Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1916-09-08
CONSTRUCTIVE ACTS vs..
DESTRUCTIVE COMMENT
Continued from page ~

improved methods of cultivation and,
through the intelligent extension of the
functions of the department of agricul-
ture. have made 1t possible for the
farmer to learn Systematically where
his best markets are and how to get at
them.
The wOrkingmen Of America have
been given a veritable emancipation
by the legal recognition Of mans la
Dor as part of his life and not q mere
marketable commodity, by exempting
labor organizations from processes Of
the courts which treated their men,
bers like fractional parts Of mobs and
not like accessible and responsible in
dividualS, by releasing our seamen
from involuntary servitude, by making
adequate provision for compensation
for industrial accidents, by providing
suitable machinery for mediation and
Cancellation in industrial disputes and
by putting the federal department OF
labor at the disposal Of the working
man when in search Of work
We have effected the emancipation
Of the children Of the country by re-
leasing them from hurtful labor. We
have instituted system of national
aid in the building Of highroads such
as the country has been feeling after
for century. We have sought to
equalize taxation by means Of an equi-
table income tax. We have taken the
steps that ought to have been taken at
the outset to open up the resources Of
Alaska We have provided for ma
tional defense upon scale never be-
fore seriously proposed upon the re-
Bponsibility Of an entire political par
ty. We have driven the tariff lobby
from cover and obliged 1t to substi-
tute solid argument for private influ-
ence.
This extraordinary recital must
sound like platform, list Of san
guine promises, but it is not. 1t is q
record of promises made four years
ago and now actually redeemed in con-
structive legislation.
These things must profoundly disturb,
the thoughts and confound the plans Of
nose who have made themselves be-
.lieye that the Democratic party neither
understood nor was ready to assist the
business Of the country in the great
enterprises which it is its evident and
inevitable destiny to undertake and
carry through. The breaking up Of the
lobby must especially disconcert them,
for 1t was through the lobby that they
1,od
the heart Of things. The game Of priv
ilege can be played successfully by no
other means.
Fought by the Interests.
This record must equally astonish
those who feared that the Democratic
party had not opened its heart to COM
prehend the demands Of social justice
We have in four years come very near
to carrying out the platform Of the
Progressive party as we'll as our own.
for we also are progressives.
There is one circumstance connected
with this program which ought to be
very plainly stated. 1t was resisted at
every step by the interests, which the
Republican party had catered to and
fostered at the expense Of the country,
and these same interests are now
earnestly praying for reaction which
will save their privileges-for the re-
storation Of their sworn friends to
power before it is too late to recover
what they have lost. They fought with
particular desperation and infinite re-
sourcefulness the reform Of the bank
ing and currency system, knowing that
to be the citadel of their control, and
most anxiously are they hoping and
planning for the amendment Of the
federal reserve act by the concentra-
ton Of control in a single bank which
the old familiar group Of bankers can
keep under their eye and direction; but,
while the "big men" who used to write
the tariffs and command the assistance
Of the treasury have been hostile-all
but few with visiof1--the average
business man knows that he has been
delivered and that the fear that was
once every day IN his heart that the
men who controlled credit and directed
enterprise from the committee rooms Of
congress would crush him, is there no
more and will not return, unless the
party that consulted only the "big
men" should return to power-the par
ty Of mastery inactivity and cunning
resourcefulness in standing pat to re-
sist change.
The Republican party is just the par
ty that cannot meet the new conditions
of new age. 1t does not know the
way and it does not wish new con-
ditions. 1t tried to break away from
the old leaders and could not. They
still select its candidates and dictate
its policy. still resist change, still
banker after the old conditions, still
know no methods of encouraging bust
ness but the old methods. When 1t
changes its leaders and its purposes
and brings its ideas up to date it will
have the right to ask the American
people to give it power again, but not
until then. \ new age. an age of
revolutionary change, needs new pur-
poses and new ideas.
In foreign affairs we have been guild
ed by principles clearly conceived and
consistently lived up to. Perhaps they
have not been fully comprehended be-
cause they have hitherto governed in
ternational affairs only in theory, not
in practice. They are simple, obvious,
easily stated and fundamental to
American ideals.
We have been neutral not only be-
cause it was the fixed and traditional
policy of the United States to stand