Arizona republican., 1908-12-09

for, but which can do a great deal of damage to the corporation with
 out conferring any re3l benefit on
 the public.
 Allied Opposition.
 I believe that the more farsighted
 corporations are themselves coming
 to recognize the unwisdom of the violent hostility they have displayed
 during the last few years to regula- tion and control by the national gov
 ernment of combinations engaged in
 interstate business. The truth is that we who believe in this movement of asserting and exercising a genuine control, in the public interest, over the great corporations have to con- tend against two sets of enemies. who, though nominally opposed to one another, are really allies in pre- venting a proper solution of the problem. There are, first, the big corporation men, and the extreme in dividualists among business men, who genuinely believe in utterly unregu- lated business-that is, in the reign of plutocracy' and. second, the men who, being blind to the economic
 
 movement of repression rather than of regulation of corporations. and who denounce both the power of the railroads and the exercise of the fed eral power which alone can really control the railroads Those who be- lieve in efficien. national control on the other hand, do not in the least object to combinations; do not in the least object to concentration in bus mess administration. On the con trary, they favor both, with the all important proviso that there shall be such publicity about their workings, and such thoroughgoing control over them, as to insure their being in the interest, and not against the interest, of the general public. We do not object to the concentration of wealth and administration; but we do believe in the distribution of the wealth in profits to the real owners, and in securing to the public the full benefit of the concentrated admins tration. We believe that with con centration in administration there can come both the advantage of larger ownership and of more tAuANdblt dASAtibuNAoil OA plbAAASs anu at the same time a better service to the commonwealth. We believe that the administration should be for the benefit of the many and that greed and rascality practieed on a large scale, should be punished as relent- lessly as if practiced on a small scale.
 We do not for a moment believe that the problem will be solved by any short and easy method. The so- lution will come only by pressing various concurrent remedies. Some of these remedies must lie outside the domain of all government. Some must lie outside the domain of the federal government. But there is legislation which the federal govern ment alone can enact and which is vital in order to secure the of our purpose. Many laws are needed. There should be regulation by the national govern ment of the great interstate corpora tions, including a simple method of account keeping, publicity, supervis- ion of the issue of securities, aboli ton of rebates and of special privi- leRtS. mere SHOulu Dt SllOIl lAlllG franchises for all corporations en- gagged in public business; including the corporations which get power from water rights. There should be national as well as state guardian ship of mines and forests. The labor legislation hereinafter referred to should concurrently be enacted into law.
 Widely Scattered Power.
 To accomplish this, means of course a certain increase in the use of-not the creation of-power, by the central government. The power already exists; it does net have tol be created: the only question is whether it shall be used or left idle and meanwhile the corporations over which the power ought to be exercised will not remain Idle. Let those who object to this increase in the use of the only power available, the national power, be frank. and admit openly that they propose to abandon any effort to control the great business corporations and to exercise supervision over the aceu- mutation and distribution of wealth; for such supervision and control can only come through this particular kind of increase of power. We no more believe in that empiricism which demands absolutely unrestrained in dividualism than we do in that em- piricism which clamors for "a dead ening socialism which would destroy all individual initiative and would ruin the country with q complete ness that not even an unrestraiHed individualism itself could achieve. The danger to American democracy lies not in the least in the concen- tration of administrative power in and accountable hands. It lies in having the power insufff- ciently concentrated. so that no one can be held responsible to the people for it's use. Concentrated power is palpable, visible, responsible, easily quickly. held to account. Power scattered through many ad- many legislators, many men who work behind and through legislators and administrators, is i'm palpable, is unseen, is irresponsible, can not be reached, can not be held to account. Democracy is in peril wherever the administration of po- liticaI power is scattered among a variety. of men who work in secret, whose very names are unknown to