Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-07-28

high protection, which in some cases Is
altogether prohibitive, the trusts levy enor-
nous tribute on the people. This has
amounted to not less than $4,000, 900, 600
IL the last decade
President and the Trusts.
The President has made great pretense
OF destroying trusts. Let him tell Of the
result. In a message delivered to Congress
he sal. said
last four years devoted more attention to
the enforcement of antitrust legislation
than anything else. Much has been accom-
plished; particularly marked has been the
moral effect of the prosecutions but 1t is
increasingly evident that there will be a
very insuf1cienIly beneficial result In the
way Of economic charge The successful
prosecution OF one device to evade the law
immediately develops another device to ac-
complish the same purpose. What is need
ed Is not sweeping prohibition of every ar
restrict competition but such adequate su-
pervision and regulation as will prevent any
restriction OF competition through the reg
ulation Of other abuses in no way connected
With restriction of competition.
Prison hest Cure.
This Is an admission of failure. and one
does not need to dwell on this admission
further than to say that the Imprisonment
or all those who violated the law would
have q more salutary effect than all that
mas Deen done or might nave been done In
this direction during his entire administra-
ton.
Thus, my countrymen, in this view we
have the spectacle of a President urging a
and appealing in vain, we have another
spectacle, that of President for the sake
of his own popularity or for the sake of the
popularity of his own candidate making a
political play by urging that Congress do
what he must know it would not do and
what we are forced to consider he did not
wish done.
The President stands sponsor for Mr.
Taft. He desires that the lab0ring man !;
that those who would have the government
effectively regulate the railroads that those
who would revise and reduce the tariff and
destroy the trusts these should believe that
Mr. Taft Is not reacttonary but a militant
reformer, saturated with hi, ideas and that
he will carry out my policies. Mr.. Taft
will have to receive about seven million
votes before he can execute any policy
Charges Federal Usurparion.
President Roosevelt has constantly clam
ored for more law and has frequently dis
regarded laws already on the statute books
He has sometimes arrogated to himself to
say what laws should be enforced and what
should not. He has exercised the unauthor-
lied privilege of deciding against whom the
laws should be enforced and who should be
immune from prosecution. He insisted on
the punishment of certain railroads and of
certain men for giving and receiving re-
bates, and then ordered the discontinuanca
of the case against one of his Cabinet off,
GERS who had confessed that as an official
of the railroad he gave rebates to COM
pany in which he was a stakeholder and off,
cial. And this man remained in the Cab
met until he left with the Presidents rec
concentration for more lucrative position
as head OF a great corporation.
Roosevelt and the Courts.
Indeed. by his defiance of legal limita-
tions and the safeguard of the constitution
he has done more to inculcate contempt of
law than all the mobs that have claimed
victims for their violence In all the States.
The President is upon an eminenee. If he
violates the law, men everywhere know 1t.
If he does not himself respect 1t to the full
extent he robs 1t of The reverence that
might be willingly bestowed by Others In
this same overbe iring spirit he has placed
and kept in Office men who were not ap-
pointed by and with the advice and con-
sent of the Senate He has influenced or
attempted to influence courts and juries in
only by deciding who should and who should
not be prosecuted, but by making known his
personal feelings or sympat hies between the
prosecution and the accused.
Let us confidently hope that the time
will never be ripe for the change of the
constitution by Executive actions" and BY
judicial interpretations" If such time
should come then a government of law will
perish from the earth and government OF
caprice will be created on the ruins of one
established by written constitution
Mr.. Chairman, delegates, and fellow coun-
trymen, the time and the occasion In our
national affairs impose duty we cannot. II
we would, eyade. W. must so out from
to put our loved ship Of state on an even
keel. That keel has been too long beating
the air. We must bring it Gown into the
deep abiding waters of the constitution.