The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1915-09-09
SPARKLING TRUTHS
In GREAT ADDRESS
FORMER PRESIDENT TAFT De
LIVERED CHARAC CTERISTIC
TALK TO BANKERS
Optimistic After All, But Points Out
Some of the Ills of the American
People
SEATTLE, Sept. 81 am an optim-

SEATTLE, Sept. 81 am an optim
ist."
William Howard Taft, former
president, thus closed what he termed
! an Economic and Political Summary
of the Generation Just Closing" in {
lengthy address before the American
Bankers association today. His
speech bristled with pungent sent
ences, as he slammed one thing after
another that appealed to him as hind
ering the best development of the Am
erican people. In this category were
the initiative and referendum, the re-
call, general primaries, arrogant cap
ital and arrogant labor. But in con-
clusion, he declared himself an optim-
list who could see that good would re-
suit even from such catastrophe as
the present European war.
Paragraphs and sentences from his
speech follow:
''The rapid growth of wealth be-
tween 1880 and 1900 absorbed the at
tention of all our people. We were
all in the chase for the dollar"
"The principle of combination was
found quite as applicable to politics
and party government as to machinery
and capital"
"The time came when it was posi-
BILE in some great corporations for
the officers and directors to issue,
with the same nonchalance, orders for
steel rails on the one hand or for
the delivery of delegates to national
political convention on the other"
For more than two decades the
controversy went on between the rail
roads and the government until the
weakling board of 1887 grew into the
powerful tribunal of 1910, and the
railroads found themselves brought
under complete control
This history of the interstate COM
merce law and it's enforcement con-
to those who would defy the people
in the pride of intnenched power. 1t
may take years, but all the people
cannot be fooled all the time
Corporations have been driven out
of politics ,and while, Of course, cor
ruption is not ever absent, the danger
of plutocracy has disappeared and the
publication of politics has constituted
real reform for which all good cit-
izens must be grateful.
Nothing is SO timid as capital, and
nothing is so easily able to take care
of what it has. A hostile spirit man
ifested in legislation buttons up the
pockets of those who control wealth.
1--WE must grant increased rates to
the railroads when the conditions re-
quire it, and grant them quickly
Millions own their stock. They en-
ploy millions of men.
1--WE should repeal the full crew
bills that impose upon the railroad
companies the burden of employing
labor"
mo change in our social condition,
it seems to me, has been more bene-
fetal on the whole to the working
men than has this resort to the po yer
of combination among them. There
is no doubt that at common law the
rules governing the relation OF the
and the employer were fram
ed in the interest of the employer"
1--WE should know that the unions
come to stay and to remain powerful
factors in the progress of the com
But evil tendencies have APP
peared in such combinations just as
in combinations of capital. Trades
nnionism has tended to create a dead
level of industry and skill among
wage earners."
"But the chief ground for criticising
The recent policy of trade unio is
he fact that the power they have leg
acquired by combination and
nave properly used for the better
nent of their conditions, they are now
attempting to abuse by seeking to
place organized labor in privileged
class"
eff it be true that people have not
and intelligence to select /
rom their own number competens and |
honest agents to do their work, they |
have not in the capacity to
perform the much more difficult task
# passing useful judgment on sta
utes, frequently difficult to construe
,r understand. Again, the duty inn
,osed upon the people in legislatin3
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