The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1908-07-28
TAFTS NOTIFICATION DAI IAAUGURATED
BY BOOMING CANNON FROM THE H|LLT0Ps

brought on moral awakening among
them that boded will for the future of
the country.
What Roosevelt Has Done.
The men who formulated the ex-
preston of the popular conscience
and who led the movement for practi-
cal reform was Theodore Roosevelt.
He laid down the doctrine that the
rtch violator of the law should be as
amendable to restraint and punish
ment as the offender without wealth
and without influence. and he pro-
ceeded by recommending legislation
and directing executive action to make
that principle good in actual per-
formance. He secured the passage
of the so-called rate bill designed
more effectively to restrain excessive
and fix reasonable rates, and to
punish secret rebates and discrimin-
ations which had been general in the
practice of the railroads, and which
had done much to enable unlawful
trusts to drive out of business their
competitors. 1t secured much closer
supervision of railway transactions
and brought within the operation of
the same statute, express companies,
sleeping car companies, fast freight
and refrigerator lines, terminal rail-
roads and pipe lines and forbade in
future the combination of the trans
portation and shipping business un-
der one control in order to avoid un-
due discrimination.
|. President Roosevelt directed suits
to be brought and prosecutions to be
instituted under the antitrust law
to enforce it's provisions against the
most powerful of the Industrial cor
porations. 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 passage of law, which the repub-
lican convention has since specifically
approved, restricting the future issue
of stocks and bonds by interstate rail-
ways to such as may be authorized BY
federal. authority. He demonstrated
6the people what he said, by what
he recommended to congress and by
svfat h8 dlstS the sincerity Of his ef-
forts To; command respect for the law,
to secure equality of all before the
law, and to save the country. from the
dangers OF plutocratic government
toward which we were fast tending'
In this work Mr.. Roosevelt has had
the support and sympathy Of the re-
publican party. and its chief hope of
success in the present controversy
must rest on the confidence which the
people of the country have in the sin
cerity of the party's declaration in it's
nj n fNy 4tAA< s~~L
the policies.
Securing Progress Made.
Mr.. Roosevelt has set high the
standard of business morality and
obedience to law. The railroad rate
bill was more useful possibly in the
immediate moral effect of it's passage
than even in the legal effect of its
very useful provisions. From it's en-
actment dates the voluntary abandon
ment Of the practice of rebates and
determinations by the railroads and
the return by their managers to obed-
fence to law in the fixing of tariffs.
The pure food and meat inspection
laws and the prosecutions directed by
the president under the antitrust law
have had similar moral effect in the
general business community and have
made 1t now the common practice for
the crate industrial corporations to
consult the law with view in keep
ing within its provisions. 1t has also
had the effect of protecting and en-
cOuraging small and competitive COM
panies SO that they have been en-
abled to do profitable business.
But we should be blind to the or
dinary working of human nature, If
we did not recognize that the moral
standards set by President Roosevelt
will not continue to be observed by
those whom cupidity and desire for
financial power, may tempt, unless
the requisite machinery is introduced
into the law which shall in its practi-
cal operations maintain these stand
ards and secure the country against
q departure from them.
Function of Next Administration.
Z The chief function of the adminis-
tration in my judgment is distinct
from and progressive development
which has been performed by Presi-
dent Roosevelt.
The chief function of the next ad-
ministration is to complete and per-
feet the machinery by which these
standards may be maintained by
which the lawbreakers may be
promptly restrained and punish but
which shall operate with sufficient ac-
curacy and dispatch to interfere with
legitimate business as little as possi-
BILE. Such machinery is now ade-
quae. Under the present rate bill
andfunder all its amendments the bur-
den Of the interstate commerce COM
mission in supervising and regulating
the operation of the railroads of this
country has grown 30 heavy that It
is utterly impossible for hat tribunal
to hear and dispose. in any reasonable
time Of the many complaints, queries
and issues that are brought before It
for decision. It ought to be relieved