The morning journal-courier., 1908-10-07
LILLEY AT MERIDEN,

Nue VI luH bpuluul'Npulltl HpettH delivered last evening to the. voters of Meriden by MT. Lilley, tho machine candidate of the republican party for governor, It concerns itself entirely with the proposed public utilities law, which he appears to have read and which he now endorses subject to "a proper discussion of SO vital ques- ton"
 Of all newspapers in the state of Connecticut The Journal-Courier would be the last to dissent from his general approval of the movement to create q public service commission We have no fault to find with tho logic of his discourse MT, Lllley is right in this connection, but he Is right because he has got to be right. Public opinion some time ago. as formulated by the friends of the movement, Governor Woodruff and the various associations of business men made any other attitude, eith- CT on Mir. Lilley's part, on the part of the public service corporations of the state or on the part of Judge Robertson lnconceIvahle. The argu- ment which Mir, Liley advances in thIs latest speech might have been taken bodily from these columns so frequently have we presented it In behalf of a commission, not that the object of such legislation is to bait the public service corporations but that the public may be protected un- der the enforcement of the principle of natural monopoly
 We cannot but feel, in view of the character of Mir, Llllcy's candidacy and the character of the machine which forced t, that he treads dan gerous ground when he rages against 'the outrageous watering of the se- curities of the trolley roads of the state" This evil of which he now so loudly complains was evolved and de- veloped and carried to its full frultlon under the otherwise occupied eye of the Connecticut railroad commission, of which Orsimus k. Fyler, Mir, Iil- ley's political sponsor, was and still is forceful member. One word from him alone to the general assembly, setting forth the evil of the proposed overcaptalization of the trolley roads, would have saved the public, man, woman and child, an annual tax in trolley fares of s1,523,OOO. As Clar- ence Deming has clearly shown in his masterly arraignment of the repub- licaan state machine: These aquat- les have lasted since 1892 and in not a word of the annual reports of the railroad commission have they been
 exposed or condemned" It is at the
 hands of this very machine that Mir
 Lilley offers himself to the people of Connecticut as their guide and savior
 It is too much to ask of human ma.
 ture to accept him knowingly as such
 In view of the history of the move.
 ment to create in Connecticut pub.
 lie service commission and the rela.
 to 1t, he has his nerve with him wher
 he undertakes to make it his principa
 asset in the present campaign. Tn,
 republican machine, and all of the lit
 tie fellows who hang to It's coat tails
 were opposed to Governor Woodruffs
 plan of establishing a commission They undertook to throw him at everl turn in the discussion and would hay, succeeded had they not feared the DO litical outcome. When they becam,
 convinced that he had public opniol
 behind him, they reluctantly consent
 ed to the passage of a resolution ere
 ating a commission of inquiry bu } they would not let him name tn, } members of it The act creating tn, 5 commission of inquiry embodied in 1 the men who were to do the inquirine 3 These same machinsts, who calle, the governor all kinds of names {, l his back even carried their opposl 3 ton so far 10 the proposed elimIna l ton of the state railroad commission 3 for public utilities commission a 3 to refuse to let the republican stat { platform say a word about it, Thes
 facts and Mrs Lilley's sudden love o t the proposed law are quite enough t 9 make intelligent men suspicious o Q his sincerity
 s MT Lilleys arraignment of the dem ocrats In his Merlden speech Tor dif { ferences of opinion as between neigh l boring states on live issues is veal [ It must be admitted tlrat the differ s ences of opinion referred to exist bu , we prefer differences of opinion as be l. tween states than a platform which n silent on all live Issues, and which b so sothfully written that 1t approve ] Mir. sherman and Mr, Ldlley in tn I same breath But the impressive fac [ remains that no matter how cleyerl e MT, Lilley plays on the sympathies c - a Connecticut audience by emotion n ally approving deserving local issue'