Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-12-09


 policy set forth in such twin denuncia-
 tions amounts to absolutely nothing,
 for the first half is nullifed by the
 second half. The chief reason, among
 the many sound and compelling reasons,
 that led to the formation of the nation
 al government, was the absolute need
 that the Union, and not the several
 states, should deal with interstate and
 foreign commerce.; and the power to
 deal with interstate commerce was
 granted absolutely and plenarily to the
 central government and was exercised
 completely as regards the only instru-
 ments of interstate commerce known in
 those days--the waterways, the high,
 roAds, as well as the partnerships of
 individuals who then conducted all of
 what business there was. Interstate commerce is now chiefly conducted by lrailroads; and the great corporation
 has supplanted the mass of small part
 nerships or individuals. The proposal
 to make the national government su-
 preme over, and therefore to give if
 complete control over, the railroads and
 other instruments of interstate com
 merce is merely proposal to carry out
 to the letter one of the prime pur-
 poses, if not the prime purpose, for
 which the constitution was founded. It
 does not represent capitalization. It
 represents merely the acknowledgment of the patent fact that centralization
 has already come in business If this
 irresponsible outside business power is
 to be controlled in tine interest of the general public it can only be controlled in one way; by giving adequate power of control to the one sovereignty capa-
 ble of exercising such power-the na- tional government. Forty or fifty separate state governments can not ex- ercise that power over corporations do.
 ing business in most or all of them; first, because they absolutely lack the authority to deal with interstate busi- ness in any form; and second. because of the inevitable conflict of authority sure to arise in the effort to enforce different kinds of state regulation. oft en inconsistent with one another and sometimes oppressive in themselves. Such divided authority can not regu- late comm rec with wisdom and effect.
 The central government is the only power which, withou. oppression, can nevertheless thoroughly and adequately control and supervise the large corpora. tions. To abanllon the effort for nation al control means to abandon the effort for all adequate control and yet to rem der likely continual bursts of action bv state legislatures, which cannot achieve the purpose sought for. but which can do great deal of damage to the-cor- porations without comforting any real benefit to the public.
 believe that the more farsiphted corporations are themselves coming to recognize the unwisdom of the violent hostility they have displayed during the last few years to regulation and control by the national government of combinations engaged in interstate business. The truth is that we who believe in this movement of asserting and exercising genuine control. in the public interest, over these great cor porations have to contend against two sets of enemies. who, though nominally opposed to one another, are really allies Tn preventing proper solution of the problem. There are, first. the big cor poration men. and the extreme individ. ualists among business men, who gen timely believe in utterly unregulated business-that is, in the reign of pluto. cracy; and. second, the men who. being blind to the economic movements of the day, believe in 8 movement of re- pression rather than of regulation of and who denounce both the power of the railroads and the ex- ercise of the federal power which alone can really control the railroads. Those who believe in efficient national control, on the other hand. do not in the least object to combinations; do not in the least object to concentration in business administration. On the con trary, they favor both. with the all important proviso that there shall be l such publicity about their workings. and such thoroughgoing control over over them,. as to insure their being in | the interest, and not against the inter. | est, of the public We do not object ta the concentration of wealth and ad | inlnlstratlon; but We do believe in the I distribution of the wealth in profits to | fhe real owners, and in securing to 1 the public the full benefit of the con rentrated administration. We believe | Lhat with concentration in administra non there can come both the advantage 'f larger ownership and of a more equitable distribution of profits, and at | .he same time better service to the commonwealth. We believe that the ldmlnistration should be for the bene- It of the many; and that greed and 'ascallty, practiced on large scale. 'hould be punished as relentlessly as if )racticed on a small scale.
 We do not for moment believe that he problem will be solved by any short md easy method. The solution will ome only by pressing various concur. ent remedies. Some of these remedies must he outside the domain of all gov. 'rnment. some must lie outside the Ioman of the federal government. But here IS legislation which the federal government alone can enact and which absolutely vital in order to secure ne attainment of our purpose Many avs are needed. There should be rcgn. ation by the national government of ne great interstate corporations. in- iuding simple method of account ,eeplng, publicity supervision of the ssue of securities, abolition of rebates NF .,.,l T.