The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-16


 Opportunity's was delivered at the recent Jeffersoh banquet in New York city by President Woodrow Wilson of Princeton university:
 'we hear q great deal of candidates and programmes but very little of prin- ciples Parties seem almost to have gone to pieces and to have become indis- tinguishable, except in so far as men by habit call themselves by this party name or by that. Both parties have with like eagerness turned to the regulation of the business of the country, the restraint and regulation of the great business corpora tions, and vie with each other in the rad ical measures which they propose; but the measures of the one might be the meas ures of the other. They are virtually in- distinguishable in principle which, if car ried far enough in it's application, would inevitably change the whole character of our government It is time we stopped, for a little while, speaking of candi- dacies and undertook to test measures by principles.
 Great Corporations.
 
 country has come into the hands of great corporations and trusts, and its new as- | poets unquestionably require adjustments | and reformulations of the law, which the | courts have not had the power or the | courage to make, and which must there fore be made by legislation. The mere scale of business operations, moreover, | has vastly increased. Comparatively small groups of men in control of great l corporations wield a power and control over the wealth and the business opera tions of the country which makes them seem rivals of the government itself. Law must be strengthened and adapted to keep them in curb and to make them sub servient to the general welfare. No one now advocates the old laissez faire; no | one questions the necessity for firm and l comprehensive regulation of business op- | erations in the interest of fair dealing, l of a responsible exercise of power. We are all advocates of a firm and effective regulation, but those of us who are dem- ocrats challenge the prevailing principles l of regulation, the principles which the re- l publican party has introduced and car ried to such radical lengths, and which some democrats confused by the glamour | of the hour, have too thoughtlessly and hastily espoused.
 Executive Regulations. "We have in fact turned from legal regulation to executive regulation. We have turned from law to personal power. l It is that choice which as democrats we challenge and challenge with confidence, as opposed to every ancient principle of liberty and of just government Have we given up law? Must we fall back on discretionary executive power? The gov l ernment of the United States was estab- | lished to get rid of arbitrary, that IS, discretionary executive power. If we re- 1 turn to it, we abandon the very prin- 1 ciples of our foundation, give up the l English and American experiment and | turn back to discredited models of gov | ernment.
 | "A mere casual examination of recent legislation will show that these state | ments are not based upon falcy or upon l exaggeration, but upon the necessary | character of the things we have been | trying to do. Law which cannot define | and discriminate the transactions which it is the purpose of the legislature to 1 forbid is not ready to become law at all, and yet 1t is just that that our recent statutes enacted by way of regulating some of the most important enterprises of the country have failed to do. They have run in vague terms, Jumping things permissible with things impermissible, in- terfering with business without analyzing it or carefully discriminating Its good and bad features. And the. when the re- suits were unsatisfactory they have sought to lodge the power to discriminate, to permit and forbid, in the hands of commissions with very extensive discre- tionary powers. administrative in char acter. not judicial; for no process is ju- dicial which does not rest upon definitnn, upon detailed and explicit provisions or known law. The Sherman act was as clumsy as it has been intellectual, and the remedy for it has been to lodge the power to discriminate between what It should have forbidden and what it should have permitted in the hands of bodies or commissioners appointed by the Presi- dent
 Trusts Forbidden.
 "The latest proposals are typical Of all tho rest All combinations or agreements in restraint of trade had been forbidden by statute. But some agreements in re- straint of trade, some sorts of pooling Of rates by the railroads for instance, do not in fact operate to the detriment or the public or of trade itself, but are ben eficial rather and to be desired in the in- terest alike of efficiency and economy. The lawmakers, upon that discovery, are not invited by the reformers to attempt definitions of law which will discriminate between those agreements in restraint Of trade which are innocent of monopolistic intent or effect and desirable in the ln- terest of the community itself, from those which the vague original law was in tended to prevent. They are urged on the contrary, to put the whole matter in the hands of an executive officer. It is proposed to invite all corporations which wish to keep within the limits of the