Evening star., 1916-08-20
Speaker Champ Clark
Enumerates Legislation
of Democratic Congress

! AUGUSTA, Me. August 19-Cnamp
| Clark, Speaker of the House of Rep
resentatives. spoke here tonight. he
told of the accomplishments of the ad-
ministration and Congress under the
| leadership of President Wilson.
Here are some of the things we have
done and on which we stand" he said
He continued:
I'VE passed a great tariff bill-the
best ever placed on the statute BOOKS
| IT contains many excellent changes
| from the old Payne-Aldrich-Sm -Smoot
| monstrosity, and it contains one new
feature that would make it the best
of all tariff bills. even if the rest of
it were as bad as the last republican
tariff bill, which most emphatically II
is not. That new feature is the in
come tax.
THE fairest and justest tax ever
levied since men invented tax system
is a graduated income tax with rea-
sonable exemptions AS long as the
world spins on it's axis and slides down
the ecliptic no political party is ever
going to the country on a proposition
to repeal the income tax.
"It taxes men on what they have and
not on what they consume. 1t raises
necessary revenue from the abundance
with which God has blessed some of
US, and not from the wants of the
poor.
They may pass a law to change it,
remodel it, to perfect it, but to repeal
it, never 1t is not an experiment
among Legislators.
National Reserve Act.
The democrats. with the assistance
of patriotic progressives and pa
triotic contingent of republicans. placed
on the statute book the national re-
serve bank act, which is now praised
by all business men, big and little,
which provides for elasticity and pro-
vides an abundant supply of currency.
and which it is believed will render
panics impossible in the future. con-
summation devoutly to be wished.
1T enables farmers to borrow
money on farm lands-the best security
in the. world-tends to prevent the
draining of all the money into few
great cities, retaining it so far as
possible in the communities where 1t
belongs. Does any sane man believe
that we would have escaped a most
destructive panic during the overseas
war ii we had not enacted the reserve
bank law?
I'VE passed an antitrust law which
tends to promote a legitimate business
and to crush illegitmate business. I'm
der INe Ola dnll-IruSt law lHe lHeH tS-
listing trusts fiourished like a tree
planted by the rivers of water and new
trusts sprang up as suddenly and as
numerously as mushrooms in a damp
cellar
I'VE passed bill to open to our
amazingly rich Alaskan empire for the
benefit of all our people and to prevent
that marvellous storehouse of wealth
from being exploited by the few for
the benefit and behoof of the few.
Trades Commission.
THE trades commission law is, so far
as our country is concerned. new ven
ture in legislation, intended to regu-
late trade SO that it will be fair trade
fair to all. big and little. OF course,
being of recent date, we have not had
time to set the machinery under it to
working at its best, but much good is
expected from it's operation.
The rural credits bill will undoubt-
edly prove great blessing to the
farmers. The most valuable features
of it are the long term which the loans
run, the plan for amortization, and the
low rate of interest. These will give a
permanency never known before on this