The Commoner.
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lantern" methods. It will be impossible for a
democratic candidate to go through a national
campaign representing both sldos of tho contrb
vorsy between plutocracy and democracy. It
is folly to attempt to straddle the Issue. If
the men who claim that Governor Harmon is a
progressive really want a progressive, thoy
ought' to take up somebody else. If thoy do not
want a .progressive, they ought to make their
literature fit their wishes.
ATTENTION, MR. PRESIDENT " '
President Taft's attention is directed .to an
editorial that appeared in the Chicago Daily
News of October 31, 1911. This editorial -is
entitled "Reforming Illegal Combinations," and
is as follows:
4 "Of course we must have combinations,' said
President Taft in his speech at the First regi
ment armory on Friday evening, 'but they need
not be In unlawful restraint of trade.' That
they may be in restraint of trade and still bo
inoffensive under the law is Indicated by the
president's words as well as by the decisions
of the United States supreme court in the Stand
ard Oil and Tobacco trust caseB. The line of
reasonable restraint divides the lawless from
the lawful trusts. "Where is this line? Mr.
Taft thinks its precise position is as clear as
day. 'No business man,' he says, 'can telJ, me
it Is a question for a jury. A jury would settle
it in two minutes.'
'Perhaps so. Leading corporation lawyers
of the country, however, assert that they do
not know whore to draw the line that under
existing conditions nobody knows where to draw
the line. If Mr. Taft and his attorney-general
know where to draw it they ought speedily to
establish a school of instruction for repentant
and long faced corporation "managers who are
pleading for the Information -that will enable
them to make their business legal, provided it is
now illegal. When the steel trust was struck
by Jersey lightning in the shape of the Trenton
suit it was engaged in trying, by terminating an
important ore lease and otherwise, to make its
operations square with the law.
""Tire"""merr who 'formeci the "Steel 'tnrst'pfbb
ably would not suffer financially or otherwise
by its destruction. If they have performed the
wicked acts laid at their doors by the govern
ment they ought to be subjected to criminal
prosecution. The government prefers to prose
cute the stockholders of the steel trust. Out
of- that prosecution may come heavy losses from
uncertainty and stagnation of business, but they
will not be the losses of trust barons. For while
the public loses by confusion in the channels
of trade the country's financial dictators gain
through their vast and far reaching brokerage
systems.
"The government should spread the light of
lawful trust raanagenaent and should punish by
criminal prosecution the men who as corporation
magnates have broken the anti-trust law, or who
decline to cease breaking it when their law
lessness is made clear to them. If they 'are
held responsible as individuals the trust evil
presently will be cured as if by magic."
The News gives one sentence that ought to
be burned into the understanding of all men
charged with the enforcement of law: "If the
trust magnates are held responsible as indi
viduals the trust evil presently will be cured
as if by magic.'
RECALL IN ARIZONA
A Tucson, Ariz., dispatch, carried by the
Associated Press, says: "When the legislature
convenes in Phoenix in February, it will be
asked to adopt the Swiss system of recall and
let the Oregon system which was voted out of
the constitution Decemher 12, an ultimatum of
President Taft, go by the board. The essential
difference between the Swiss system arid the
Oregon plan is that under the former the on.ly
thing voted on in a recall election is the recall
of the officials and in the event of his elimina
tion the governor appoints his successor. A. A.
Worsley, a state senator, will propose the new
recall system. He is now at work on the
measure and will defend it on the ground that
under the organization system an official under
fire Is handicapped by a double fight, a struggle
not only to retain his position and refute
charges against him, but a struggle also
against an opposing candidate. Worsloy's
bill will provide that after the recall is resub
mitted to the people for the Incorporation in
the. constitution, the Oregon and Swiss plans
shall be placed on the ballot . so voters may
chpose between them.
HARMON'S RECORD
TIIE SHORT HOUR DAY
Apparently two grades of campaign literaturo
are being issued by the men who are conducting '
the' Harmon literary bufeau. One pamphlet,
of over 100 pages contains, among other things,
a list of bills which it introduces with this
declaration: "During a five months' session,
the democratic general assembly, In 1911,
established a now record for platform redemp
tions in Ohio by enacting hito laws all but one
of the measures promised by the Ohio democ
racy. The exception was a law of minor impor
tance." This gives the credit where it belongs,
to the democrats of the assembly, and is an
accurate list of the bills passed by it.
In another pamphlet, which must be intended
for circulation outside of Ohio, the same list
of bills in fact, the same type is utilized is
given as "bills that were enacted into law by
the democratic general assembly, and were
indorsed and approved by Governor Harmon."
This is not an accurate statement. As was
shown in last week's Commoner the most impor
tant piece of progressive legislation which Ohio
has enacted in years, a law giving the most
complete control, supervision and regulation of
public utilities ever enacted, by any state, was
allowed to become a law by Governor Harmon
by lapse of time and failure to sign. He dodged.
Another law which this ipamphlet includes in
those that its avers were indorsed and approved
by tho governor, is thus described: "Shorter
day for employed women. A bill limiting the
working hours of women employed to 54 hours
a week, with not more than ten hours in any
one day." The record shows that GOVERNOR
HARMON DID NOT SIGN THIS BILL, and that
it became a law purely by reason of the fact
that he did not sign or return it to the house
in which it originated within the time provided
by the constitution. Under the Ohio constitu
tion,. a governor does nob-approve or veto a '
bill duly .passed and presented, to him within, the
period of ten days, it becomes a law anyway.'
This provision makes it possible for a governor
who desires to sidestep to do so.
On pages 488 and 489 of the book contain
ing the laws passed by the last Ohio legislature
will be found this law. It is signed by the
speaker of the house and the president of the
senate, and to it is appended a statement by
John W. Devannoy, veto clerk, that the bill
was presented to the governor on June 3, 1911,
and as he did not sign it or return it to the
house wherein it originated within ten days
after being so presented, it was filed in the
office of tho secretary of state, and became a
law notwithstanding the lack of. the governor's
signature.
This bill is nowhere mentioned .in any of the
governor's messages or speeches! But he is
given credit by his pamphleteers for its being
enacted.
A mere reading of the title of the bill does
not give any indication of its importance, as
viewed by women workers and their employers.
So important a reform is this and so far-reaching
in its effects is it, however, that a similar
measure by the Illinois legislature was fought
in the courts at great expense for several years,
and the litigation was not ended until the
federal supreme court at Washington upheld
tho law. This bill provides among other things:
That every person or corporation employing
. women in factories, workshops, business offices,
telephone or telegraph offices, restaurant, bak
ery, millinery or dressmaking establishment,
mercantile or other establishments, shall pro
vide seats for them while not necessarily, em
ployed in their active duties. Employers are
also required to furnish lunchrooms wherever
practicable; ample time must be allowed for
meals; sanitary toilet rooms must be furnished,
and other steps taken to preserve the health of
the women employes. The law limits the hours
of labor to fifty-four in a week and ten hours
in a day, Suitable fines and penalties are
appended. , - C. Q. D.'
"NAMING" A CASE
President Taft asks his critics to name a case
covered by the anti-trust law as formerly con
strued which would not be covered by a re
cent construction placed upon It. The president,
of course, knows that no one can tell what this
VOLUME 11,. NUMBER 51
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court will do in any particular case after it .has
reversed the former decision, on the trust ques--tion.
He also knowa that it would be impos
sible to find out by trial before the next presi
dential' election. If one can judge anything,
therefore, from the arguments employed in. the
Standard Oil and Tobacco cases it is safe to
say that the court as now constituted would
acqnit the corporations found guilty in the few
trials where the question of reasonableness was -involved.
The Merger case,,for instance, would
surely be. reversed, by the present court, and. that
would be a tremendous advantage-to thefinan
ciers who are seeking to control the industries"
of the country, and a tremendqus disadvantage
to the public.
President Taft in one of his speeches says
"that the court is trying to reach the law .as
it should be." Does the president mean by that
that it is the business of the courts to change
the law? Is it not the duty of the court to
decide what tho law is rather than what it
should be? ' Is it not the business of congress
to decide what should be in the-way of law?
SHALL DEPOSITORS BE PROTECTED?
Shall depositors be protected? The demo
cratic national platform of 1912 demanded
greater security for depositors. What is the
democratic congress going to do about It?
The establishment of the postal savings bank
is a confession that depositors are insecure, but
that law does not go far enough. Will the
democratic party take the side of the deposi
tors or will it allow the bankers to frighten it
away from its duty? If the democrats in the
house do not like the guaranty laws of Okla
homa, Nebraska, Kansas and Texas 'it must be
remembered that the supreme court has declared
them legally sound let them devise some better
plan. Security is the thing desired if that is
secured the bankers can be left free to propose
a system satisfactory to them, but they should
no longer be permitted to invite depositors and
then leave depositors to run all the risks. This
plank, like other planks of the democratic plat
form, ought to be carried out. -
GOOD FOR SULZER
. Representative William Sulzer of New York
is receiving many well merited compliments not
only for his good work in pushing the fight for
the abrogation of the Russian . treaty but also
for the graceful way in which he' yielded his
own honors and urged the house to accept the
senate resolution rather than his own so that
the president's hands might be upheld by. the
legislative end of the government- in dealing
with Russia ,
"" Mr. Sulzer-has ever'beeiTa brave andfaithful
public servant, reflecting credit upon' the demo
cratic party.
OPPORTUNITY!
The following poem by-Judge Walter Malone,
one of the great poets of the south, ought .to
be pasted up in every young man's room..' There
is inspiration in it.
, OPPORTUNITY
They. do me wrong who say I come no more '
When once I knock and fail to find you in; :
For every day. I stand without your door,
And bid you work, and rise to fight and win. . -
Wail not for precious chances passed away,
Weep not for golden ages on the wane!
Each night I burn the records of the day ''
At sunrise every soul Is born again!
Laugh like a boy at splendors that have fled
To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb;
My judgments seal the dead past with its dead,
But never bind a moment yet to come. - -
Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and
weep;
I lend my arm to all who say "I can"
No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep ;"
But he might rise and be again a man! "'." .:'
Dost thou behold thy lost outh all aghast?."' . .
Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow?'
Then turn from blotted archives of the past,
And find tho future's pages white as snow, r
Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy
Bpell;
Art thou a sinner? Sins may "be forgiven:
Each morning gives thee wings to flee from: hell,
Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.
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