The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-11-26
TAFT OUTLINES
HIS MESSAGE
Has Many New Stunts to Place
Before National Congress
at Coming Session.

during my sixty days Of travel
there has been a moment or two DELHI
GRAFTON, and during that time I have
been studying what it is the duty of
an executive to recommend to an in
coming congress in respect to future
legislation, and when L think of the
number Of things congress ought to do,
I an staggered lest it may not find
time to do them" In the final speech
of his thirteen thousand miles trip
through the West and South before an
immense audience this afternoon, Pres
ident Taft thus prefaced a preliminary
statement of some of the recommends
tions his first annual message to congress
would contain.
Gin the first place there is the con
servation of our resources and the rec
lamation of arid lands,'' said the Pres
ident. owe have reached time now
where great many people in the West
are counting on an immediate supply
of water for the land upon which they
have settled, which is not forthcoming,
because the money applied to the recla-
nation fund does not come in as quick
ly as expected, or at least quickly
enough to meet the exigency of the
occasion, and I am strongly in favor
of anticipating that fund, which is a
fund raised solely by the sale of public
lands, by the issuing of bonds, the pay
ment of which shall be charged to the
same source of revenue
Coal Lands and Water Power.
He added that the demand for the
products of the soil is greater, due to
the growing population, than the sup
ply is, and we must enlarge our acre
age, and the plain way seemed by rec
lamation through the application of
water to land heretofore desert and
by draining those lands which have
heretofore been swamps. Those lands
when brought into productivity would
yield, he said, far more than the lands
already under natural tillage. "Then
we have a great deal of valuable coal
land owned by the government he
continued. "We have a great many
water-power sites, the water power of
which viii furnish an immense amount
of power for use by electrical appi-
ances. Then there are millions of acres
of phosphate to be used in the fertiliza-
ton of the soil. Under existing laws
those lands are likely to be parted with
merely under a homestead settlement.
They are of such peculiar value that
it seems wiser that the government
should reserve some control over the
water power sites and the coal lands
and the phOsphates so that they may
not come into the hands of one con-
trolling corporation, but may be retain
ed by the government, with the power
to restrict the prices at which the coal,
or at least at which the power, is sold
to prevent the absorption into one COM
mand of all the power on the continent.
We have the antitrust law on our
hands for enforcement and the arrange
ment of the departments of the gov
eminent in such a way as to make it
more effective if possible.
Interstate Commerce Court.
"Then there is the interstate COM
merce law, which certainly needs
amendment in order to give the inter
state commerce tribunal more power
to prevent the delays which are now
incident to appeals to the courts. In
my Judgment the best way is to create
a special court and have a court that
is charged with the knowledge and
practise in regard to railroads, so that
thu matter can be promptly disposed
Nf. Then I am strongly in favor of
postal savings bank I know that in
that proposition I come up against
great many conservative bankers, and
also of a great many who view with
doubt the wisdom of extending pater-
nalism in the government. Where it
happens that the government is so sit
uated that it can do a thing better
and more economically than individuals
can do it, and can supply a want for
a means of thrift, I am in favor of
its doing it. The monetary reform is
under consideration by a commission
I am hopeful that the commission may
present the conditions that exist here
and the conditions as they exist in
Europe, and in this way point out to
us some steps that may be taken to
reform what is certainly today nothing
but a patchwork.
Reforms in the Courts.
"Then there is another subject that
is very near to my heart. | have been
a judge, and that is subject I know
something about. We must improve
our legal procedure so as to make it
both in criminal and civil cases more
simple, more rapid and less expensive.
and l mean to recommend to congress
the appointment of a commission TO
take that subject up with respect to
the federal procedure, and then if by
the federal procedure we achieve re-
suit that eommends itself, it will form
a model for the States'' Mr.. Taft
said he believed the time had come for
the organization of a federal health
bureau and the concentration in ii of
all the instruments for the preserva-
tion of health and for the investiga-
ton of diseases that are now included
in the national government and such
others as may be properly placed there.
That is a pretty long list of things TO
do, but if We set our shoulders to-
gether we can do a lot in one session