The Sentinel=record., 1911-10-08
GOVERNMENT
 OF BUSINESS
PRESIDENT TAFT TRAVERsEs TWO NORTHWESTERN
 STATES SATURDAY
Tells His Hearers That What the Country Wants Is Competition and Not Federal Control
 of Business

Spokane, Wash, October [ Spu- kane was the terminus tonight of one 0, the most picturesquely interesting days of President Tafts travels through the west. The day was spent in northern Idaho and east ern Washington. the principal ,stop- ping places being Walla Wafla, Wash. and Lewiston and Moseew, Idaho. f>s q,
 For many hours tho preskleptial train wound it's way through ehe famous Snake river canyon and 1rem his car window the presidept sa8x some of the most unique faslas ~ tine entire United States. FronE4ls waters edge, these farms rose,s
 rolling pillows and hilltops on sd.f CT side of the canyon at some psesh they seemed almost perpendicuh1s but everywhere was wheat stubble indicating that The last crop of.ffhe year had been safely harvested All of the farms were in the dry farm ing district, where the crops are raised without the aid of irrigation.
 Governor Hay of Washington met lhe president at Walla Wala and accompanied him to this city to- night. The governor in his intro ductory speech of the day declared himself in favor of MT. Taft's re- nomination. A second interesting development was the repetition by President Ttft at Lewiston of various portions of his Waterloo utterances on the relation of government 10 business.
 We have put the railrads under control he said and they acquiesce in it. For a time they were defiant. Now under the steady action of con- gress in increasing the power of the Interstae Commerce Commission, they have realized that the whole peope are greater than any part o. the people: that the whole people, if they move in one direction. and are determined to control and bring about a just condition, are likely to win in the end, however often they may he defeated in reaching tnlat point. So too. with respect to our trusts The industrial combinations thas have controlled prices are now und- CT the antitrust act and are begin ing to feel the heavy weight of the hand of the law"
 The president then spoke of the standard oil and tobacco decisions of the supreme court, referring to the Standard Oil as the oldest or trusts" he one which had been es- tablished by more acts of criminality than any other. the one which did more business abroad and was in that respect the most useful. He re- ferred to the American Tobacco Co. as "a trust devised by able, ingen- ius lawyers for the purpose of evad- ing the antitrust law.
 There are other trusts in process of prosecution" the president con tinued, "but my own hope is that they will all recognize that the Standard oil and tobacco decisions were epoch making decisions; that they are bound to change the course and tendency of business. If they had not gentlemen, don't know where we would have gone. Every thing would have been in a trust The only rescue from that would have been state socialism. There are those who say that we could get along without competition thosa who say you cannot live if we have competition; who say 1t will destroy everybody and therefore you have got to have some arrangements by which trusts can be kept lawful. We lived by competition for eenturles and it was not until the last thirty years that there developed lhis idea that we could get along without it.
 Mir Taft declared his understand ing of American business was thai competition was desired q and tha' there was no desire that the state should ever take over business and fix prizes
 The president referred 10 the need of reform in the currency system of the country and spoke of the prosperity Of the farmers tnd int