Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1908-02-06
PRESIDENT URGES
LAW ENFORCEMENT
Continued from Page l.
JUSTICE EQUAL For ALL.

- tSEA< AtAN ALL
The laws must in the future be ad-
ministered as they are now being ad-
ministered. so that the Department of
Justice may continue to be, what it now
is, in very fact the Department of JUS
tlce, where so far as our ability permits
justice is melted out with an even hand
to great and small, rich and poor. weak
and strong. Moreover, there should be
no delay in experimenting the laws
now on the statute books by the enact
ment of further legislation as outlined
in the message l sent to the Congress
on its assembling.
Under the existing laws much, very
much, has been actually accomplished
during the past six years, and it has
been shown by actual experience that
they can be enforced against the wealth
lest corporation and the richest and
most powerful manager or manipulation
of that corporation, as vigorously and
fearlessly as against the humblest of
fender. Above all, they have been
enforced against the very wrongdoers
and agents of wrongdoers who have for
so many years gone scotfree and fiouted
the laws with impunity, against great
law-defying corporations of immense
wealth, which, until within the last
half dozen years, have treated them
selves and have expected others to treat
them as being beyond and above all Dos
slble check from law.
NATIONAL CONTROL ESSENTIAL.
1t is especially necessary to secure to
the representatives of the National
Government full power to deal with the
great corporations engaged in interstate
commerce, and above all, with the
great interstate common carriers. Our
people should clearly recognize that
while there are difficulties in any course
of conduct to be followed in dealing
with these great corporations, these diff
ficulties must be faced, and one of three
courses followed.
The first course is to abandon all eff
fort to oversee and control their actions
IN the interest of the general public and
to permit return to the utter lack OF
control which would obtain if they were
left to common law. l do not for a mo-
ment believe that our people would tol.
crate this position. The extraordinary
growth of modern industrialism has ren.
dered the common law, which grew UT
under and was adapted to deal with to-
tally different conditions, in many re
spects inadequate to deal with the new
conditions. These new conditions max,
1t necessary to shackle cunning as il
the past we have shackled force.
The vast individual and corporate for
tunes, the vast combinations of capital
which have marked the development o.
our industrial system, create new con
ditions, and necessitate q change from
the old attitude of the State and the ma
ton toward the rules regulating the &C
QUESTION and untrammeled business use
OF property, in order both that property
may be adequately protected, and thai
at the same time those who hold it may
be prevented from wrongdoing.
UNITY OF STATE AND NATION.
The second and third courses are t.
have the regulation undertaken either
by the nation or by the States. OF
course, in any event, both the Nationa
Government and the several State Gov
ernments must do each its part, anc
each can do a certain amount that the
other cannot do, while the only really
satisfactory results must be obtained
by the Representatives of the National
and State Governments working heart
lily together within their respective
spheres. But in my judgment thorough
going and satisfactory control can in
the end only be obtained by the action
Of the National Government, for almost
all the corporations of enormous wealth
that is, the corporations which it is
especially desirable to control-and en-
gagged in interstate commerce, and de-
rive their power and their Importance
not from that portion of their business
which is intrastrate, but from the inter
state business. 1t is not easy always
to decide just where the line of demar-
cation between the two kinds of bust
ness falls.
COURTS MUST DECIDE.
The line must ultimately be drawn bv
the Federal courts. Much of the effort
to secure adequate control of the great
corporations by the State action has
been wise end effective, but much of it
has been neither; for when the effort is
made to accomplish by the action of the
State what can only be accomplished by
the action of the nation, the result can
only be disappointment, and in the end
the law will probably be declared uncon-
stitutional. So likewise in the national
arena, we who believe in the measures
herein advocated are hampered and not
aided by the extremists who advocate
action On uiolopf fhof - ,.vo,,I1 L.