The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-03-05
PRESIDENT WILSON.

1t is a cause for qualification to the
American people that new president
can be inaugurated without producing
even a CULVER in the machinery OF
government. There was nothing con-
nected with the inaugural ceremonies
at Washington to indicate that there
had been an entire change of parties
and policies except the utterances OF
President Wilson in his first address
as chief executive of the nation
The address is notable in three par
ticuiars; it's brevity, the number ana
Importance of the promises implied
and the absence of SPECIFIC plans OF
action.
In pointing out the conditions tnaI
should be altered he says:
"A tariff which cuts us OH
from our proper part in the COM
rnerce of the world, violates the just
principles of taxation. and makes the
government a facile instrument in the
hands of private interests: banking
and currency system based upon the
necessity of the government to sell It's
bonds fifty years ago and perfectly
adapted to concentrating cash ana re-
stricting credits; an industrial system
H.,
cial as we'll as administrative, holds
capital in leading strings, restricts the
liberties and limits the opportunities
of labor, and exploits without renew
ing or conserving the natural resources
of the country; a body of agricultural
activities never yet given the EMERGENCY
of great business undertakings OF
served as it should be through the IN
strumentality of science taken direct
ly to the farm, or afforded the faclh-
ties of credit best suited to its practlcai
needs; watercourses undeVelopeo'
waste places unreclaimed, forests I'M !
tended, fast disappearing without plan
or prospect of renewal, unregardeo
waste heaps at every mine. We nave
studied as perhaps no other nation /
has the most effective means or pro-
duction, but we have not studied cost
of economy as we should either as or
ganizers of industry, as statesmen. or 4
as Individuals
And farther along the same line he /
says:
Society must see to it that it
does not itself crush or weak
en- or damage its own con-
stituent parts. The first duty of
law is to keep sound the society it
serves. Sanitary laws, pure food laws,
and laws determining conditions of Ia
Dor which individuals are powerless to
determine for themselves are intimate
parts of the very business of justice
and legal efficiencX.'
In the matter of specific promises is
found following:
I'VE shall restore, not destroy.
We shall deal with our eco
nomic system as it is and
as it may 'oe modified. not as it might
be if we had a clean sheet Of paper
to write upon; and step by step we
shall make it what SHOULD be, in
he spirit of those who question their
own wisdom and seek counsel and
not shallow self-satisfac-
ion or the excitement of excursions
whittier they cannot tell Justice, and
only justice, shall always be our
notto.''
The president touches the pinnacle
If patriotic sentiment in the closing
paragraph when he says:
This is not a day of triumph; it is a
lay of dedication. Here muster, not
he forces of party, but the forces of
Mems hearts wait upon us;
mems lives hang in the balance; mems
hopes call upon us to say what we will
10. Who shall live up to the great !
rust? Who dares fail to try? I sum-
non all honest men, all patriotic, all ,
men, to my side. God
lelping 1 will not fail them, if they
will but counsel and sustain me-
He has set a big task for himself t
nd his party end no good citizen can
10 otherwise than wish him success.