The morning journal-courier., 1908-03-18
THINGS NOT DONE
Some of the Business Which Congress Ought to
 Be Doing.
oF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE
But Congress Doesn't Seem to Be Much Impressed
 By It.
We are living, we are moving, Tn q u,op1 op6 a ufp1 ti1,,a


 In a grand and awful time.
 Every time, we suppose, Is really grand and awful. To prove it we cite the following instances of matters de- manding legislation, every one If them of the utmost importance, scarcely one open to challenge. none of them yet enacted by congress:
 l. We haxe no law enforcing the rights of aliens who come here under the supposed protection of treaties. They can be robbed or mobbed at the pleasure of any State. and when their government demands satisfaction we make what Secretary Taft calls the pusillanimous" excuse that we ale unable to do justice. All we can do is to make respectful presentation to the State authorities and ask tncm as 9 favor to us to enforce the laws. Congress has power to bring the en- forcement of Federal courts. It has never done so. There is bill before the house with that object now. This question has twice raised talk f var with foreign peers. It may yet b ing it.
 9 Under the courts construction of the Sherman antitrust la, no conbil- ation for traffic purposes, even of a salutary sort, is possible to the rail roads, and they cannot legally per form the nations carving business This condition has existed ever since the trans Missouri Freight Association case was passed on by the supreme court in 1897, and change in the law has been repeatedly urged by the President and recommended by the teen billions of capital and our entire system of internal communications are subjected to this unfair and de- moralizing handicap.
 3. Our currency sytem is rigid, in elastic. But for the initiative of strong men here and the helpful discretion of a resourceful treasury secretary 1t would have involved our whole ilnan. clal and industrial structure last fall in frightful cataclysm. So many con- ficting views are in circulation et Washington that there is more than a possibility we shall have the old sys- tenn unchanged this fall, when the next crop movement strains our 1e- sources to the breaking point.
 4. The tariff needs revision. as both parties are agreed. It is eleven years old-oder, indeed, than the industrial combinations formed in the industries 1t was designed to foster; older than the practical operation of the dual tariffs of Europe, which may at any time penalize our exports and bring a formidable continental combinatlor into play against us
 5. Our shipping remains the one American industry deprived of protec- tion, the one American industry sub jected on the one hand to the scale of wages of protection country -nd on the other to the competition oe d worldwide merchant marine under protection. We pay yearly about a hundred millions to foreign ship own CTS, our flag has almost disappeared from the seas, elghty-eight per cent of bur commerce Is carried in foreign bottoms and we are not breeding sail ors enough to man our ships in time of war. Millions for the navy, but not one cent for the merchant ma. rine" is the national motto.
 6. We have ldeprived the Filipino: of their Spanish market brought them under the flag-and kept then out of our markets! Thus far ever, effort to give them an outlet for theil main crops, sugar and tobacco, has been defeated. Yet for both practi cal and sentimental reasons. to giv, our Asiatic wards chance to live ant an earnest of our good will, to show we have qualifications to admin,ste' colonies, these privileges-these right must be granted.
 [. Year after year the demand | made to create national forest re serve in the White mountains anc southern ppalachians-there is a bil in congress now 10 spend s5,0O0, 900 t, acquire 1000, 900 acres-yet nothln, comes of It. The denudlng of ou Eastern mountain slopes swels tn, spring floods that play havoc in tn Ohio and other valleys; brings us il sight of a hardwood famine and em barrassment to the furniture. vehicl and agricultural implement business es ,injures the water-power of textil industries representing an investmen of billions. and nullifies many of ou river and harbor enterprises.
 Protection against war. emancIpa ton of transportation from unjust an, inadvertent shacklng insuranc araincf manic ralieP to tt,a oore,,,x. ,,, our existence as a maritime power our right to hold and govern colonies the conservation of our natural re sources-all await the high pleasur of congress: have long awaited if.