Omaha daily bee., 1910-05-31
Nebraska

agains, spain in tho cause Of humanity:
the antitrust law; the meat inspection law;
the olcomargatine law: the pure food law;
fellow servants law; employers liability
act; child labor law; postal savings bank
law: railroad rate bill. and all the indus
trial legislation.
Law Must Progress.
Continuing, he declared that law Is Of
no consequence IL II docs not keep step
with the march Of social and industrial de-
velOpment," and went on: THE railroad
magnate complains of too much legislation,
overlooking the fact that in these fifty
years his mileage has grown from $1,000
to more than 220, 0OO Twenty years ago the
railroads were carrying 4OO.OOOOO0 tons Of
freight; last year they carried 100000, 900
tons. Then they required 1900 passenger
cars; today they require 3OOOO0OO passenger
cars then 1900 freight cars; today moro
than 1,75O,0oO freight cars. Fifty years ago
1t took a mighty big railroad to reach
across a state, and none venturod across a
state line Today those ola state railroads
are consolidated and from doing business
in single state, they are doing business
In many states. The law that keeps pace
with that evolution is not soclalstic in
creed nor anarchistio in practice, but is
progressive legislation. 1t is not because
all railroad rates are cxorbitant that we
have rate laws, nor because all combina-
tons OF capital are indecent and monopo-
listic that VIC have antitrust laws but"
declared the senator, unlawful rebates and
determinations and overcharges have been
practiced and the great transportation pay
ing public were entitled to be defended
against them. and that is why congress
passed the railway rate bill. Unrighteous
combinations of competing lines have been
made, the public has been plundered in I'M
just stock and bond issues. and that is why
We spent four months in the recent session
of congress trying to prohibit by law
the combiantion Of competing lines of rail-
road and to prevent the high-handed manlp-
ulation of stocks and bonds. When Wall
street gets nervous, our answer shall be
that it is the outgrowth OF necessity to
guard against a condition OF monopoliza-
ton and confiscaton that was unheard of
until within the past decade"
No Place fer Lnggards.
Continuing. he said that in his opinion.
man had outlived his usefulness, either
in public life or out of It, who did not recog-
nize the change of conditions and the
growth of governmental function and gov
OulJs anu edlu lndL lneTe was
no more sense in undertaking to run Amer
lea within the limitations of last genera
TONS interpretations than in combining
commerce and transportation to the teach
ings of economies of the primitive condi-
| ton of last century. He said that it was
because the public mind was progressive
in 1860 that the civil war was fought; that
while the country had been raised to a
higher moral plane then by the results of
that war, that by the results of this great
industrial war that was going on in the
public minds the country was to be raised
to a higher commercial and Industrial
plane.
He spoke OF the rights of labor and the
recognition of the laboring man that must
! come under the changed conditions, and de-
clared that the question OF labor and capt.
tai today was an entirely different one
from what the fathers debated half CEN
fury ago. He pointed out that in morals
and in habits of the people there had been
growth. and that as society developed
and ideals improved, social regulations
must be multiplied.
He said that conservation of natural re-
sources was a comparatively new question
and that every man must recognize that we
people would fail in our responsibilities to
the generations to come unless we should
preserve to them untrammeled and unap-
proprlated by private greed the great
natural resources with which a generous
God endowed his children.
| He said that there had always been diff
Guilty between extremes. Some men would
stumble and fall and fuss and fume for
fear the government would do something
that 1t ought not to do; that strict con-
structionists and some politicians would
always be in the way, but he said they
were illustrated by the men who stayed at
home fifty years ago, hired substitutes for
the draft and then found fault with the
way the war was conducted.
| Patriotism Not Dead.
Continuing along this line, he said, THE
functions and prerogatives of federal and
state authority are as quick to the minds
of some men today in some of these great
questions as they were two or three times
in the last century. There are Beechers
and Garrisons and Calhouns and Doug
lasses in these days. Therv are those who
would use the constitution to an end, and
those who would ignore it for an end.
There are those who would set 1t aside
and there are those who would set 1t in
tho way There are those who would defy
II. and those who would make II Fetch
of inactlon. There are those who think
that the government is derelict and
those who claim that 1t is too strenu-
Gus. There are those who want the gov
eminent to do everything and those who
want the government to do nothing. But,
between the two" said the senator Just
as there did in 1860. there stands today the
great mass of honest and courageous and
progressive American citizenship. 1t is
, directed as then by that high sense of
public duty that fears no foe and shrinks