Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1908-05-01

Washington, April 2S-The president
sent a special message to congress fur
Their outlining his views as to legisla.
ton. The message in part follows:
In my message to the congress OF
March %, 1908, outlined certain meas
ures which believe the majority Of our
countrymen desire to have enacted into
law at this time. These measures do not
represent by any means all that l would
like to see done IL l thought IT possible
but they do represent what l believe can
now be done If an earnest effort toward
this end is made.
Since l wrote this message an employ
ers' liability law has been enacted which,
it is true, comes short Of what ought TO
have been DONE but which does represent
a real advance. Apparently there is good
ground to hope that there will be further
legislation providing for recompensing all
employees who suffer injury while engaged
in the public service; that there will be
child labor law enacted for the Distri
Of Columbia; that the waterways com
mission will be continued with sufficient
financial support to increase the effective
ness of its preparatory work; that steps
will be taken to provide for such inveSti-
cation into tariff conditions by the ap-
prOpriate committee of the house of rep
resentatives and by government experts
in the executive service as will secure
the full information necessary for imme-
date action in revising the tariff at the
hands of the congress elected next fall.
and, finally, that financial legislation Will
be enacted providing for temporary meas
ures for meeting any trouble that may
arise in the next year or two, and for
commission of experts who shall thor
Oughly ~inXestigate the whole matter,
both here and in the great commercial
countries abroad, so as to be able to
recommend legislation which will put our
financial system on an efficient and per-
manent basis. It is much to be wished
that one feature of the financial legisla-
ton of this session should be the estab-
lishment of postal savings banks. Ample
appropriations should be made to enable
the interstate commerce commission to
carry out the very important feature OF
the Hepburn law which gives to the COM
mission supervision and control over the
accounting systems of the railroads.
The president then says a law
should be passed limiting the use OF
labar injunctions, as he does not wish
to see an embittered effort made to
destroy it. He then says:
The strengthening of the antitrust law
is demanded upon both moral and eco
nomic grounds. Our purpose in strength
ening it is to secure more effective con-
troll by the national government over the
business use of the vast masses OF indi-
Vidual, and especially of corporate
wealth, which at the present time mo
nOpolize most of the interstate business
of the country, and we believe the con
troll can best be exercised by preventing
the growth of abuses rather than merely
by trying to destroy them when they
have already grown.
Power should unquestionably be lodged
somewhere in the executive branch OF
the government to permit combinations
which will further the public interest, but
it must always be remembered that as re-
CARDS the great and wealthy cormbina-
lions through which most of the inter
state business of today is done the bur
den of proof should be on them to show
that they have a right to exist
The measures L advocate are in the IN
terest both of decent corporations and OF
law-abding labor unions. They are more
over prominently in the interest of the
public. for in my judgment the American
peOple have definitely made up their
minds that the days of the reign of the
great law defying and law evadtng cor
poratiOns are over and that from this
time on the mighty organizations of CAPT
tai necessary for the transaction OF busi-
ness under modern conditions, while en-
couraged so long as they act honestly and
in the interest of the general public, are
to be subjected to careful supervision and
regulation of a kind SO effective as to in
sure their acting in the interest of the
people as a whole.
Allegations are often made to the effect
that there is no real need for these laws
looking to the more effective control of
the great corporations upon the ground
that they will do their work well without
such control. call your attention to the
accompanying copy of a report just sub
mitted by Nathan Matthews, chairman
of the finance commission. to the mayor
and city council of Boston, relating to,
certain evil practices Of various corpora
tions which have been bidders for fur
nishing to the city iron and steel. This
report shows that there have been eX-
tensive combinations formed among the
various corporations which have business
with the city of Boston. including. for in
stance a carefully planned combination
embracing practically all the firms and
corporations engaged in structural steel
work in New England. 1t affected the
states, the cities and towns, the railroads
and street railways, and generally all
persons having occasion to use iron or
steel for any purpose in that section OF
the country. AS regards the city OF Bos-
ton, the combination resulted in parcel
ing out the work by cOllusive bids, plain
ly dishonest and supported by false af-
formations.
But among the many kinds Of evil, So
cial, industrial and political, which is our
uuLy as a nation bleIuAy u SOhADdti tAeie
is none at the same time more base and
more dangerous than the greed which
treats the plain and simple rules of hon
esty with cynical contempt II they inter-
fere with making a profit, and as nation
we cannot be held guiltless If we condone
such action. The man who breaches ha-
tired of wealth honestly acquired, who in
culcates envy and jealousy and SANDER
GUS i'll will toward these of his fellows
who by thrift, energy and industry have
become men of means is a menace to the
community. But his counterpart in evil is
to be found in that particular kind of
multimillionaire who is almost the least
enviable and is certainly one of the least
admirable of all our citizens. man of
whom it has been well said that his face
has grown hard and cruel while his body
has grown soft, whose son is fool and
his daughter a foreign princess, whose
nominal pleasures are at best those of
tasteless and extravagant luxury and
whose real delight, whose real life work,
is the accumulation and use of power in
its most sordid and least elevating form.
In the chaos of an absolutely unrestricted
commercial individualism under modern
conditions this is a type that becomes
prominent as inevitably as the marauder
baron became prominent in the physical