The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1916-11-01
everywhere can have opportunity t.

publican House, one of the first
| things that they will do will be to
eight or nine. or ten, or even eleven
of these regional banks SO that they
| can center the currency of all America
near the great financial centers of
| this country and not far from a very
noted street that we know down
! there, where they can keep their eyes
on it. That is what they want to do
with the finances Of America. And
when I see this splendid act built up,
which has released the energies OF
/ America and when I see how it Is
Threatened and when I know, as I
know, that the election Of the Re-
| publican president would. undo a
large measure of this progressive leg
| islation and turn back the clock of
progress in America for rs years, !
cannot look forward with compla-
! cency to triumph of such reaction
! airy principles
eve now come to the Adamson law.
| 7 haven't much time to stop to discuss
this act 1 wish that had more time.
You all know what a crisis threatened
America You all know that while the
senator may with his mallifuous and
velvety e1oquence talk about the in
jury that this law has done to labor,
the most astonishing thing about it is
that labor, does not know it. You
know we were threatened with a ma
ton wide strike.
cit is easy enough to talk now that
the crisis has passed, but the fact re-
mains that America was alarmed by
the prospect. Many people did not
dare to go to New York. They feared
the trains would stop running and
they could not get home. Many of
the railroads put embargoes upon
freight The New York, New Haven
& Hartford had already established an
embargo upon freight and the Rail-
way Age Gazette, which is about as
good an authority, I think, as even
Senator Mclean, took occasion to say
this in it's issue Of September list: The
United States is confronted with what
may prove to be the gravest disaster In
it's history since the Civil War. The
labor brotherhoods have ordered a
strike on all the railroads effective on
Septeber 4th. The only agency which
sees in position to prevent the dlisas-
ter is the national government
And when the railroad executives
rejected the Presidents plan for
compromise, all the anti Wilson pa
pers all over the country said, Again
the President has failed He could not
stop it, He did not know enough to
stop it, Vacillating policy!' And then
after the strike was settled, Wilson
was to, blame, just the same. He called
in the representatives Of both sides
4 and after he had listened to their
claims. he made q proposition. The
men accepted it, The railroad employ
ers declined to accept it. And then the
President went to Congress and made
effective by law that which he himself
had proposed.
Where was Brother Hughes all this
time? He was roaming around the
country, complaining bitterly that
man named Durand had been removed
from the geodetic survey. Well, my
friends, it was time for statesman
ship.
Mr.. Hughes had been taken from
the Supreme Court bench in violation
of all the judicial traditions OF a CEN
fury in order to bring his great mind
to bear upon the problems of the day,
and while the President was wrestling
with this question and striving to
avert this disaster, Hughes was silent.
All he had to dol was to telegraph to
Congress to stop this law. All he had
to do was to call one senator and ask
him to oppose this law. All he had to
do was to call in the newspaper men
and conf1de his secret to them. I have
never yet found any difficulty in call
ing in the newspaper men. But he
concealed his opposition to the Pres
ident's form of settlement until after
the settlement was made, and then af-
ter the settlement was made, the del
uge of language that burst forth from
him was positively appalling.
I Oh, my friends, it won't do. It
don't do to treat America or the Pres
ident of the United States in that
manner. The Senator suggests that
ew have treaties with different nations
and can larbitrate anything, but the
fact was that the men refused to ar
bitrate the eight hour law. They were
willing to arbitrate everything else,
and it looked as if the negotiations
had come to an end, but when the law
was put through Congress, the Pres
ident had behind him the force of the
statutes of the United States
when Mr.. Roosevelt stopped the
coal strike when he was president he
did not wait then to have any law be-
hind him. He allowed the Morgan In
terests to take over the Tennessee Coal
& Iron company in violation of the
law and justified himself afterwards
on the ground that it was great ma
tional crisis and he didn't care what
ten law was. If Roosevelt by stopping
the coal strike could excuse himself
from a violation of the law, it does not
lie in his mouth or in the mouth of
any Of his admirers to object to the
President stopping the railroad strike
with the aid of the law
I'VE come now to the Underwood
law. I have listened very patiently to
what the Senator has to say. Even
the Underwood law. gentlemen and
ladies. was sufficiently good to attract
Republican support. 1t was adopted
Sept. 80, 1913, and five Republicans
in the House Of Representatives voted
/ for it and it passed the Senate, and in
the Senate one Republican and one
Progressive voted for it. Even the
Underwood law was so good that it
attracted Republican support and
Progressive support in the House Of
Representatives and the Senate of the
United States.
After the Republican party had
promised to reduce the tariff in the
campaign Of 1908, and after it had
gone In, and had put on the statute
books the Ubiquitous Paine-Aldrich
law, which the indefensible Schedule
K, the law was so offensive to the
American people that it.. was almost
impossible to get a leading Republi-