The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-08-01


 able him better to equip his farm and to follow the rules of good farming, which we must encourage. Our plat form, am glad to say, specifies this as a reform to which the party is pledged.
 Delay and Expense of Litigation.
 One of the great defects in our pres ent system of government is the delay and expense of litigation, which, of course, works against the poor litigant. The supreme court is now engaged in a revision of the equity rules to accom- plish this purpose as to half our fed eral litigation. The workmen's com pensation act will relieve our courts of law of very heavy part of the present dockets on the law side of the court and give the court more opportunity to speed the remaining causes. 'The last congress c0difed the federal court pro- visions, and we may look for and should insist upon a reform in the law procedure so as to promote dispatch of business and reduction in costs. We have adopted in this admins tration, after very considerable oppo- sition, the postal savings banks, which work directly in the promotion of thrift among the people. By payment of only 2 per cent interest on deposits they do not compete with the savings banks. But they do attract those who fear banks and are unwilling to trust their funds except to a governmental agency. Experience, however, leads depositors to a knowledge of the im- portance of interest, and then seeking higher rate they transfer their ac- counts to the savings banks. Tn this way the savings bank deposits, in- stead of being reduced, are increased, and there is thus available a much larger fund for general investment. For some years the administration has been recommending the parcels post, and now am glad to say a measure will probably be adopted by congress authorizing the government to avail itself of the existing machin- cry of the postofice department to carry parcels at reasonably low rate, so that the communication between the city, and the country in ordinary mer- chandise will be proportionately as cheap and as prompt as the newspaper and letter delivery through the post offices now. This must contribute greatly to a reduction in the cost and comfort of living.
 Disposition of Public Lands. We are considering the changing needs of the people in the disposition of our public lands and their conserva- tion.> As those lands owned by the government and useful for agricultural purposes which remain are as whole less desirable as homesteads than those which have been already settled, it has been properly thought wise to stead claim from i've years to three, and this whether on land within the rain area or in those arid tracts within the reclamation system.
 | Again a bill has passed the senate and is likely to pass the house which will not compel the settlers on reclama- tion lands to wait ten years and until | full payment of what they owe the | government before they receive a title,
 
 years with first government lien, On the other hand, the withdrawal of coal lands, phosphate lands and oil lands and waterpower sites is still maintained until congress shall provide on the. principles of proper conserva- tion system of disposition which will attract capital on the one hand and re- 1 tain sufficient control by the govern ment on the other to prevent the evil of concentrating absolute ownership in few persons of those sources for the | production of necessities,
 1 Popular. Unrest.
 l In the work of rousing the people to the danger that threatened our civili- zation from the abuses of concentrat- i ed wealth and the power it was likely to exercise, the public imagination was wrought upon and reign of sensa- tional Journalism and unjust and un- l principled undertaking has followed, in which much injustice has been done to honest men. Demagogues have seized the opportunity further to in flame the public mind and have sought to turn the peculiar conditions to their | a 1. E l advantage.
 In so far as inequality of condition can be lessened and equality of oppor- tunity can be promoted by improve ment of our educational system, the betterment of the laws to insure the quick administration of justice, and by the prevention of the acquisition of privilege without just compensation, in so far as the adoption of the legis- lation above recited and laws of a similar character may aid the less for tunate in their struggle with the hard ships of life. all are in sympathy with continued effort to remedy injustice and to aid the weak, and I venture to say that there is no, national admins i tration in which more real steps of such progress have been taken than in the present one. But in so far as the propaganda for the satisfaction of un. rest involves the promise of a milien- 1 nium, a condition in which the rich are to be made reasonably poor and the poor reasonably rich by law, we are chasing phantom; we are holding out to those whose unrest we fear : prospect and dream, vision of the impossible.
 III Gotten Wealth. In the ultimate analysis, I fear, the equal opportunity which. those seel