Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-01-17
CUMMINS GOVERNOR
FOR THIRD TERM
CONTINUED from First Page.)

Continued from First Page.)
escaped from the government estab-
lished to manage it, and is running
Wild These thousands of voices that
fill the air are only endeavoring to
tell in a variety of tongue that there
has been an escape and should be a
recapture; but just how to put the
harness of justice upon these mighty
and new forces that we call our coun-
try-Ah. There's the rub
.'rhe conditions under which we live
are utterly unlike the conditions that
gave form TO our institutions and
which prescribed the scope of ancient
laws. Forces have come into existence
which were unknown to the men VINO
made our constitutions. Not only are
the conditions new and the forces un-
familiar. but they have developed so
rapidly that we have not yet had time
to do much but talk about them. with
a wealth that in a few years mas
whirled us out of obscurity to the very
pinnacle of financial greatness; with
this wealth organized in the hands OF
powerful men, multiplying itself with
amazing rapidity. establishing monopo-
lies, crushing and grinding its way
without any instinct of fairness or any
emotion of sympathy, toward the COM
plete extinction of competition and
Independence with fortune in it's
grasp; with ore beds occupied; with it's
reach and strength drawing together
the manufactures of the country; with
the packing houses and live stock mar
kets joining into one vast combination;
with 100000 miles of main track
railway. gradually taken from the own
ership Ola thousand companies and
converted into a half dozen systems all
dominated by a few men, and often
times by the same men, serving with
might and main these masters of fin
ance, bent on paying interest and divi-
oends upon stocks and bonds that ag-
gregate nearly three times the original
capital invested, as we'll as laying
aside immense sums for extensions and
additions that ought to be constructed
from Independent capital; with labor
unions that are trying to mass the
power of the workingmen against the
associated strength of employers
these things present situation never
before presented to organized society.
The farmers and the retail merchants
are about the only people remaining to
exhibit the force of competition, and
the latter are shivering lest the mail
order house shall soon make way With
them.
when we add the riotous extrava-
gance and the shameful inefficiency of
municipal administration, both arising
largely from the prodigality of prosper
ity. we have the picture upon which
the American people are now looking.
No wonder we are bewildered and that
we are little nervous, as we'll as very
proud. No wonder that magazines and
newspapers are filled with discussions,
No wonder that the patriot and the
demagog the wise man and the fool,
the philosopher and the agitator, the
radical and the conservative, are abroad
in the land. Understand me. All of
them are natural, and many of them
are unavoidable 1 am not even pre-
pared to say that essentially, they can
be changed. l am, however, sure that
they require of government something
that has never been done before, and
that if we cling too closely to the wis
dom of the forefathers and fail to ex-
ercise a little wisdom of our own, the
history of our forefathers will be the
only part of the history, of this coun-
try worth preserving.
Herein lies the application of my
former statement. No man knows just
what to do, altho all men know that
something ought to be done. 1t is inn
possible to set forth an orderly plan
that will embrace remedies for all the
defects in our customs and laws but
this much is certain That out of all
the babel of argument and assertion,
denunciation and eulosy, criticism and
praise there will come, little by little,
the truth, and the truth will make us
free. l have no fear that the people
will adopt error or inflict injustice.
have some fear that, with the inertia
begotten of over-reverence for the past,
they will allow the truth to stand idle
too long, and that they will be unjust,
not in what they do, but in what they
fail to do. u
edo not imagine that 1 am clearing
the way for the conclusion that the
powers of the states should be either
abolished or curtailed. On the con-
trary, believe that the authority
which must be exercised by the states
has increased rather than diminished
My proposition is that the development
of the country has made it necessary
to exercise governmental functions
which cannot be exerted by the states
and never have been; and which cam
rot be employed by the general gov
eminent because the constitution does
not create them. The interstate COM
merce clause of the constitution is not
broad enough for these days, simply
because we have an interstate COM
merce the character of which was not
dreamed of when the clause was writ
ten. The corporations carrying on in
terstate commerce cannot be adequate
ly regulated by the states for the OBJ
the state, even in the absence of the
present prohibition in the constitution,
ceases at it's border We take nothing
away from the states when we enlarge
these grants to the United States. We
only bring into existence a new pow
err to meet a new condition and be-
stow it upon the only hand that can
use it, The interstate commerce clause
has already been strained to the point
of breaking The taxing authority has
already been wrested from it's true
purpose, and still the courts halt upon
the hither side of adequate law. Why
u "a /.