The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-10-29


 which his system of civil administra-
 ton for Prussia was condemned, be- cause ane made it too bureaucratic.
 That is a serious danger in all l governm ents There is something i large and free-handed in the doings of one invested with the supreme ex- 1 ecutive power, or in the action of a l legislative body. But the moment 1 you begin to put any great amount Eof power in the hands of bureaus and l commissions, you make them top | heavy and unsafe. Appointments to l such places.a are sought for the salary.
 They are sought, sometimes. because money unfairly. They are apt to
 be given for party services, and ex- l dected to serve party ends. They are l apt to get under the control of those
 interests over which they were sup posed to be set. The head men rep 1 resenting such interests generally do l not want such offices themselves. That would be too open an attack on the popular will. They prefer to in | huence the appointments and for that they have very large facilities. | We have too many standing cona- | missions in this State. I urged on the last General Assembly the consoli- dation of some of them, and the abo- l lition of some more of them; but they we're almost exclusively held by Re- pub1icans, and my suggestions were not enthusiastically received by their political friends.
 Uncle Sam has delegated too much
 of his powers, also. to commissions and bureaus. Some of them wield a. power that is simply enormous They can do, and they sdo do, many a thing that Congress would never undertake upon itself. They are often barriers between the people and their govern m all the cause, unlike Congress, they work in the dark.
 This lis a tendency of the times which you can always rely on the Democratic party to oppose It is a tendency highly dangerous to the i'm terests of the smaller States. It is wholly incompatible with them to set tup at Washington standing bureau cratic government. Congress is on- " in session half the year, at most. The federal bureaus are at work all the time.
 ..Take the Interstate Commerce Comn1ission. dare say it has en- ployed in it's service, at times a hun dred thousand mon; attorneys, in quisitors, searchers, spies, informers. I have looked with some apprehen- sion at the steady extension of the functions of the Commission. They had to create a new court-the Court of Comm erce-to keep it within it's jurisdiction.
 Have you noticed the immense powers this Commission has over our railroads? They could make a ru1- ing that would make 1t impossible for New England manufacturers to com pete with Western manufacturers. Take their action on what the rail- road men call differentiaIs. The freight rates from the West to Bal tomore and Philadelphia, by reason of 5t f.7 1I,, <7i fr.1>- ence of terminal charges-are less than they are to New York City. New York manufacturers and jobbers find it hard to compete with Baltimore and Philadelphia. They tried to get the Interstate Commerce Commission to put New York on the same footing and failed. Baltimore and Phi1a- delphia have kept their preference. because this bureau said so.
 s.who holds the key to the secret drawers of any corporation in Con- necticut, and can get and give away document in it's files? It is the head of the Corporation Bureau at Wash ington, to which all stock corporations must report for taxation. purposes. If the Commissioner of Corporations doubts, or says he doubts, the cor can examine them from top to bot tom and might bring their business practically to stand stfr while he was busy with their books.
 Look at our own State.
 ssWho is the most powerful man in it2 Our Highway Commissioner, or to put it more shortly, our High Com missioner, might say. our Lord High Commissioner, James H. Mcdonald. He is the man who says how millions of public money shall be laid out, and where, and by,whonn- He is the man, though with no training as civil en- gineer. that controls the method of construction of our State roads, and with very little regard naturally to the practical necessities which scien- tific education would have shown him to be imposed by local conditions of soil and drainage. He is the man whose term of office has run out, but who holds over under a special law in the form of a general law, but passed entirely and exclusively to keep him in office. happen what would.
 sIn Dickens novel of Hard Times,' he represents government official as signing for f.the Public Office Mill Iennium when Commissioners shall reign upon earth"
 we have pretty nearly got to that already in the Government of the United States
 We have had Commissioner of Corporations, who had his say as to what corporations ought to be prose cuted under the Sherman Act and which should be let alone-possibly because they might bite back. They know, in those days of Re publican administration, under the in f1uences then existing, that it was bet ter not to bite the hand that fed you, and the Morgan interests fed from the Harvester Trust Treasury and like sources with a long spoon and a very full one.
 1.-TWO million three hundred thous- and dollars for the Republican cam paign of 1904 that elected Colonel Roosevelt was a large sum but it was comparatively easy to raise it. The treasurer of the National Republican campaign committee had only to go