The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-12-08

competents should be refused promo
tion.''
Here are some of the noteworthy ex-
pressions in his message:
Il believe that under the interstate
clause of the constitution the United
States has complete and paramount
right to control all agencies of inter-
state commerce, and l believe that the
national government alone can exer-
else this right with wisdom and
effectiveness so as both to secure JUS
tice from and to do justice to the
great corporations which are the most
important factors in modern busi-
ness"
Il believe that 1t is worse than
folly to attempt to prohibit all COM
binations as is done by the Sherman
anti trust law, because such law
can be enforced only imperfectly and
unequally, and its enforcement works
almost as much hardship as good.
THE railways of the country should
be put completely under the Interstate
Commerce commission and removed
from the domain of the antitrust
law
RATES must be made as low as is
compatible with giving proper returns
to all the employees of the railroad
from the highest to the lowest, and
proper returns to the shareholders,
duced in such fashion as to necessi-
tate cut in the wages of the en-
ployes or the abolition of the proper
and legitimate profits of honest share
holders
1.-THE proposal to make the nation
al government supreme over, and
therefore to give it complete control
over, the railroads and other instru-
ments of interstate commerce is mere
ly proposal to carry out to the let
ter one of the prime purposes, if not
the prime purpose, for which the con-
stitution was founded. It does not
represent Capitalization. 1t represents
merely the acknowledgment of the
patent fact that Capitalization has al
ready come in business. If this ire
sponsible outside business power is to
be controlled in the interest of the
general public it can only be contro1l-
ed in one way, by giving adequate
power of control to the one sovereign
ty capable of exercising such power
the national government"
Forty or fifty separate state govern
ments can not exercise that power
over corporations doing business in
most or all of them, first, because they
absolutely lack the authority to deal
with interstate business 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 often inconsistent
with one another and sometimes op-
pressive in themselves. Such divided
authority can not regulate commerce
with wisdom and effect. THE contral
government is the only power which
without oppression can nevertheless
thoroughly and adequately control and
supervise the large corporations
ITO abandon the effort for national
control means to abandon the effort
for all adequate control and yet to rem
der likely continual bursts of action by
state legislatures. which cannot achieve
the purpose sought for, but which can
do a great deal of damage to the cor
poration without comforting any real
benefit on the public"
81 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 regulation and con-
troll by the national government of COM
binatfons engaged in interstate busi-
ness
Postal savings banks will make it
easy for the poorest to keep their saw
ings in absolute safety. The regula-
tion of the national highways must be
such that they shall serve all people
with equal Justice"
Corporate finances must be supervised
SO as to make it far safer than at present
for the man of small means to invest his
money in stocks.
saThere must be prohibition of child la
Dor, diminution Of woman labor. shorten shorten
'7Stock watering should be prohibited
and stock gambling, so far as is possible
itance tax on large fortunes.
Industrial education should be encour-
aged As far as possible we should HsnI,,
en- the burden of taxation on the small
man. "a
1--WE should put a premium upon thrift,
hard work and business energy, but these
qualities cease to be the main factors IN
accumulating a fortune long before that
fortune reaches d point where it would be
affected by any inheritance tax
such as I propose.
should fix the terms upon which the great
fortunes are inherited. They rarely do
good and they often do harm to those
who inherit them in their entirety.
eff there is any one duty which more
than another we owe it to our children
and our children's children to perform at
once it is to save the forests of this coun++
trv for they constitute the first and most
element in the conservation OF
the natural resources of the country"
The message in full is given in this is
sue on pages 2, and 4.