The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-09-08


 pose of in the next three years Of this mass of railroad legislation not a single Act has yet been upheld by the United states Supreme Court. The validity of even the national rate law Is yet to be determined, and Secretary Taft admitted in his speech Monday that the United States Supreme Court has never decided the question whether Congress could delegate to commis- sion it's. power to fix rates.
 |. From every economic point of view the situation of the railroads Is perplex- ing, If not precarious. The National Government and forty-five State Govern ments are seemingly set on doing the same thing in the same way. Any railroad long enough to cross a State border Is subject to from three to twenty different regulations and regu- lators. Not content with supplying the deficiencies of Federal regulations, the States are trying to exercise co-equal and coordinate powers, thus creating forty-six different masters for the railroad interests as a whole to serve. Whatever crimes railroad manipulat- ord have committed. in the past, what ever stupidities their present manage ment may be guilty of the roads can not ebe subject to for<y-six kinds of rates and forty-six different masters and survive. They would be ground into bankruptcy between the upper and neither millstones of State and Federal authority, to the lasting injury of every wage worker. to the semi paralysis of all business and appalling damage to all honest industries.
 It is double folly to invent new schemes of regulation and excite new unrest when Acts already passed are yet to be worked out in practice and tried out in the Courts. Never before in the history of the country has so much actual administration been crown ed upon the Courts, and especially United States Courts never before the has the Supreme Court been called upon to grapple with so many radical and fundamental questions involving the control of property and business. More and more the power of govern ment is drifting into the hands of the judicary to create general suspense and uncertainty, for the machinery of the Courts moves slowly, while the machinery of legislation is revolving at the highest speed.
 It Is surprising that the business interests of the country are stunned and bewildered, or that the whole financial fabric Is twisted and tangl- ed?
 Nothing Is settled. Nothing is certain The demand for new experimental 1egis- lation goes on before the older expert mental Legislation has been tried and tested. Confidence Is shaken. and confidence Is the mother of credit. Credit Is weakened. and without credit the business of the country cannot be carried on. This is a simple fact which Is worth pound of all the theories that even so versatile a genius. as President Roosevelt can invent.
 Although New York is the richest city in the world. the municipal govern ment cannot obtain money tp carry on needed Improvements or pay con tractors in full for work already done. Neither at public nor private sale has the Comptroller been able to dispose of bonds already authorized. Other cities, no matter how good their credit, are having equal difficulty in borrow ing money. Wall street declares that railroad bonds cannot be sold on ac- count of MT Roosevelt's unwise regu1at- ion of railroads and his prosecution of rich offenders.
 MT Roosevelt has not been regulating city government or prosecuting mayors, yet municipalities find themselves in the same predicament as railroads. There Is a loss of confidence and a contraction of credit everywhere. The president of the Bowery Saving bank declared in a World interview not long ago that downtown bankers were hoarding vast sums in cash merely from a sense of apprehension. People who have borrowed money on rail road ors industrial stocks of secu- rites are met with demands for more collateral. The zone of apprehension is steadily increasing in width, and il is the business of the statesmanshir to look the facts squarely in the face
 The London Telegraph, which Is not influenced by part passion or private prejudice in its views of American af- fairs, believes that If the movement against the trusts become a political mania, driven by the impulses of blind and instructive hostility, it will be fatal to the prosperity of America. " It is convinced that the economic sit uation here corresponds to thepolitical crisis of the civil war, and another Abraham Lincoln would not be too great for the emergency"
 An Abraham Lincoln is too great for any emergency, but satisfactory substitute might be found at the present time simply in moderation and restraint. Give the Courts chance to catch up with the legislative author ity and define legal principles (Which must govern this great movement to regulate organized capital
 The Courts can enforce justice and prevent injustice, but they cannot de- cree confidence and credit Neither can Legislators legislate confidence and credit. MT Roosevelt cannot proclaim confidencei and credit. We are not censuring the President for enforcing the antitrust laws and upholdtng the power of the Federal Government over interstate commerce. 1t was time that power was vindicated.
 For twenty-four years The World has urged the authority of the United state Government to protect the people from the rapacity of trusts, monopolies and great corporations The sherman law, which The World insistently ad- vocated, was @ tremendous triumph for .nub1ic opinion, but it remained dead