The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-04-08

for calm and thorough discussion. The
experience has been that the best con-
sidered measures have many defects.
This was the case with the railroad rate
bill. which was "chewed over" for near
ly year in Congress before it became
a law.
As an example, there was no other
clause more discussed than the anti
! pass provision of that railroad rate law.
/ The Senate had a half dozen quarrels
over 1t and then the Senate conferees
had big wrangle with the House con-
ferees about it. The upshot of it was
that all hands agreed upon an anti-pass
clause. calculated to cut off all abuses
and to do even justice to the railroads.
The railroads were generally consulted.
but their learned representatives, who
swarmed Washington that winter, did
not think of the embarrassment which
might follow, the inability of the roads
To bring employees from a distance and
from the inability of the roads to send
employees home. after work was done.
without paying cash fares. This lack
in the law has been a serious hindrance
to railroads that have great construc-
ton projects under way, requiring
thousands of laborers. The laborers
were not in their employ, unless they
paid them day wages. till these laborers
were on the works. Still another strik-
ing instance of an oversight in the rail-
road rate law was that while it allowed
the employees of railroads to travel free,
when one of them was killed or dieo
cash had to be paid to transport his
remains home.
A lot of people think that politics
is largely behind all the agitation over
these things and that the men who are
pressing for legislation and those who
are resisting legislation are doing so
with an eye to the forthcoming cam
paign. Unquestionably there is an ele-
ment of truth in such charges. How
ever, one can not doubt that the Presi-
dent earnestly wants much of the legis-
lation because he honestly believes it
ought to be enacted. He sees the
months slipping by and the time draw
ing short when he will have authority
to accomplish such things. He is also
anxious that the party should be in
the best possible shape for the cam
paign and that it shall occupy such
strategic positions on the questions and
issues of the day that 1t can not be
defeated in the November balIoting.
The President has been embarrassed
by the labor leaders quite as much as
by the Congressional leaders. The la
Dor leaders will not take a half loaf.
They want it all and because the Presi
dent has been unwilling to concede
them everything they have drawn out
of the negotiations and are going IT
alone.
Very soon the President will send a
special message to Congress defining
anew what he wants. That message is
awaited with much interest. It has
been toned down considerably. as the
result of powwows with members of
the Senate and House. Senator Aid
rich recently told the President his first
special message on these subjects, for
warded late in January, was too long.
Busy people could not stop to read it.
Now the President has written ii more
tersely and he proposes to reiterate so
that the American people can under
stand what he thinks Congress should
do.
ERNEST G. WALKER.