The Washington times., 1911-12-17
A SIGNIFICANT AND AUSPI.
CIOUS CONJUNCTION.

C1OUS CONJUNCTION.
While the business of the country
marks time and waits on politics,
there is encouragement for those who
cast the horoscope of the immediate
future in some recent developments in
connection with the hearings before
the Committee on Interstate Com
merce.
Senator Newlands, of Nevada, is a
thoroughly regular if not perhaps from
some points of view quite an orthodox
Democrat. He has always supported
Mr.. Bryan, and is one of the close,
trusted friends of the Nebraska
leader.
Mr.. George w. Perkins, of New
York, is a typical New Yorker of
"big business" He is chairman of the
finance committees of both the United
States Steel Corporation and the In
ternational Harvester Company; one
of those gentlemen whom only few
years agone it was popular to depict
as wearing horns and arrayed in raj
ment whose dominating design was
the dollar mark.
Certainly it is an encouraging sign
of returning seriousness and sanity,
that during Mr.. Perkins hearing before
the Interstate Commerce Committee
on Wednesday Senator Newlands' at
titude throughout was that of an
eager, sympathetic, and unprecedented
listener seeking and expecting real
illumination.
Senator Newlands has pending be-
fore this committee q bill which looks
to the establishment of an Interstate
Trade Commission, to supervise and
regulate great corporations engaged in
interstate commerce. The plan which
Mr.. Perkins laid before the committee
was in essence an experienced business
mans development and elaboration of
the general. purpose which Senator
Newlands indicates in his bill. The
two proposals were developed indie
pendently. Each proposes to make the
Bureau of Corporations the basis on
which to build the structure of an
effective regulating authority. Each
recognizes that the Federal Govern
ment must ultimately WELD this ire
mendous authority over interstate
trade. Each comedies that the Sher-
man law, as it now stands, must be
modified by supPlementing measures
that will make it possible for business
men with some approximation to GER
tainty to judge in the inception of an
enterprise whether it is finally going
to be adjudicated lawful or unlawful
Mr.. Perkins has recently retired
from the most active participation in
business, to devote himself to the ad,
vancement of his social and economic
ideals. The whole country has already
come to accept him as sincere, open
minded, and patriotic of purpose. On
the other side, Senator Newlands
though agreeing at so many funda.
mental points with Mr.. Perkins, has
in the last year been extensively con-
sidered, especially in the radical West
as an available possibility for the
Presidential Democratic nomination.
Here is at once. a parallel and a con
trast whose significance is unlikely te
be overstated. If the country will
keep its feet on the ground and its
head this side of the clouds, the prob
lens that are disturbing business will
be in the way of solution a good dea
sooner than might have been though,
possible a year ago.
Mr.. Perkins laid before the commit
tee with great care the outline of {
legislative program ON which he ha,
been working for many months, ant
to the presentation of which men O
all parties and persuasions have looked
forward with keen interest. 1t is dis
tinctly constructive. 1t proposes, first
a series of measures designed to brinl
immediate relief from the embarrass
ment that hedges about business, and
second, other measures designed t,
make the relief permanent and sure.
The first part of this plan is to es
tablish an Interstate Trade Commits