The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-04

pride and concern for every man in the farthest interior of our country as for every man on the seacoast. long ocean voyage is mighty good training; and not the least good it will do will be to SHOW just the points where our naval pro gramme needs strengthening Incident ally I think the voyage will have one good effect for, to judge by their com ments on the movement, some excellent people in my own section of the country need to be reminded that the Pacific coast is exactly as much part of this nation as the Atlantic coast.
 Domestic Policy.
 So much for foreign affairs. Now for matter of domestic policy. Here In this country we have founded great federal democratic republic. It is 8 government by and for the people and therefore a genuine democracy; and the theory or our constitution is that each neighborhood shall be left to deal with the things that concern only itself and which it can most readily deal with, so that town, county, city and state have their respeccsve spheres of duty. while the nation deals with those matters which concern all of us all of the people, no matter where we dwell. Our democracy is based upon the belief that each individual ought 10 have the largest measure of liberty com- S-
 individuals. that the average citizen, the plain man whom we meet in daily life, IS normally capable of taking care or his own affairs, and has no desire to wrong any one else;' and yet that in the inter est of all there shall be sufficient power lodged somewhere to prevent wicked peo- pie from trampllng the weak under foot for their own gain. Our constant en- deavor is to make a good working com promise whereby we shall secure the full benefit of individual initiative and respon- sibility, while at the same time recosnz- ing that 1t is the function of wise gov ernment under modern conditions not merely to protect life and property, put to foster the social development or the people so far as this may be done by maintaining and promoting justice nom esty and equal rights. We believe Tn real, not a sham, democracy. We be. lieve in democracy as regards political rights as regards education. and, finally, as regards industrial conditions By de- mocracy we understand. securing, as far as it Is humanly possible to secure II, equality of opportunity, equality or the conditions under which each man Is 10 show the stuff that is in him and to achieve the measure of success to which his own force of mind and character en- title him. Relgiously this means that ca ch man is to have the right unhindered by the state to worship his Creator as his conscience dictates, granting freely To others the same freedom which he asks for himself.
 Politically we can be said suostantlaliy to have worked out our democratic ideals, and the same is true, thanks to the common schools, in educational matters, But in industry there has not as yet been the governmental growth necessary in order to meet the tremendous changes brought about in industrial condltlohs by steam and electricity. It is not In accordance with our principles that liter- ally despotic power should be put into the hands of A few men in the affairs of the industrial world. Our effort must be Tor a just and effective plan of action which. while scrupulously safeguarding the rights of the men of wealth. shall yet, so far as is humanly possible, secure under the law to all men equality or op- portunity to make living. It is to the interest of all of us that the man of exceptional business capacity should be amply rewarded; and there is nothing inconsistent with this in our insistenee that he shall not be guilty of bribery or extortion, and that the rights or the wageworker and of the man of small means. who are themselves honest ana hard working, shall be scruplously sale guarded. The instruments for the eXer- else of modern industrial power are the great corporations which, though created bv the individual states. have grown Tar beyond the control of those states and transact their business throughout large sections of the union. These corpora tions like the industrial conditions which have called them into being, did not exist when the constitution was founded; but the wise forethought of the founders pro vided, under the interstate commerce clause of the constitution, for the very emergency which has arisen, If ony our people as a whole will realize what this emergency is; for if the people thoroughly realize it. their governmental represen- tatives will soon realize 1t also. The na' tional government alone has sufficiently extensive power and jurisdiction to exer- cise adeouate control over the great in-