Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-03-12
BOARD OF TRADE HEARS GOVERNOR ON STATE ISSUES

be done for their security. Indeed
legislation has taken the other turn
! and whereas our ancestors were con-
stantly struggling to secure the rights
of the individual modern legislators
/ and reformers are busy making laws
to take those rights away.
Forty EIGHT State legislatures and
one national legislature are at 1t
nearly all the time. The output Is
awful, awful in consequences. In
utter disregard of what We're once
recognized as inalienable individual
rights We now have a multitude Of
laws in a number of States telling US
| what We shall eat what we shall
drink, or to speak more accurately,
what we shall not drink, and some re-
formers are now ready to tell us
wherewithal we shall be clothed. These
good people are prepared to Invade
the home and some of them seriously
propose to take away from the natu-
raj guardians of the child the right
! to train 1t in the way 1t should go.
| The State Is to be substituted for the
mother, the influence of bureau for
that of a home
IF these reformers were to have
their way the human family would
soon be like ready-made clothing, all
cut by the same pattern, and from
the Penobscot to the Rio Grande we
will have race of people with pre-
digested statutory virtues, sapless,
spineless sort of people without a
single redeeming manly vice among
them.
1--WE are being choked, smothered
with laws to make us sober and good.
Because there are drunkards in the
world decent and sober men who were
never guilty of the degrading vice of
| drunkenness in all their lives are to
| be punished and privileges which
| have been enjoyed since the grape
matured and fermented are to be
taken away.
THE tendency of this sort of legis-
lation is bad. It's advocates grow
holder with success, and little by lit
tie they are establishing a tyranny
which will finally become insupport-
able. A few weeks ago the leader of
an important political movement
publicly declared that he hopes, and |
suppose that he also expects, to see
the time come when the right to vote
and participate in the direction of
government shall be limited to those
who are members of church organi-
zation.
| "Abstemiousness Vanity"
! "SObrtety is n virtue. ADStemlouS-
| ness is a vanity, and may become
menace. Gradually the people are
growing soberer, and, as civilization
progresses, l hope better in every
/ way. ! very much doubt whether
! this Improvement has come about be-
cause of any of the so-called reform
/ legislation. The ten statutes brought
down from the mountain tops by
Moses and supplemented by a few
amendments proposed by the Ma
zarene, made a code quite sufficient
for the guidance of men.
THE statutes of Maine and of a
number of States, North and South,
East and West, forbid the sale of
alcoholic liquor in any form, yet the
returns of the Collector of Internal
| Revenue at Washington show that
more is consumed all the time. And
meantime in those districts where
these prohibition statutes are in force
the sale of Matchmaking drugs goes
merrily and increasingly on.
$50 many new laws are made, so
many new offenses created that it is
quite impossible for the citizen to
keep mp with The output or to know
when he is a transgressor.
For n long time the party of
which / am a member issued plat
forms which were brief declarations
| of principles, and a standard plank,
nearly always introduced, was that
which denounced sumptuary legisla-
ton as an unwarranted interference
| with the rights of the citizen. If
there are any Democrats here who
are old enough to remember these
/ platforms, or who are familiar with
the teachings OF their party, they will
recall this declaration, and no doubt
they have been as much puzzled as
! / TO see men who call themselves
4 Democrats advocating policies which
our fathers would not have tolerated.
/ 1.-The legislative madness of the hour
! has been specially directed at busl-
ness, toward which there has been a
/ widespread and maliciously cultivated
| hostility This antagonism to busi-
ness success seems in some parts of
the world TO be hostility TO property
| itself Men burn and destroy in a
way which can be only explained on
Athe theory of madness. One would
/ think to read the speeches made in
and out Of Congress, and editorials
that appear In the newspapers that
must know better, that thrift Is de-
4 grading and that the accumulation
/ of property is evidence of career of
crime. 1t has been politically proflta-
I Bile TO denounce successful business
efforts and rich men, but | am in
/ clined to baieVe that this hostility to
| wealth and to rich men just because
/ OF their accumulations is passing
/ frenzy and that a saner view Is now
! being taken.
81 know it is perlous for any man
/ i'm public life to say these things be-
cause he will Immediately be brought
under the suspicion of being that
awful criminal, q man of wealth, or
/ the hireling of wealth. Perhaps [
can as well afford to take this risk
as anyone because l have been so
! disgustingly poor all my life that l
/ have never been able to indulge
/ whim which cost money without be-
/ ing Immediately confronted with the
necessity for economizing elsewhere TO
/ balance the extravaganza.
/ DeIuge of Bills.
About 20, 500 bills and resolutions
4 have been presented in the present
4 Congress. Many of them are intended
/ as regulations of business restriction.
! 1 would rather say destruction of
! business. Some of the proponents of
/ these measures have been compelled
/ to recognize the fact that the Con-
/ stitution stands in the way of doing
what they want and they have at
once set about amending that docu-
ment. Others. scorning ii as a bar
rier have introduced bills which a
/ child in legislative matters could tell
| them xyara ohnoyioue IN the fI1nda-