t ,"
The Commoner
JANUARY, 1917
ir
itics, as in war, the generals get the glory while
the enlisted men die in the trenches.
At Arequipa, Peru, Harvard university has
erected an observatory and mounted a telescope.
When wo visited it we wore shown a photograph
of what was thought to be a star, but which
proved to be a cluster of more than four thou
sand stars whose rays commingled to form the
shaft of light. So, with the influence attributed
to me; it is the combined influence of many mil
lions with whom I have had the honor to be a
co-laborer-'-some of them delight mo by their
presence on this happy occasion. This environ
ment is, indeed, pleasant and inspiring.
The victory df 1912 drew to Washington a
group of deserving democrats, and I will venture
the assertion, that there is not a democrat who
holds a commission under this administration
who has ever joined Mr. Hughes in the criticism
he made of me for using that phrase, "deserving
democrat"! Whatever may be said by disap
pointed applicants, I am sure that I am among
friends here when I speak of "deserving dem
ocrats." And then this dinner comes at the close of a
campaign in which we have won a very remark
able victory, a victory that has not only been
a deserved reward to those who interpreted
democracy and crystallized our principles into
law, but a victory that has made permanent the
reforms that liave been accomplished during the
last four years. For to my mind, however grat
ifying it may be to us to see the record of the
President and congress approved; however in
terested as we are, as democrats, in the things
for which we have so long contended and which
have now been accomplished, we must find our
greatest satisfaction in the fact that the victory
of the seventh of November gives four years
time in which to prove the value of the laws
that have been written upon the statute books
during this administration.
Tonight, standing at the end of four years
which have witnessed a record that has no par
allel, and in the presence of new duties that
press upon us, I .am sure you will pardon mo, if
I speak as the veteran in the list, or' what may
be called the "Presidential Circle," for certainly
three such efforts as I have made" ought to put
me in that class. Of all who stand in this circle
my experience runs back the farthest. I was a
candidate eight years before Mr. Roosevelt,
twelve years before Mr. Taft, and sixteen years
before our President's campaign Jtt four years
ago. As one who has passed through the fur
nace, heated several times hotter than it was
usually heated; as one whj has nothing to ask
of the American people except the privilege of
serving them and who can give no weight to his
words, except the weight of the arguments pre
sented as such I craye your attention, while I
speak of what has been done, andt then, of 'what
lies before us yet to be done.
TWENTY YEARS OF PROGRESS' r
During the last twenty years we have wit
nessed more progress in the matter offunda
mental remedial legislation than has 'ever been
accomplished before in the same length of time.
Let me call your attention to some of the things,
now unrepealable law, that were denounced as
dangerous and revolutionary only two decades
ago.
The first great f eform was the amendment to
the constitution providing for the election of
united States senators' by the direct vote of the
People. The democratic party Jed the fight for
this reform. It began in 1892, when the reso
lution -passed, for the first time, through a dem
ocratic house of representatives. It was passed
a second time in 1894, passing twice through
democratic congresses before it passed a repub
lican congress. It was endorsed in the demo
cratic national platform of 1900, and in 1904,
and again in 1908. The republican party never
endorsed th's refoTm in a national platform; as
ate as 1908 it was turjned down by a vote- of
seven to one in the republican national conven
J on. And yet this amendment to the constitu
on has opened the way to the remedial legis
lation that has followed since. If you read our
Platform of 1908,. you will find we describe this
reiorni as the "gateway ,to other reforms."
Our constitution makes it necessary ior a Jaw
cw oS the senata as "well as the house, and, un-
,.;, fhe old method of electing senators- by
legislatures, the senate had become the bulwark
nreuatory wealth,- tit was necessary to .pass
Kt llir0,Ugh ,th0 bouso of ropresenta-
once- lf T 0fo; ll could Dass tUo ato
once, but It finally forced its way throuch tho
rati?'rdVlhm lt Wft8 BumitteydTtho peo
ple, It was taken up and ratified moro rapidly
thn AyHther amcudmcnt cver submitted to
the American people. That was tho first reform.
INCOME TAX AMENDMENT
For something like sixteen years tho demo
cratic party led the fight for an income tax
amendment to the constitution. It was a dem
ocratic congress that wrote the law of 1894 time
was declared unconstitutional by a majority of
ono in tho supremo court of tho Uuted Statos.
that one being the vote of a judge who changed
his position on tho subject between two hear
ings of the case. Wo led the fight and finally
secured tho submission of tho amendment, and
it, too, was ratified in a very short time. As a
result of that amendment wo now have an in
come tax law, enacted by a democratic congress,
that transfers a considerable percentage of tho
burden that was formerly borne by tho over
taxed masses to the backs of those who have
large incomes, but had escaped their just share
until tho income tax law was passed. Tho dem
ocratic party has justified tho faith of tho com
mon people in it by giving to the country this
permanent provision in our fiscal policy.
Nothing shows the change in public opinion
more than the change that has taken place in
the last twenty years on this income tax ques
tion. I was called an anarhcist for advocating
a two per cent tax in 1894, more than for any
other one thing I ever advocated, but now,
though we have a tax that runs as high as ten
per cent, I neither read nor heard of a spoech
made by a republican in the last campaign at
tacking tho income tax or pledging the repub
lican party to repeal the law. That was tho
second great reform. Two constitutional re
forms stand to our party's credit.
Then we have a tariff law, the best tariff law
we have had jn fifty years. It not only gives us
the benefit of lower rates but, what is not less
important, it has emancipated a nation from tho
thralldom of fear. For twenty years republican
leaders went up and down the land, threatening
panic if the democrats won; and they did It not
withstanding the fact that of the three panics
that have come since the republican party was,
old enough to bring a. panic, two of them came'
under conditions that make it Impossible for the
republican party to shift responsibility. We have
had three panics since 1860 1873, 1893, ana
1907. The first one came twelve years after the
republicans went into power, and eleven years
before, they went out of power. The first panic
came in the very center of a. twenty-four year
period of republican. -rule, and the Jast one came
in ,190,7, .which was eleven, years after the rex
publcan party again obtained complete control
of the. government, and five years before we
again elected a democratic President. The last
panic camp two-thirds of the way through a
sixteen year period of republican rule. Here
wer two panics for which they could not blame
the democrats, but republican speakers were so
near-sjghted that they could not see the first
panic and so far-sighted that they could not see
the third panic, but they could see the one be
tween the two with great distinctness!
Why? Because that was the only one of the
three that came under a democratic president.
And they failed to state that that one came so
soon after the democrats went into power that
they had not had time to repeal one single law
that the republicans had put on the statute
books. Every panic wo have had since. 1860,
therefore, came, under republican laws under
republican high tariff laws. And yet, in spite of
this record, republican speakers threatened
panic.
They were very much at a loss for arguments
in the Jast campaign, because they could not use
the panic argument. In former campaigns,-they
predicted that a panic would come just as soon
as the wires flashed the news of a democratic
victory, that just as soon as the people knew
that the democrats had won, and that tariff re
form was coming , the whole financial fabric
would collapse. Well, we won, and we reduced
tho tariff, and a year and a half went by;-and,
no panic came. Republican leaders became so
gloomy and melancholy that' they would hardly
speak to ono another on the :street! And then
the European war broke out, and they -said,-
'Well, now it will como anyhow. There 'can
not bo a big war without a panic." Thoy watched
for a panic, but -two years of war wont by and
tho panic did not como, and thon what? Thoy
said, "This thng can't last ALWAYS! This war
must end SOME time. And who knows but that
that panic that ought to have como iramodlatoly
after tho democrats wont into power, and thou
again when tho war began, who knows but it is
Just waiting until this war Is over, and will come
yet! Choor up, boys"!
My friends, tho campaign through which wo
have Just passed, was tho first wo have had In
a long time, when tho republicans did not use
a panic threat as thoir chief argument. Tho
Lord has tnken away from thorn tho crop ar
gument also! Thoy used to say that wo could
not havo good crops evon unless wo had a re
publican president, and yet last year we had mo
bumper crop of our history, and sold It for six
hundred millions moro than wo had evor sold a
crop for before, and It was planted, raised, har
vostcd and sold under a democratic President,
senate and house! Wo democrats arc now abld
to announce that, If thoro evor was a partner
ship betwoen tho Almighty and tho republican
party, it has been dissolved and not -by mutual
consent, but by bankruptcy proceedings.
Then came currency reform, tho greatest
piece of constructive statesmansh'p that wo havo
had in a generation. This legislation released
the business of tho country from tho despotism
of the money trust, and It sot tho politics of tho
nation free from tho tyrnnny of high finance.
And in tho campaign of last year, wo, for tho
first time in twenty years, had no reports of
banks telling their borrowers that, If tho re
publican party was defeated, thoy might not bo
able to extend thoir loans after election. This
country owes a great dobt, not only to tho Pres
ident under whoso leadership this great reform
was secured, but to a secretary of the treasury
and a comptroller of tho currency who perfected
tho law and carried lt out.
Then we havo a rural credits law, the only
great measure designed expressly for tho farm
er's benefit. It will give the farmor the first op
portunity lio has ever had to borrow tho money
he needs at approximately what money is worth
In the market, and, instead of borrowing for
throe or five years and paying a now commission
every time ho ronows tho loan, he can borrow for
forty years, and pay whenever ho Is able to do
so. If jny good friend from New Hampshire,
Senator Hollis, is. able to trace to anything I
havo said, his activity Jn politics, I have been
abundantly rewarded Xor any good that I have
communicated to him by tho splendid ser.vico ho,
rendered this country , In this rural credits law.
ANTI-TRUST LAWS ;
Then we had two anti-trust laws; tho first es
tablished tho 'trade commission that is to super
vise tho activities of these large industrial cor
porations. It-is not only to act as a restraining
Influence upon them if they show any tendency
toward monopoly, but it will furnish informa
tion that will enable us to act intelligently In
matters of legislation.
The other anti-trust lato is built upon the only
solid foundation ever laid for anti-trust legls-'
lation, namely, upon the theory that A PRIVATE
MONOPOLY IS INDEFENSIBLE AND INTOL
ERABLE. The republicans have never- gone,
further th,an to say- that a trust ought to be'
REGULATED; they 'left it for tho democratic
party to say that the trhsts should not be per
mitted to exist In the" United States, si can not
better Illustrate tho difference between tMo two
parties than to say that tho republican position
is like a neighbor saying, "Don't keep tho burg
lar out of your house; let him como In; all you
have to do is to sit all night and watch him,
and you can keep him from taking anything.".
But you say: "As the purpose of the burglar ia
coming Into tho house is to steal, why let Jilm
come in, and lose my .sleep trying to keep' him,
from carrying out his "purpose?" So we say tbaff
as the only purpose of a monopoly Is to plunder
tho public5, why permit lt to exist, and theirtiplfod.
time trying- to keep lt from carrying out Its puis-;
Pse? . . . .. i
The Antitrust -law also, includes at provision
that abolishes; 'government by intfunct!oaJ?i
When you- see wrhat.at was that we iskednforfr
and what itwas that the republican party .toiigkto
against, you wilh have sdme understanding: of;
the difference between tke republicanuparty-andi
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