The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1908-07-31

the offender without wealth and with
out influence, and he proceeded by
recommending legislation and direct
ing executive action, to make that
principle good In actual performance.
He secured the passage Of the So
called rate bill, designed more effect
lively to restrain excessive and fix
reasonable rates and to punish secret
rebates and determinations which had
been general in the practice Of the
railroads and which had done SO much
to enable unlawful trusts to drive out
OF business their competitors. It Sc
cured much closer supervision Of rail-
way transactions and brought within
the operation Of the same statute ex.
press companies, sleeping car COM.
panies, fast freight and refrigerator
lines, terminal railroads and pipe lines
and forbade in future the combination
of the transportation and shipping
business under one control in order to
avoid undue determinations.
President Roosevelt directed suits
to be brought and prosecutions to be
instituted under the antitrust law to
enforce Its provisions against the most
powerful of the industrial corpora
lions. He pressed to passage the pure
food law and the meat inspection law
in the interest Of the health Of the
public, clean business methods and
great ultimate benefit to the trades
themselves. He recommended the pas
sage of a law which the republican
convention has since specifically ap-
proved, restricting the future issue Of
stocks and bonds by interstate rail-
ways to such as may be authorized by
federal authority. He demonstrated
to the people by what he said, by
what he recommended to congress,
and by what he did, the sincerity of
his efforts to command respect for the
law, to secure equity of all before
the law, and to save the country from
lAO 0dASVA0 vi p4uLONA CVS4N 6VvOAA"
ment, toward which we were fast tend
ing. In this work Mr.. Roosevelt has
had the support and sympathy Of the
republican party and his chief hope Of
success in the present controversy
must rest upon the confidence which
the people of the country have in the
sincerity of the party's declaration in
its platform, that it intends to con
tinue the policies.
Permanently Securing Progress.
President Roosevelt has set high
the standard of business morality. The
railroad rate bill was more useful,
possibly, in the immediate moral eff
feet of Its passage, than in the legal
effect OF its very useful provisions.
From its enactment dates the volun-
tary abandonment of the practice Of
rebates and determinations by the
railroads and the return by their man
ayers to obedience to law in the fix
ing Of tariffs.
Function Of Next Administration.
The chief function of the next adj
ministration in my judgment, is dis
tinct from, and a progressive develop
ment which has been performed by
President Roosevelt. The chief func-
ton of the next administration is to
perfect the machinery by which these
standards may be maintained by
which the law breaker may be prompt
~ restrained and punished, but which
shall operate with sufficient accuracy
and dispatch to interfere with the
great business as little as possible.
Constructive Work.
The field covered by the industrial
combinations and by railroads is so
very extensive that in the interests of
the public and the interests OF bust
ness concerned cannot be properly
%subserved except by reorganization
of bureaus in the department of com
merce and labor, of agriculture and
the development of justice and a
change in the Jurisdiction of the In
terstate commerce commission. 1t
does not assist matters to prescribe
new duties for the interstate com.
merce commission, which 1t Is prac'
tically impossible for it to perform OF
to denounce new offenses with drastic
punishment unless subordinational
ancilliary legislation shall be passed
making possible the quick enforce,
ment in the great variety Of cases
which are constantly arising, Of the
principles laid down by Mr.. Roose.
welt, and with respect to which only
typical instances Of prosecution with
the present machinery are possible
Such legislation should and would
greatly promote the great business
by enabling those anxious to obey the
federal statutes to know just what are
the bounds Of their legal action. The
practical constructive and dificult
work therefore Of those who follow
Mr.. Roosevelt Is to devise ways and
means by which the high level Of bust
ness integrity and obedience to law
which he has established may be main
tanned and departures from it restrain
ed without undue interference with