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The Commoner.
6
VOLUME , NUMBER IT,
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WCCURB6NT V031
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SPEAKING BEFORE tho New Jersey Bar
Association, David J. Grower, justico of
the United States supremo court, said: Wltn
brass buttons and opoulots becoming more
plenty, with constant talk of fighting and in
ventions of now weapons, this country must
watch to prevent its pooplo drifting into dreams
of cinpiro that can only lead to disaster. Many
wars aro simply caused by tho political ambi
tions -of mon and tho lovo of military action,
and wo must bo careful not to use our great
and growing prosperity as an excuse for build
ing now navies and increasing standing armies
beyond tho point whore they ate still a mero
guard."
SENATOR TAYLOR, of Tennessee, recently
onlivonod tho sonate proceedings by tolling
this story: "Our country had been decimated
by war, humiliated by reconstruction and
weighed down by tho highest tariff taxation this
world has over known, and wo were in bad
plight. Wo wero in tho condition of tho good
old praying' member of the church who was
afflicted all at once with every disease in tho
catalogue. Ho had rheumatism and aneurism
and curvature of tho spine and was finally
stricken with paralysis; but after months of
suffering ho got bettor, and wont shambling one
ovoning to prayer meeting. The old preacher
rose and said, 'Now, brethren, I want us to have
a good time here tonight, I want every one of
you to get up and tell what tho Lord has done
for you. There is Brother Jones, God bless
Mm; ho has been afflicted and hasn't been with
us for many months. Brother Jones, get up
and toll us what tho Lord has done for you.'
Brother Jones arose and hobbled out in tho
aisle, and said: 'Well, he's about ruint me.' "
jEORGE W. WICKERSPIAM, Mr. Taft's at
UT tornoy general, speaking at Paducah, Ky.,
said that congress should enact a bill provid
ing for nationally created corporations to carry
on interstate corporations. In a later issue Tho
Commoner will reproduce the objections offered
by Mr. Bryan to the plan to give the federal
government the power of incorporation. In the
same speech Mr. Wickersham made a "fifty
per cent" suggestion, which, when offered by
Mr. Bryan, was laughed at by republican papers.
Mr. Wickersham advocated the requirement of
a federal license before a corporation organized
In ono state could do business in another, and
ho added: "It has seemed to me that an ef
fective method of legislation on this subject
would bo to enact that no corporation should
bo licensed to do business within the state if
fifty per cent of its capital stock, or upwards
was owned or held by any other corporation,
domestic or foreign, and that if, at any time
after obtaining such a license, more than fifty
per cent of the capital stock of such corporation
should be acquired by another such corporation
license should bo ipso facto vacated. The device
of holding corporation is the only thing which
has made possible tho rapid growth of tho
great trusts, and monopolies, and a prohibition
such as that stated would go far toward their
destruction."
more than fifty per cent of the capital stock
of such corporation should bo acquired by an
other corporation, tho license should bo Ipso
'facto vacated. The device of holding com
panies, ho truthfully says, is tho one thing which
has mado possible tho rapid growth of the great
trusts and monopolies, and, therefore, to de
stroy that which they have utilized to build
themselves up is the only way to topple them
over. Mr. Bryan's Idea was to get after the
trusts whenever they controlled more than fifty
per cent of any product by placing those pro
ducts on the free list. Another doctrine enun
ciated by Wickersham was to compel corpora
tions doing an interstate business to secure a
federal license. Mr. Bryan's plan was a 'license
system which will, without abridging the right
of each state to create corporations or its right
to regulate as It will foreign corporations doing
business within its limits, make It necessary for
a manufacturing or trading corporation engaged
In interstate commerce to take out a federal
license before it shall be permitted to control
as much as twenty-five per cent of the products
In which It deals, the license to protect the pub
lic from watered stock and to prohibit the con
trol by such corporation of more than fifty
per cent of the total amount of any product con
sumed In the United States."
THE NEW YORK Herald la sometimes ac
cepted as authority concerning the "system"
secrets. The Washington correspondent for the
Herald sends to his paper this dispatch: "While
many persons in and out of congress are busy
speculating upon who will be the conferees of
the house and the senate when tho time comes
to reconcile tho differences between the tarftf
bill as the house passed it and as the senate
has amended it one big fact has escaped at
tention. The real conferees will be the presi
dent, Senator Aldrlch and Speaker Cannon.
They will counsel together as to the best form
in which the bill shall become a law, and their
dictum promises to be final, for the reason
that tho republican party's organization is In
control on both sides of the capitol and Presi
dent Taft is the leader of the party. All are
parties to the legislation. Senator Aldrich will
determine the personnel of the senate conference
committee. Speaker Cannon will do the same
for the house. The conferees of each body will
do their bidding, and their bidding will be of
tho character decided upon at conferences among
the three men named. All this may sound very
elemental, because of the irregularity to which
republican policies have been subjected during
the last eight years, but it is clear as crystal
in the light of tho return of the republican or
ganization to power. This return has been de
scribed in tho Herald at various times since
March 4. It began when President Taft re
fused to assist the insurgents In their fight to
defeat Speaker Cannon's re-election. It was
emphasized when he threw cold water on their
fight against the house rules and when he chose
to reach an agreement with Senator Aldrich
in support of a' corporation tax amendment in
stead of tho income tax advocated by a fusion
of insurgent republicans and democrats."
City Star remarks that the Herald is the only
newspaper of importance in New York to uphold
the senate finance committee. The Boston
Herald and Transcript are dissatisfied. Tho
Philadelphia North American bitterly denounces
the betrayal of republican campaign pledges.
In Chicago, in addition to the Tribune, tho
Record-Herald and Evening Post dissent from
the Aldrich policy, and even tho Inter Ocean,
a standpat newspaper, says that the campaign
promises of downward revision should be ful
filled. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the St
Paul Dispatch and the Minneapolis Star are in
arms. On the Pacific coast the Portland Ore
gonian, the chief republican newspaper of the
northwest, has been bitterly attacking the Aid
rich bill, and the Spokane Statesman-Review
resents that kind of 'tariff revision.' Of the
notable exceptions to the general rule are the
newspapers of Pittsburg and the Philadelphia
Inquirer, an unflinching follower of the repub
lican organization. Mr. Aldrich may consider
himself justified as a party leader in working
his tariff bill through, the senate by shrewd
log-rolling tactics, but the open hostility of the
republican press from the Atltantlc to the Pa
cific is a fair measure of its unpopularity and
of the republican revolt which he treats with
contempt."
THE NEW YORK Evening Post makes inter
esting contribution to the tariff discussion
in this way: "The unseeing eyes of Senator
Gore of Oklahoma pierce deep into the subtle
ties and the plain lies of the tariff-boosters.
Mr. Dolllver is doing yoeman's work in a good
cause; but for wit, for sledge-hammer power,
for the gift to make the standpatter feel foolish
and ashamed, the senator from Iowa must yield
to his colleague from Oklahoma. If any of Aid
rich's devoted band have ever been ill at ease
in fighting one who is physically their Inferior,
they have lost that soft sensation. Unequal tho
match has usually been, but in favor of Okla
homa. Senator Warren had been trying to
explain why, under a tariff that makes all things
thrive, the number of sheep in the United States
had decreased from 63,000,000 in 1903 to 45,
000,000 in 1905. The reason was that in 1902,
the European wool market was demoralized in
consequence of the Boer war of 1899. Senator
Gore understood: 'I was left to infer that the
reason that the number of sheep decreased in
the United States was this: The sheep in South
Africa belonged to the International Peace So
ciety; when the black clouds of war wero low
ering in that region they migrated to the United
States; and later on when that cruel war was,
o'er, when the white-winged angel of peace and
the black-winged angel of death hovered over
the prostrate form of those stricken republics,
those sheep slowly and sorrowfully wended their
way back to the green fields, and the pleasant
pastures; they trekked their way back to the
verdant veldts of tho once glorious Transvaal.'
Either that, or something else equally reason
able, must have occurred, argued Mr. Gore. In
any case, he saw now that 'wool was so cheap in
Europe and throughout the world that it stimu
lated the production of sheep in the United
States.' "
REFERRING TO the Wickersham speech, tho
Lincoln (Neb.) Evening News, a republi
can paper, says: "Mr. Bryan will doubtless
take considerable pleasure in reading the speech
of Attorney General Wickershum at Paducah
tho other day, wherein he expounded his
remedy for dealing with tho trusts. While it
differs in some details with that proposed by
Bryan, there is enough similarity generally to
give ground for the democratic leader declar
ing it to be democratic doctrine. And that isn't
saying anything against it as a good remedy
Mr. Wickersham says that it seemed to him that
an effective method of legislation on this sub
ject would be to enact that no corporation
should be licensed to do business within a state
if .fifty per cent of its capital stock o-upwards
was owned or held by any other- corporation
domestic or forqign, and that:ify-atTury time'"
THE ATTITUDE toward the tariff bill of
newspapers is described by the New York
World in this way: "The leading republican
newspapers of the country, like the democratic
and independent press, havo been practically of
ono mind in condemning thp Aldrich tariff bill.
It is the first tariff bill since the civil war which
has not had the support of the party press. Tho
McKinley bill and the Dingley bill were accepted
unquestioningly as the true party gospel by the
republican newspapers at the time, and even
the Wilson bill, with all the disappointment it
brought to honest advocates of a tariff for rev
enue, evoked approval from most of the demo
cratic newspapers. But the Aldrich bill is too
much for even the most hardened republicans
to stomach. Among its most conspicuous critics
stand such stanch republican organs as-the New
York Tribune and the' Chicago Tribune. In a
survey of the whole newspaper fioldv the' Kansas
THE "MAXIMUM and minimum" feature of
the tariff bill as arranged by a republican
congress is described by the Council Bluffs (la.)
Nonpareil, a republican paper, in this' way:
"When the tariff bill left the house, the proposed
maximum and minimum feature was so arranged
as frankly to put commercial United States in
the attitude of going into the world of trade
with a chip on its shoulder, or a big stick in
its hand, or both. They were not a few who
were quick to suggest that it would be better
to go with the glad hand and a lump of -sugar.
In its application, the maximum and 'minimum'
scheme is capable of being turned either Way,"
end for end. It may mean either conciliation'
or hostility, in trade. As it reached the seriate"
-in-the Payne bill; v It .'meant the Tatter clea"fly
and 'audibly. Tho minimum -duties were''be
the 'standard-, with 'a -heavy advance to-'aJmaM-'
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