Los Angeles herald., 1907-10-07

Chief Executive Strong Scheme
of State or Government
fe Socialism
.Is Theodore Roosevelt a SOCIALISM,"
This was the question discussed before
the Liberal club last night by William
c. Owen, who made critical analysis
Of the three speeches delivered by the
president last week on his Mississippi
valley trip. The speaker maintained that
they constituted thoroughly Logical
trinity, each being a further development
of the theme broached in its predecessor
and the whole representing a scheme or
state or governmental Socialism on a
scale absolutely without precedent.
Mr. owen began by reading extracts
from the presidents speech at Keokuk
in which he declared that the average
American citizen will not tolerate gov
ernment by a plutocracy," and that we
wish to see that the necessary struggle
in life shall be carried on under gen
timely democratic conditions; that, $50 far
as human action can safely provide IL,
there shall be an approximately fair
start" After remarking that such
philosophy presupposed giving every
child, so far as economic conditions are
concerned, an equally good seat at life's
made by the president to the Iowa
farmers that the improvement in the
means of transporting their commodities
to market will be of no use unless you
keep producing the commodities" The
declaration, said the speaker, is tanta-
mount to this--that freedom of trans
portation, however perfect, is worthless
without freedom of production, which is
the very thing for which Socialists, An
archists, single takers and radical re-
formers of all schools are clamoring,
however much they may differ as to the
means of attaining it.
Would Favor Homeseeker
Attention was then directed to the
presidents emphatic and constantly re-
iterated statement that "the government
should part with it's title to the land only
to the actual homeseeker-not to the profit
maker-who does not care to make
home This is fundamental, gem
tlemen." This the speaker coupled with
the presidents remark at Cairo that the
principles of government are practically
those which should apply in dealings as
between neighborS; that menemuSt Doth
stand up for their own rights and re-
spect those of others, and that 1fs a
man is afraid to hold his own; If he
will submit tamely to wrongdoing he is
contemplate" No finer text, Mr.. Owen
observed could be offered to an agitator
calling on the masses to strike for their
rights as human beings.
At this point in the critics view, the
president concluded his theoriZing, the
remainder of the speech at Cairo and
that at Memphis being devoted to the
practical methods required, the prelude
to which was eulogy of our ''ridicu-
lously small'' army and our ''good navy,
not yet large enough for our needs"
Following this in the Cairo speech
comes a passage characterized as one
of the most remarkable ever uttered by
a responsible statesman, and running as
follows: POLITICALLY we can be said SUBJ
stantially to have worked out our DEM
ocratic ideals But in industry
there has not as yet been the growth
necessary in order to meet the tremen-
dous changes brought about in Industrial
conditions by steam and electricity"
Heaven help democracy!" cried. the
speaker, 'ff present political conditions
represent its IDEAL and G eaven help tne
people If the management of their in
dustrial affairs is to be placed in the
hands of our modern politicians, as we
know them, with the enormously en-
larged powers advocated by the presi-
dent in the rest of his speech at Cairo
and throughout that delivered at Mem
phis."
Regarding Land
1t was pointed out that the president
specifically declared that the Mississippi
project is only preliminary to similar i'm
provements in other rivers. The Column
bia, San Joaquin and Sacramento being
named and that it is directly connected
with the purity of the water supply of
cities; the irrigation of dry lands; the
prevention of floods and reclamation of
swamps; the control of electric power
derived from streams; the preservation
of forests and the tenure of coal and
iron mines, oil and gas fields; In short
the entire area of natural resources,
since, In Roosevelt's own words ito al
low the public lands to be worked by
the tenants of rich men for the profit
of landlords. instead of by freeholders
for the livelihood of their wives and
children is little less than crime against
our people and our institutions"
To this was added the statement that
the inland waterways commission had
decided with my full approval, to call
conference on the conservation OF nat
ural resources"
The essence of state Socialism Is, the
speaker said, collective ownership of the
natural resources, to be administered by
central authorities FOR the national BEN
eft. How does this differ from the pro-
gram that Roosevelt is now laying before
the American public? He has put 1t
right up to the people of this country to
decide whether the remedy for grave
evils, almost universally admitted, is to
be found in conferring autocratic power
on an official of which the speaker pro-
fesseu himself, personally, distrustful TO
the last extreme, citing the French revo-
luton and present conditions as historical
examples of the fate that awaits coun-
tries SO foolish as to entrust their des-
TIMES to the tender mercies of central
lied bureaucracies.
ONLY ONE "BROMO QUININE"
That is LAXATIVE BROMO QUININE.
Look for the signature of E. w. GROVE.
Used the world over to Cure Cold in