Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-06-17

With problems of the most compleA
 and difficult character.
 To our honor be 1t said. we have 10
 shrunk from the task. Much has bee
 done-much no doubt still remains
 debut the great underlying principle,
 have been established, and upon thel
 we can build as necessity arises, car
 fully and deliberately.
 I have spoken of the seriousness 0
 the situation with which the country
 was confronted. Its gravity can hard
 ly be overestimated. It grew out of
 conditions and was the result of forces
 beyond the control of men. Science
 and invention, the two great factors in
 this situation, have not only altered
 radically human environment and oul
 relations to nature, but in their appli.
 cation they have revolutionized eco
 homie conditions. These changed eco
 monic conditions have in turn affected
 profoundly society and politics. They
 have led. among other things, to com.
 binations of capital and labor on a
 scale and with power never before
 witnessed. They have opened the way
 to aceumulations of wealth in masses
 beyond the dreams of avarice and never before contemplated by man.
 Problems Wholly New.
 The social and political problems thus created are wholly new. It is a fallacy to suppose that because the clements are old the problem itself must there fore differ only in degree from those which have gone before.
 Great individual fortunes and rich men are, it is true. as old aS recorded history. Nearly 2,00o years ago the tax farmers of Rome formed a trust for their own profit and protection; the English people, three centuries ago, re- volted against the patents and monop- olies granted by Elizabeth and James to their courtiers and monopolists. Fore stallers and speculators in the necessi- ties of life were a cruse in our revolu- tion and bitterly denounced by Wash fngton. Yet it is none the less true that the same things today present ques- tions different in kind as we'll as in degree from their predecessors.
 It is the huge size of private for tunes, the vast extent and power of modern combinations of capital, made possible by present conditions. which have brought upon us in these later years problems portentous in their pos abilities and threatening not only our social and political welfare, but even our presonal freedom if they are not boldly met and wisely solved.
 The great body of the American peo- pie, neither very rich nor very poor, the honest, the thrifty, the hard work ing, the men and women who earn and save, have no base envy, no fanatic hatred of wealth, whether individual or if it has been honestly gained and IS wisely and generously employed with sense of responsibility to the public. But this great body of our people, by habit and instinct alike, wisely conservative, these people who are the bone and sinew of our country and upon whom its fortunes and it's safety rest, began to observe with deep alarm the recent manifestations of the new economic conditions. More and more they came to believe that these vast fortunes and these huge combina- lions of capital were formed and built up by tortuous and dishonest means and through a cynical disregard of the very laws which the mass of the peo- pie were compelled to obey. They began to fear that political power was being reft from their hands and put Into the possession of the money hold PTS, that their dearest rights were in Hanger, that their hopes of success and were cut of by business systems which they could not under stand. but by which the individual was sacrificed and held down.
 To those who looked beneath the surface an ominous unrest was appar- ent. The violent counsels of violent men who aimed at the destruction of and the overthrow of Jaw began to be heard and hardened to. The great order loving. industrious masses Of the American people turned lway from these advocates of vio- l ence. but at the same time demanded ! hat their government should give i hem in lawful and reasonable ways | he protection to which they were en- tiled against the dangers they justly i 
 The great duty of fulfilling these 1 righteous demands. like all the great l public services of the last half cen ! ury. was imposed upon the Repub- | ican party. and they have not fiinched . rom the burden. Under the lead of he president the Republican party has ! 'rappled with the new problems born f the new conditions. IL has been no i iSht task. Dangerous extremes threat ned on either hand On the one side gere the radicals of reaction. who re- isted any change at all: on the other ide were the radicals of destruction, rho wished to change everything. 'hese two forms of radicaiism are as ar apart at the outset as the poies. ut when carried out they lead alike D revolution. Between these two ex- remes the Republican president and he Republican congress were compel d to steer. and. while they advanced teadily. soheriy and effectively. they rere obliged t0 repei the radical as- quits on either hand.
 The policy of the Republican party