Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1912-07-22

can people hope to accomplish
through their government. The
question now arises as to how best
to accomplish that without hindering
development or sacrificing economy
of production.
The democratic (Baltimore) plat
form declares for laws that will
make it impossible for private mo-
nopolies to exist in the United
States" We think. such laws are
neither practical or desirable. We
do not believe that competition can
be thus maintained.
In the first place there are enter
prises which are monopolistic by ma
ture. Electric, gas, street car, tele-
phone, and the like are natural mo-
nopolies. Every effort in establish
ing and maintaining competition in
these lines has failed, except through
municipal ownership. True, rival
companies have from time to time
entered the same field and at first
gave evidence of competition, but ul-
timately combination, or absorption,
has resulted, thus destroying compe-
tition. The law of economics stands
fixed and fast against competition
and the ingenuity of man has thus
far failed to devise methods by
which such rivalry can be main
tanned. Unhindered competition is
destruction. Private enterprise has
discovered that. 1t is time that the
government should recognize it.
The thing then is not to destroy
monopoly but to regulate it. While
competition cannot be maintained by
law, regulation is purely within the
province of law.
Practically all of the trusts are
employed in interstate traffic and
the powers of the federal govern
ment over such should be enlarged,
while the power of the states over
them should be abridged. Here,
again, is where we part company
with democratic policies. The Bal
timore platform declares: I'VE de-
nounce as usurpation the efforts of
our opponents to deprive the states
of any of the rights reserved to
them, and to enlarge and magnify
by indirection the powers of the fed
eral government" This is what
we call states rights" doctrine,
Most of the conditions which i'm
PEELED our fathers to zealously guard
the powers of the several states, as
against extended powers of the fed
eral government, have entirely
passed away. The war of revo-
luton had just been fought to break
the power of an eXtraneous central
government. The several colonies
were widely dispersed over the east
ern half of the continent, modes of
transportation and communication
were undeveloped-slo and labori-
ous-and communities one hundred
miles distant were more widely sep
arated than is the Atlantic and Pa
cific seacoasts now. The States
rights notion was based on the prin-
ciple of keeping the powers of gov
ernment close to the people. First
the colonies refused to give the cen
trail government even the taxing
power. Experience soon proved this
eXpedient to be loose and Intellectual
and necessity called for stronger
central government. Out of that our
present constitution developed in the
hope of forming a more perfect
union. But our statesmen had not
yet come to that prophetic state of
mind which enabled them to cast the
development of the near future.
They did not know that within the
span of a life the now widely. sepa-
rated colonies would be drawn to-
gether and bound with hoops of steel
into composite relations more inti-
mate than existed between the in
habitants of the state. That the fed
eral government would, within a few
decades, be drawn closer to the most
remote citizen than the state govern
mept was then to any. But all of
this has come to pass. Then com
merce was all intrastate and properly
a subject for state control; now it is
mostly interstate and can only be
economically and effectively regula-
ted by the federal government.
To attempt to subject transporta-
tion companies, doing business in
many states, to both the control of
the several states through which
they pass, each with different laws
and rules, and to the federal govern
ment as well, is but to harass, not
regulate them. Such policy cannot
result in the best and most economi-
cal service. Insofar as it falls short
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