The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-02-14
What One Man Has Taken on Himself

the power of control by federal H.
cense; in order to exercise them HI
has but to proclaim his intention t.
do So
V.
To an extent which turns topsy-
turvy all previous notions of the
scope of executive power, President
Wilson is becoming the nations price
fixer; price fixer for munitions and a
multitude of the necessaries of war;
price fixer for fuel; rate fxer for
transportation on land and water; rate
fiAer for dividends; price fixer even
for the wretched pound of sugar which
the housekeeper pursues with frenzy
and finally obtains for less, perhaps,
than it cost the small retailer who
sells it when he can get it. The
practical results of further enlarge
ment Of this swiftly expanding execu-
tive responsibility can only be await
ed with intense interest by the COM
lmunity
VI.
incidentally the president has taken
on himself the regulation of the sump-
tuary affairs of his fellow citizens.
Not directly but indirectly through
the exercise of the new powers con-
centrated in him, he has become the
dictator of the peoples pleasures, the
censor of their Injuries, the overseer
of their habits and manner of life.
VII.
He has taken on himself, with the
general acquiescence of the represen
tatives of the properties concerned
the management of the entire trans
portation system of the United States
and the responsibility for the just and
efficient use of power such as has
been possessed by no other man
Isince Stephenson's rocket" first hit
the rails. Through the director gen.
eral of railroads, his own appointee
responsible solely to him, he has I'M
dertaken to carry on for the public
benefit and for war purposes a bust
ness which in immensely and com
p,exity and financial importance has
nc counterpart. He has undertaken
to do in block, in the name of gov
eminent, that which has been done be-
fore this in detail by body of most
tightly specialized professional talent
on earth. He can send all these skill :
ell organizations a-marching and put
his own men in charge. He can ordef
any change in physical equipment
He can build up one system and rele-
gate another to innocuous desuetude
! He can alter schedules, lower or raise
ticket money and freight tariff, make
new combinations of service, put box
cars where Pullmans have been run
ming depopulate suburban regions by
/ his supreme authority over the time
table, shift real estate values by ord
ering freight this way and passenger
traffic that way, take the flesh off the
commuters bones, take the dollars of
the stockholders bank account; all
this and much more Is within the
power now concentrated in President
Wilson. That he will exercise it to
the best of his judgment and with a
single view to war efficiency and the
public interest who may doubt? The
power and the burden are with him
all the same.
The president has already knocked
railroad competition into the shape t.
which he once expressed fervent
desire to reduce Mr.. Bryan. There
can be no competition under this re.
gime, except so far as it might bt
forced upon a recalcitrant or unfav.
ored line by thrusting that line be.
yond the pale Of government opera
ton and thus leaving it in disma
independence with a single competitor
namely, the government Of the United
States.
VIII
He has taken upon himself to d.
with and for American shipping jus
about the same thing as in the cas-
of the railroads. He has also under
taken, under the compulsion of man
ifest necessity, to create merchan
marine with which to do that thing
He is already establishing in differen
quarters of the globe agencies to fac
, ilitate the operation, under govern
ment control, of the new merchan
marine now being or to be create,
/ under government supervision. Thu