Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-07-30
[By Associated Press.1

- ~ piS CloOi VI
The United States by the committee
appointed by the Republican nation
" convention, William Howard Taft,
following the long-established Gus
tom, today, delivered an address of
acceptance in which he outlined
some of the leading issues of the cam
palgn speaking as follows:
senator Warner n Gentlemen Of
the Committee: l am deeply sensi-
bic of the honor which the Republic
can national convention has conferred
on me In the nomination which you
formally tender I accept it with full
appreciation of the responsibility, it
imposes.
In Maintenance OF Roosevelt Policies
Gentlemen the strength of the Re-
publican cause in the campaign at
hand is in the fact that we represent
policies essential to the reform of
known abuses to the continuance of
liberty n true prosperity and that
we are determined, as our platform
u~nequivocally declares, to maintain
them n carry them on. For more
tina ten years this country passed
through an epoch of material develop
ment far beyond any that ever oc-
Cured in the world before. In its
course, certain evils. crept in. Some
prominent n influential members
OF the community, spurred by finan-
c1al success and in their hurry for
greater wealth, became unmindful of
the common rules of business honesty
and fidelity and of the limitations i'm
posed by law pom their action.
This became known. The revela-
tons Of the breaches of trust, the dis
Nrann I ~~- - - L - --.-
nation by railways, the accummulat-
ing evidence of the violation of the
anti-trust law by a number of cor
porations, the over-issue of stocks and
bonds on interstate railways for the
unlawful enriching of directors and
for the purpose of concentrating con-
troi of railways in one management,
all quickened the conscience Of the
people, and brought on a moral
awakening among them that BODIED
well for the future of the country.
VIVA. Roosevelt Has Done
The men who formulated the ex-
precision of the popular conscience
and who led the movement for prac-
teal reform was Theodore Roosevelt.
He laid down the doctrine that the
rich violators of the law should be
amenable to restrain and punish as
the offender without wealth and with
out influence, and he proceeded by re-
commenting legislation and directing
executive action to make that prin-
ciple good in actual performance. 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 discrimination which have been
general in the practice Of the rail-
roads, 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 refrigerators, line
terminal railroads and pipe lines and
forbade in future the combination of
the transportations and shipping bust
ness under one control in order to
avoid undue 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 corpora
tions. He pressed to passage he 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 a
law, which the Republican convention
has since specifically approved, re-
stricting the future issue of stocks
and bonds by interstate railways to
-,.-t - ...,, H.. -,,%lD~3ooI hwy faInf>ol
authority.
He demonstrated to h people by
what he said, by what he recommend
ed to congress and by what he did,
the sincerity of his efforts to command
respect for the law, to secure equality
of all before the law, and to save the
country from the dangers of a pluto
cratic government, toward which we
were fast tending.
In this work Mr. Roosevelt has had
the support and sympathy of the Re-
publican party, and it's chief hope of
success in the present controversy
must rest on the confidence which the
people Of the country nav In the
sincerity OF the party's declaration In
its platform, that it intends to con-
tinue the policies.
Means of Retaining Progress
Mr. Roosevelt has set high the stand
ard of business morality n obedi-
ence to law. The railroad rate bill
was useful possibly in the i'm
mediate moral effect of its passage
than even in the legal effect of its
very useful provisions. From its en-
actrnent dates, the voluntary abandon
ment Of the practice of ebates and
discrinfnations by the railroads and
the return by their managers to ODE
dience 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 a similar moral effect In the
general business community and have
made 1T now the common practice fol-
the great industrial corporations tc
consult the law with a view to keep
Ing Htthin its prayisians~ It has also