The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-09
ADAMS0N LAW IS
 PEOPLES RIGHT,
 SAYS 6. 0.P. MAN
James Kennedy. of Ohio Mckinley Congressman
 Vindicates Wilson.

Youngstown, O., Oct. 9.-Former nedy of Ohio, who for four successive terms represented McKinley's old dis trict in Congress, is now an earnest and enthusiastic advocate of President Wilson's reelection. Although a lifelong Republican, active in that party's councils in Ohio, he has pub licly announced in a letter to the Youngstown Vindicator his complete abandonment of the Republican party and its national presidential candi- date.
 The letter tersely sets forth his rea- sons for his present course, and is a convincing and sweeping endorse ment of President Wilson's action in the railroad crisis. It is in part as follows:
 'I think that the Congressional ac- ton taken when the Adamson Bill was passed is altogether the best piece of legislation that has been enacted by Congress during my lifetime. It re- cognizes completely for the first time, the right of Congress under the Com merce clause of the Constitution, to fully and completely regulate the na- tions great highways. It recognizes the fact that the trainmen working for the railroad corporations are pub- lie servants, working directly for the public, and that the public pays their wages. The railroad corporations are only trustees also serving the public. And it for the first time asserts the right of the people to attend to the peoples own business. Congress should fix the hours of labor, the compensation and the conditions of employment of the public's own ser wants.
 '-The regulation of the publics own roads is peculiarly the business of the people in America. and when the President referred the matter this act in itself was admirable and should be approved and sustained by every pa- triotic American regardless of former party affiliations. Every other ques- ton in this campaign dwindles into insignificance compared with this is- sue. Briefly stated, as I conceive it, 1t is: Shall the people at last be per- mitted to have something to say about that which is. peculiarly the peoples own business, to wit Management and regulation of their public high ways?p The public furnishes every dollar of the money to pay both the wages of the railroad trainmen and the salaries of the railroad presi- dents, and the railroad president and the railroad conductor are both ser- wants of the public.
 "Our invisible government is insult ing the intelligence of the American people when it by all it's special plead CTS attempts by appeals to prejudice tell us there were some questions to dispute about the regulation of the railroads between the public trustees and the public servants, which ought to be submitted to arbitration, and 1 say again that the presidents attitude was magnificent when he said to both of these parties, This is the public's own business, and the people by their legislative agents shall act on this matter Congress long ago should have taken charge and completely regulated the instruments of Inter- state Commerce, and great highways of the Nation between the cities. And this belated movement in the right di- rection must not be repudiated now by the people unless they expect to be slaves of the invisible government forever. 'Tt is with great reluctance that I am compelled to abandon the party with which I have been affiliated all my life, but a sense of duty compels me to take the position I have just indicated.
 !. "I shall vote for Woodrow Wilson for president solely because he recog- | nized fully the fact that the great in- struments of Interstate Commerce should be regulated by the people act ing through Congress, and not by labor union and an association of rail- road presidents.