Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1912-04-12

in the Delaware river. providing the
cost does not exceed the sum of 100000.
SOME WILSON DOCTRINES.
What are his views upon the coun-
trys needs?
Read these extracts from his speech
at Harrisburg, Pa, last June, at the
rall,- of Democratic clubs:
"a great work waits to be done for
the country great work of counsel
and of action. 1t calls its challenge
to every man who desires to serve and
has no fear
''Whenever things are to be done in a
new way, in, response to a new, popular
impulse, in obedience to the great DEM
ocratic traditions of the nation itself,
il is to the Democratic party that the
country naturally turns. the
history of the country abounds in in
stances when our great party showed
itself constructive and aggressive, not
protesting, but performing, not critics.
ing. but projecting great reforms. Other
parties have tied themselves up to par
ticularl lines of action, but
the Democratic party has remained free
to act, free to take on the new ele-
nents of popular impulse, free to read
new times in new terms.
DEMOCRACY'S AMBITION.
eff we recount the items of the liberal
il in an extraordinary degree.
The free elements Of thought in the
country are asserting themselves with
an extraordinary energy and majesty
that must presently work profound
changes and mark this as one of the
most noteworthy eras of our poll
tics.
"The Democratic party has always
had the impulse of reform, because IT
has always been based upon deep and
fundamental sympathy with the inter-
ests of the people at large.
If we recount the items of the liberal
program to which the country is now
looking forward it will be easy to see
that it is already the program OF the
Democratic party. The first item of that
program is that the machinery of politi-
cal control must be put in the hands
of the people. That means, translated
into concrete terms, direct primaries,
short ballot, and, wherever necessary,
the initiative, the referendum and the
recall These things are being desired
and obtained not by way of revolution,
not even with a desire to effect any
fundamental change in our govern
mental system, but for the purpose of
recovering what seems to have been lost
the peoples control of their own in
struments. their right to exercise a free
and constant choice in the management
of their own affairs.
Another great item of the program
is that the service rendered the people
by the national government must be
of a more extended SORT and of a kind
not only to protect it against monopoly,
but also to facilitate it's life. We are,
therefore, in favor of postal savings
banks and of a parcels post, and feel
with some chagrin that we have Jagged
behind the other free nations of the
world in establishing those manifestly
useful and necessary instruments of our
common life.
TARIFF AN ISSUE.
1.-THE revision of the tariff, of course,
looms big and central in the program,
because it is in the tariff schedules
that half the monopolies of the country
have found covert and protection and
opportunity. We do not mean to strike
at any essential economic arrangement,
but we do mean to drive all benefici-
aries of governmental policy into the
open and demand of them by what prin-
ciple of national advantage, as contrast
ed with selfish privilege, they enjoy the
extraordinary assistance extended to
them.
THE regulation Of corporations is
hardly less significant and central. We
have made many ex periments in this
difficult matter, and some of them have
been crude and hurtful. but our thought
is slowly clearing. We are beginning
to see, for one thing, how public ser
vice corporations, at any rate, can be
governed with great advantage to the
public and without Serious detriment to
themselves, as undertakings of private
capital Experience is removing both
prejudice and fear in this field, and it is
likely that within the very near future
we shall have settled down to some
common. rational and effective policy.
The regulation of corporations of other
sorts lies intimately connected with the
general question of MONOPOLY a ques-
ton which Families in a thousand di-
rections, but the intricate threads of
which, we are slowly beginning to per-
ceive, constitute decipherable pattern.
Measures will here also frame them
selves soberly enough as we think our
way forward.
CONSERVATION.
Again there is the great question of
conservation. We are not yet clear as
TO all the methods, but we are absolute
ly clear as to tile principle and the in
tention and shall not be satisfied until
we have found the way, not only to pre-
serve our great national resources, but
also to conserve the strength and health
and energy of our people themselves by
protection against wrongful forms of
labor and by securing them against the
myriad forms of harm which have come
from the selfish uses of economic power
Beyond all these, waiting to be solv-
ed lying as yet in the hinterland of
party policy, Turks the great question
of banking reform. The plain fact is
that control of credit-at any rate of
credit upon any large scale-is danger
ously concentrated in this country. The
large money resources of the country
are not at the command of those who
do not submit to the direction and
domination of small groups of capital
lists, who wish to keep the economic de-
velopment of the country under their
own eye and guidance.
THE great monopoly in this country
is the, money monopoly. SO long as
that exists our old variety and freedom
and individual energy of development
are out of the question. A great in
dustrial nation is controlled by its sys-
tenn of credit. Our system of credit is
concentrated. The growth of the ma
ton, therefore, and all our activities are
in the hands of a few men who, even
if their action be honest and intended
for the public interest, are necessarily
concentrated upon the great undertake
In In WI fe