The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1912-10-30
His Record AS Governor of
New Jersey.
SOME OF THINGS HE HAS DONE
POwerleSS TO Do Other Things
On Account of Hostile
legislature.
Is CONSTANTLY on THE ALERT

II Colonel Roosevelt continues to
through other mouths than his own,
as he did at Louisville through Mr..
| Beveridge, Governor Wilson will
have to revise his determination to
remain quiet.
Mr.. Beveridge, speaking for the
Colonel, repeated the latter's recent
attempt to show that Mr.. Wilson
has made very inefficient Cover
nor of New Jersey because no
change has been made in the last
two years in the incorporation laws
of that State.
An inefficient Governor? 1t is to
laugh The man who, with a hos
tile Legislature, put through such
measures as the Presidential pri-
mary and general election laws, the
corrupt practices act, the public
utilities law, workingmen's COM
pensation act, the cold storage law,
the commission government act and
many other good measures too nu-
merous to mention, constituting in
all the best body of legislation
which any Governor of any State of
the Union has been enabled to put
on the statute books in the memo
ry of the present generation-to
say that such a man is inefficient or
incapable is to speak words of alb
surdity and foolishness.
Colonel Roosevelt, it will be re-
called, apologized the other day for
his failure to do anything with the
tariff while he was President, say
ing that he had other matters of
greater importance on hand. In
view of the record referred to
above, Governor Wilson, had he
done nothing whatever with refer
ence to the matter of the incorpora-
ton laws. might justiiably have
availed himself of that plea. In
suppressing Jim" Smith the States
he was doing much more imme-
diately necessary thing than revis-
ing the incorporation laws. In pass
ing a public utilities law he was
dealing with big corporations vast
ly more powerful for harm than
the industrial corporations. Those
things necessarily came first. -
But Governor Wilson was most
assuredly not inactive in the other
matter. He has been, perhaps, the
most wideawake man in his State
in approaching the evils of the New
Jersey Incorporation laws and in
working to change them. He dwelt
upon this in his inaugural address,
and when the State convention met
in 1911 he drafted the plank that
was put in the party platform de-
handing a change in those laws.
The Legislature of this year, being
Republican, failed to act, and in the
State platform a few days ago the
Democratic party, again led by
Governor Wilson, returned once
more to the attack.
Governor Wilson naturally does
not want the power of the States
restricted in any way, nor super
seeded by Federal authority. He has
never, however, expressed the opin-
ion that the States have supreme
control over the trusts, because,
for one reason, if for no other, he
has always believed that the pro-
tective tariff is one of the greatest
bulwarks of the trusts, and the
States have nothing to do with the
protective tariff. He has maintain
ed, with regard 10 this matter of
the incorporation laws of his State.
the same good judgment and clear
thought that he has displayed with
regard to other matters, and when
those laws are finally changed for
the better. it will be recognized, We
imagine, that Governor Wilson had
been more influential than any 9TH
er one man in securing the change.
Sun.