the last year has only served to confirm the view then expressed. and 1t now seems to me that even most of the ox- tremists in the matter of the tariff arc of opinion that IL would be not only unwise, but unsafe, for the party to