The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-09-05
Senator Beveridge, in a Speech
at Youngstown, o.,
Draws a Personal Parallel Be-
tween Taft and Bryan.
AN AARON, NOT MOSES,
Is the Way He Characterizes
the Democrat Candidate.
Such Men as He Are Necessary
to Human Progress.

Youngstown. o., Sept 5.-Senator
Albert ]. Beveridge addressing the
thousands assembled for the opening
of the Republican campaign in Ohio
this afternoon spoke in part as fol-
lows:
by their fruits ye shall know
them" Seven years ago we started
upon the great work of modern and
humane legislation that has made the
Roosevelt period historic. In those
years we passed the railroad rate bill,
which for the first time in American
history asserts the principle that the
government of all the people can and
will regulate those who carry the pro-
ducts of all the people. We passed
the meat inspection and pure food
laws. which ended the sale of poisoned
foods and adulterated drugs; the tr-
rigation law, which is making fertile
the arid west and will build within
our own continental boundaries new
empire of productive wealth.
In these seven years we have enact
ed more important laws for the safety,
comfort and welfare of labor than in
any two decades since the government
was founded. We passed the employ
ers' liability law, which revolutioniZed
the heartless rule of the common law
and gives the railroad laborer or his
family compensation for his injury or
death; the law forbidding railways
from requiring employees to work an
inhuman number of hours without
rest; the safety appliance act, which
not only lessons the danger to life and
limb of employees, but which increases
the safety of the travelling public. We
passed the Chinese exclusion act,
which keeps coolie labor out of the re-
public. and diminishes the number of
coolies already here. We passed the
government employees liability law, by
which every man who works for the
government is certain of compensation
for injury or his family for his death
while in the governments employ.
Never Thought of These Laws.
All these are Republican laws. Each
of them is a part of that plan of
craftsmanship which seeks to write
conscience and humanity upon our
statute books. Each of them was op-
posed secretly or openly by both Dem
ocrats and Republicans; each of them
received both Republican and Dem
ocratic votes But each of them was
urged by a Republican president, orig
mated by Republican statesmen, ar\
some of them were not even thought
of outside the Republican party. For
example, even Mr.. Bryan never dream
ed of the meat inspection and pure
food laws. yet that law means more to
the health of the American people
than all the curious devices he ever
proposed.
Mr.. Bryan complains that it is not
finished now But a. brick at a time
is the way to build house. Would
Won trust an architect who promised
to build it in the wink of an eye? The
instantaneous statesman writes no
sound laws. works no lasting reform
Aladdin rears none but imaginary
palaces.
The Real Labor Question.
Every labor law we have passed and
will pass is a part of that web OF IN
dustrial questions which we call the
labor problem. But after all, the fun
damental labor problem is the problem
of employment and pay. Work ana
wages are the foundations of labor's
wellbeing, without which all labor leg
isIation is the giving of a stone m
stead of bread. More American WORK.
ingmen own their own homes (and
those homes have more comforts) than
the workingmen of England, Germany,
Japan, France combined. Had any
political economist been told twenty
Eve years ago that carpenters. miners
and steel workers ever would be paid
the American wages of the present
day, he would have scoffed.
All this has come during Republi-
can administrations. We plan to con-
tinue and increase it.
Recovery From the Panic.
We are quickly recovering from the
briefest panic in our history. Let
workingmen contrast that panic with
the one that occurred under the last
Democratic administration and then
answer this question for themselves:
Will the election of Mr.. Bryan or Mr..
Taft best help the rapidly improving
bushes sof the country? And remem-
Der that active business means well
paid employment.
That Mr.. Bryan and the opposition
would make business practically i'm
possible Is proved by their national
franchise plan. They propose that
every enterprise big enough to do bust
ness in more than one state shall Sc
cure national license, which can be
granted or withdrawn by any admin
istration. But no business can succeed
without certainty; no business mar
could afford to invest a dollar when he
knew that his very right to do bust
hess at all might be taken away by the
caprice of a president or the accident
of an election. The franchise plan
makes every president a four-years-
car with absolute power over the life
and death of every business concern
large enough to trade throughout the
nation.
Had our navy been as large IN 1895
as It is today, Spain would not have
gone to war and Cuba would have
been freed by diplomacy; yet the act.
ual cash, spent in that little war
would have built two navies as grea
as the one we have today and main.
tained them for a score of years.
Comparison of Candidates.