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The Commoner
Volume 7, num,ber 33
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The Commoner.
ISSUED WEEKLY.
;. WlM.MM J. IJllYAN OlIAIlMW W. UllYAN
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THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Nob.
Batter lay in your supply of oil before the
raise comes. ;' ' - '
; i
Governor Glenn has slidtyn' what may he
accomplished by gding after the men higher Up.
"Unintentionally Senator Foralcer has given
t 'the Taft boom quite a goodly lot' of inflation.
".
The Korean delegates to tho peace con
ference are coming on to the United States to
find it.
And now Mr. Foraker feels like going out
and Brownsvilling the Ohio republican state
committee. , .
George Ade says he is making money faster
than he can spend it, What, writing fables
again, George?
,t J Judge Llndsoy says that Mr. Guggenheim
bought a senatorship. Judge Lindsey is not
it' purveyor of news.
Those inventions for . the prevention of
naval accidents seem to bo in need, of sub-inventions
that will make the originals work.
Those darting shadows down east are
caused by Judge Jeter Prlfcchard Wig-wagging
Washingtonward for assistance in letting go.
Early in September the republicans of
Oklahoma will swallow a good constitution with
wry faces, and at the same time declare that
they like it.
It seoms that oven a railroad president pre
fers peace to legal turmoil, especially when ho
would have to whistle through jail bars while
tho turmoil proceeded outside.
The Medical Journal declares that the 3oap
bubble is the thinnest thing in the world. Huh!
Did the Medical Journal ever measure the thin
ness of the average tariff standpatter argument?
It is said that "strictly modern political
methods prevailed during the recent -Philippine
campaign." What Filipino Cortelyou went out
with the fryingpan, and what Filipino Bliss ac
cepted the money and paid it out?
. .
The advocates of a ship subsidy will have
a hard time explaining why Uncle Sam has to
violate his own shipping laws and hire a vessel
flying tho British emblem to use in the govern
ment's Panama coasting -trades business.
MR. ROOSEVELT'S "ILLOGICAL STOP'
MR. TAFT'S "WIDE MARGIN"
The Denver News dealt in a particularly
Interesting way with the speeches recently de
livered by Messrs. RoosVelt and Taft. Expres:
slug approval of some portions of Mr. Taft's
address the News says:
"But there are some things about that
speech which we do not like, some things which
make us believe we could pick out quite as
good a president without going as far east to
do it. For one thing, Mr. Taft shows himself
a bureaucrat. He seems to love a commission
for its own sake. Now the News has always
acted in the belief that a commission was, aftor
all, a makeshift, a necessary but temporary con
trivance to stop a gap while some way was being
found of fixing individual responsibility. In
stead of having commissions forevermore to con
trol the corporations, the News wants to so
amend the laws as to get at the individual back
of the corporation and make him stand the pen
alty of tho misdeeds he achieves through cor
porate machinery.
"Mr. Taft admits that most of the trusts
owe their monopolies to illegal acts or to govern
ment favors. We go one step farther and de
' clare that they all do. We make again our oft
repeated and never challenged statement that
there is not? and can not be, any such thing as
a fair monopoly. The rebate does all that Mr.
Taft says it does in monopoly making, and more.
But there is another important agent to which
Mr. Taft does not refer In this connection, and
that is the tariff. For, if the rebate is the father
of the trusts, the tariff is surely their mother.
"We have been taught to regard Mr. Taft
as a champion of tariff reform. It seems we
were premature in our rejoicings on that point.
The secretary of war declares himself an ardent
champion of protection, and while he would be
glad to see the tariff revised, the whole repub
lican party must agree on the revision. One
might as well look for unanimity of creeds in
a congress of religions. If the tariff is to stand
till the entire republican party can agree on
how to revise it, it will remain forever. More
over, Mr. Taft shows that the revisions he is
after are not such as need keep any present ben
eficiary awake at night. He would base the tariff
on the difference between the cost Of production
at home and abroad. This would put half our
articles on the free list at once if enforced rig
idly, but in the next breath Mr. Taft shows that
he does not wish it enforced rigidly. He says
that in computing this difference we must al
ways leave a 'wide margin' for safety's sake;
and he quotes with substantial approval the re
port of the National Association of Manufactur
ersone might say the National Association of
Tariff Beneficiaries to the effect that the pres
ent 'margin' is none too wide. So it seems that
not only must the tariff await revision until the
g. o. p. can agree on what to revise, but that
revision must bo measured by the wishes of
those who benefit by the present scale. How
much hope this holds out to the farmer and
laborer we would rather not say."
Referring to Mr. Roosevelt's speech the
News heartily commends the promise that there
will be no "lefup" In the prosecution of crim
inal corporations. It reminds him that "on
most of the tasks which have given him his
' fame he has had a deal better support from
the democrats than from the republicans. The
News adds:
"But here, as in contemplating the speech
of Secretary Taft, the News is struck with the
illogical stop that is made, the incompleteness
of the doctrines which Roosevelt and his suc
cessor have learned so well from the text-books
of democracy. We have spoken of our disgust
for the persistept egotism of Wall Street, a dis
gust which it is evident the president shares
to the full. But, after all, is the Wall Street
man so much to blame for that attitude? He is
.asking the country to get him out of a hole, that
is true. But what has been the unfailing prayer
of those who feed at the trough of the sacred
tariff, in the temple of the g. o. p.? What
about the argument of the full dinner pail? Has
not tho republican party for forty years preached
the doctrine that it is the government's business
to insure tho prosperity of some citizens? The
News is unable to see why what is a patriotic
call from the steel manufacturer should be a
criminal plea from the broker who deals in the
stocks of the steel corporation. Both are crying
for government aid. Both assume that' it is the
government's business to render that did. 'Both
estimate the value of justice in terms of cash,
and if privilege is worth more in the market,
they call for privilege as a right. And why not?
The democrat, the follower of Jefferson, can
' logically object to both the' beggar, of Wall
Street and the beggar of Pittsburg. It is tho
doctrine of democracy that prosperity is but
an incident to good government that the busi
ness of government is simply and solely to in
sure justice, and that if this is done prosperity
will take care of itself.. But we confess we can
not see the logic of handing bonuses to Pittsburg
and brickbats to Wall Street at one and the
same time. Not that we pity Wall Street, how
ever not a bit.
"And there is another point on which wo
can not agree with the president. It is a point
on which we have taken sharp issue with him
many times before, and shall probably have to
do so again. We refer to his notion that he
has the right to play pitch and 'toss with the
constitution and make hay of states' rights if
the object in his mind is a beneficent one, which
we are perfectly ready to grant that it is. We
quote: 'It seems to me that such questions as
national sovereignty and states' rights need to
be treated, not empirically nor academically, but
from the standpoint of the interests of the people
as a whole.'
"And, of course, Mr. Roosevelt thinks him
self entirely competent to ascertain those inter
ests. "We really must object. We have said
many times before that weJiave every confidence
in the honesty of the president's intentions. But
we do not believe' that he' or any other man
has a vision so' clear that it can be trusted to
lay the course of the ship of state in the absence
of the compass of the constitution. The con
stitution has fixed the boundaries between state
and national , powers, ' and . those boundaries
. should remain unchanged until the people them
selves shall order a new survey. If this admin
istration can decide that a thing is constitutional
because and .merely because it seems to jump
with the people's interests, then the next ad-
t ministration will have the same power. The end
would be that we should not have constitutional
government at all, but a personal government,
with the constitution shredded to furnish fringe
for the executive mantle. And that, we sub
mit, would-be a calamity so far greater than
any we ar now facing tha,t there is no com
parison between them. (
"In a word, much as we like the president,
we still hold to the party of Jefferson. We still
believe in that party, we deem its principles
the most vital and forceful expression of free
government which has yet been uttered, and
we think that party, even in defeat, one of the
nation's most precious possessions. Indeed, it
is largely because of his Jeffersonian principles
that we admire Roosevelt, and we"' usually havo
to part company with him when he parts com
pany with those doctrines. The most notable
feature of recent political life is the determina
tion to bring the corporations under the law.
That is a work peculiarly democratic, and it
is a work of which President Roosevelt has
made himself the leader to a degree unrivaled
in the country. In supporting him as they have
done, the democrats have but supported their
own principles, When ..Roosevelt retires from
the helm we hope it may be taken by one who
is prepared to do the same work, only carried
out to its logical conclusion. And thatnvill take
a democrat."
' - oxx
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