The Alaska citizen., 1910-07-30
s;:s s;:s 5 Living Principles of Democracy l3 and Discourse Upon Vital Issues by President Woodrow Wilson


lutttesiS must Oe leSdl TesuidlOH and not direct management
 Tt is bad enough to have the modern over-grown corporations to restrain and control. It would be infinitely worse if they were combin- ed with government itself, and partnership formed which could not be broken up without attacking our very governors themselves.
 Tn the second place, it Is clearly our duty so soon as we get the op- portunity. to take the government out of the business of patronage, the business of granting favors and privileges. of arranging the laws so that this. that, or the other group of men may make large profits out of their business, and draw it back to the function of safeguarding rights, general. not particular rights, the rights which make not so much for the prosperity which enables small groups of individuals to pile up enormous fortunes, as for general stimulation, universal op- portunity for enlightenment and jus tice.
 'l am thinking, of course, of tar if legislation Whatever may be our views with regard to the policy vag- uely called the policy of protection, it is clear that in fact it has long since, as dealt with by Congress, ceased to be policy of protection and become a policy of patronage, policy of arrangement by which l particular interests in the country may be sure of their profits, whether the country profits by their enter prise or not. It is by such ques- has condescended to base it's legis- lation and it's system of taxation up on the interests not of the whole people, but of the particular en- i terprises which the leaders in Con gress thought it profitable for their party to patronize and draw into partnership for the maintenance of party power.
 Cause of High Prices.
 We are told that the present extraordinary high prices of conmo- dites of all sorts is due not to the tariff, but to the fact that We are not producing enough to keep up with the daily demand, and that this 1 is particularly true with regard to the things We eat and have daily need of Take meat, for example, and see what the truth is. The truth is that the Meat Trust has been able to control the meat mar ket to such an extent that scores of ranchmen have been driven out of the cattle-raising business be- cause it was unprofitable. The short supply of meat is due to the mono poly created by the Meat Trust. It is true. therefore, that the supply | IS SHOll 1OIllpditu Nlth lllC NoSt uC mand, but 1t has been made short by the operation of a trust unques- tionably fostered by the legislation of the government. l dare say that the same might be shown to be true with regard to the grains. There have been some very interesting and disgraceful chapters of railroad his tory which have meant that the men in control of the capital of the country have often used the railways to create such disadvantage of ship ment on the part of farmers whom they did not care to favor, that the shipment of grain to market became improbable and the supply was again checked by monopoly, the mo nopoly of the bigger shippers.
 Tn the third place, it is one of the chief duties of the Demo cratic party to initiate such reforms, alike in local and in Federal govern ment, as will secure economy, re- sponsibility, honesty, fidelity. The processes of reform which will se- cure these neglected objects are pro cesses of simplification, not of elab- oration, not processes which multiply the instrumentalities of government unnecessarily and therefore it's ex- Ipenses but the processes which make for the simplest, most straightfor- ward and business-like conduct of affairs.
 Need of Self-Reliance.
 And. finally, it seems to me that it is the duty of the Democratic par ty to challenge the people by every possible means to depend upon them selves rather than upon fostering powers lodged in groups of individ- uals. There have been many en- couraging signs in recent years, par ticularly in some of our smaller cit , ies, that we have at last come upon l time when the people are arousing
 themselves to give over being de pendent upon men whom they can. , not watch and are taking direct charge at any rate of their local govern , ments. There is no reason why this r process should not extend to the