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OCTOBER 18, 1907
The Commoner.
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What Newspapers Think of Centralization.
New York Tribune (rop.) The nation has
centralized itself and can not now be decentral
ized. And the constitution will continue to bo
interpreted more and more in the terras of na
tional life rather than in the terms of the dictionary.
Houston (Texas) Post The president's
.'theory would destroy onof the vital principles
of democracy. It would take from the states
the power to protect their cltizons against op
pression. For immediate conditions that might
. be intolerable, there would bo no immediate
relief and possibly no relief at all, if the oppres-
' -sor happened to have influence at tle federal
capital. Mr. Roosevelt has a beautiful theory,
but In practice it would accentuate the oppres
sion and injustice against which he seems anx
ious to shield the public.
Richmond (Va) Journal Centralization
is bad, but this goes a bowshot beyond the wild
est Bchemes of centralization yet proposed. It
amounts to the abrogation of the organic law,
and the substitution in place thereof of the will
of a majority of nine judges practically appoint
ed by the president.
Fort Worth (Tex.) Record The position of
- the attorneys general is founded upon the broad
principle of states rights, and there is growing
evidence that that principle is not bounded by
the United States. Only recently has the country
"been treated to the spectacle of a southern fed
eral judge in Alabama sustaining a federal court
as against the state courts, and of a northern
federal judge in Minnesota sustaining a state
court as against a federal court. This shows
that the question of states rights has ceased to
be either a political or a sectional issue. This
fact will clear the atmosphere for the state offi
cials very materially.
u ' ' Philadelphia Record The states are abun
dantly capable of regulating industrial enter
prises in accordance with their own respective
judgments and policies. The president's demand
.would degrade the states to the level of counties
and erect in Washington a central government,
holding in its grasp all the commerce of the
. country and able to perpetuate its power by its
control of business. When that shall be accom
plished the United States of America will cease
to exist, whether the name is retained or not.
.The name of republic was retained In Rome,
and the consuls and the senate existed after the
empire was established, but only the names and
. the forms remained; the thing they stood for
had disappeared: When the president's com
missioner of corporations shall control all the
industrial establishments of the country we shall
have Russian bureaucracy fully established, and
- with the control of business will go the control
of politics. It will be idle, then, to hold presi
dential elections. The president can construe
'them out of the'constitution as easily as he can
construe into it the national regulation of the
industrial life of the people.
, Springfield (Mass.) Republican Where is
-located any successful resistance by the roads
to the orders of a commission largely chosen
-by. Mr. Roosevelt himself? Where are the ox
parte injunctions upsetting the commission's
orders, which the new law made provision
against after one of the ablest debates (on the
powers of the federal judiciary) ever heard in
"the United States senate? The president can not
go on talking as he does without raising the
presumption that he is beginning to lean to pub
lic -ownership as the only means of providing an
adequate "sovereign" over transportation.
St. - Louis Republic The Chicago Inter
Ocean estimates that 750,000 stock companies
in the United States, 25,000 of them in Illinois
alone, would be subject to the crushing power
-of the "index finger of the president of the
United States" under what it calls the stupen
dous centralization of power he demands. Long
one of the leading republican papers of the
country and still holding its republican position,
the Inter Ocean aeciares mat uu kivci ,dou,
lias ever been presented by a president even in
times of war." It is true that tho logic of this
demand is that the private business, as well aa
the "public utility" business. now dono between
Missouri and Illinois, as among all tho states,
must be taken from private control and tho con
trol of tho states and centralized in Washing
ton. It is true that all incorporated private
business is asked to submit wholly to tills con
trol at Washington if even a small part of its
output goes into a neighboring state. But what
is the real point? Tho American public has
demanded reforms, through the enforcement of
existing laws and through tho repeal or modi
fication of some which are responsible for tho
worst abuses. The only answer so far is that
reform must be postponed until revolution has
been accomplished. According to tho president,
tho wholo working systom of government must
be changed before tho republican party, as ho
represents it, can reform Its own abuses.
Tho Inter Ocean calls his plan "a monstrous
proposition." It is a monstrous absurdity and
a dangerous one. But reform is possible in spite
of it and in spite of tho republican party.
Milwaukee Sontlnel All that is wanted is
for the states to recognize the justice, expediency
and practical necessity of uniformity of laws
and regulations governing these inter-state cor
porations, and tho only way to get such unifor
mity is for the states to leave their regulation
largely to tho national government. That, wo
understand, is what tho president had primarily,
in mind when ho argued for "a sovereign for
tho great corporations engaged in interstate
business, that is, for tho railroads and the Inter
state industrial corporations."
Birmingham (Ala.) News The adoption of
the president's views would unquestionably cen
ter vast powers in the federal government and
would be a long step in reducing tho powers
of sovereign statos. Indeed, tho states would
be largely shorn of their authority oven in its
application to matters within their own juris
diction, and the federal government would be
the dominating influence tho country over.
Local self-government would bo reduced to a
minimum, and our long-boasted republican form
of government would drift dangerously near an
imperialistic system which the framers of the
constitution undertook to avoid. President
Roosevelt is a centralizationist. Ho has
done more to encouragq, yea, to develop
that system of government in America than any
man who has occupied the White House since
the civil war. His fine distinctions in this re
spect do not suggest real differences. He be
lieves in well-nigh unlimited powers for the
federal government and he practices it so far
as a healthy American public sentiment will
permit.
.Florida Times-Union Tlfe president now
insists that the nation join the state in caring
for the schools. The south knows what that
would mean to her California can see that in
a national school It will no longer le possible
to segregate the Chinese and Japanese. Here
is a function that has not been "neglected by tho .
state;" why, then, under the" Root-Roosevelt
ruling should it be usurped by the nation?
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Philadelphia Record When the president's
commissioner of corporations shall control all
the industrial establishments of the country we
shall have Russian bureaucracy fully established,
and with the control of business will go the con
trol of politics. It will be idle, then, to hold
presidential elections. The president can con
strue them out of the constitution as easily as
he can construe into it the national regulation
of the industrial life of the people. We know
now just exactly what the "Roosevelt progres
sive policies" are. The people will not vote next
year to inaugurate them.
New York Journal of Commerce An in
dustrial corporation whose product enters into
Interstate commerce occupies a totally different
position from that o a uommon carrier or a na
tional banking Institution. It is not at all ob
vious what good end could be accomplished by
subjecting such a corporation to federal super
vision and control whlSh can not be already at-
talned by tho exorcise of tho-elate authority,
from which It derjvos tho right to exist. Thcro
is no guarantee that national supervision may
not bo laggard or corrupt except the Influence
of public opinion, which is moro likely to find
offectivo expression in correction of the fail urea
of state administration than in criticism of those
of a federal department. It l quite possible to
overload any department of tho national govern
ment with functions whoso intelligent exercise
calls for thorough knowledge, unbending recti
tude, and constant villganco. In matters relat
ing to tho control of great corporations, It is
probable that tho government at Washington
has already qultp-ns much on its hands as it
can properly supervise.
St. Louis Republic President Roosevelt's
reference to tho railroad which is doing business
in far western states under a New Jorsoy chartor
doesn't affright tho Intelligent student of politi
cal economy half so much as tho rovorso viow ho
offers of a national railroad chartered at Wash
ington doing business in any state it pleases to
enter. As things aro now, tho railroad chnrterod
by New Jorsoy enters other states by tho llconso
of their statutes, and not by tho Inherent right
of its foreign chartor; but undor the Roosovelt
plnn of Federal incorporation, tho nationally
chartered railroad would' enter any state with
out asking leave or fearing hindrance. That io
the radical revolution Mr. Roosovolt invites, and
ho may bo suro that tho Amorlcan people aro
against him on that issue by an overwhelming
majority.
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