Show PRESIDENT OUTLINES ISSUES OF THE DAY important recommendations as to legislation made in annual message to congress large part of document devoted to corporations and railroad rate legislation relations of labor and capital dealt with fully message of president roose it read at the first session of the tty ninth congress congratulates e people on the continued prosper of the nation the close relation ip and mutual dependence upon ethe ch other of capital and labor are anted out and the message con lues corporations fet while not merely admitting but in ting upon this it 13 also true that lere there la no governmental restraint supervision some of the exceptional ien use their energies not in was that re tor the common good but in ways bloh tell against this common good 1 e fortunes amassed through corporate are now so large and vest uch power in those that wie d them as make it a matter of necessity to give the sovereign that is to the govern lent which represents the people as a bhole some effect e power of su pervis mi over their corporate use in order to asure a healthy social and industrial life very big corporation should be held re by and be account ab e to some Ote reign strong enough to control its conduct I 1 am in no sense hostile to cor orations this is an age of combination ind any effort to prevent all ion will be not only useless but in the nd vicious because of the contempt tor iw which the failure to enforce law in produces we shou d moreover recognize in cord al and ample fashion the good effected by corporate genales in a country such as ours and he wealth of intel act energy and fidel y devoted to their service and there normal to the service of the public their officers and directors the cor oration has come to stay just as the rade union has come to stay each can and has done great good each should e favored so long as it does good but ach should be sharply checked where it lets against law and justice the president shows the clity of the individual states deal ag successfully with corporation reed and the necessity of conferring ower upon the general government yen to the extent of a proper amend bent to the constitution he says it has been a m fortune that the laws on this subject have hither been of a negative or prohibitive rather ian an affirmative kind and still more bat they have in part sought to pro abit what could not be effectively pro and have in part in their pro confounded what should be lowed and what should not oe allowed Is generally useless to try to prohibit 11 restraint on competition whether this distraint be reasonable or unreasonable nd where it la not useless it Is generally ene rally hurtful events have shown bat it Is not possible adequately to the enforcement of any law of this ind by incessant appeal to the courts jie department of justice has for the st four years devoted more attention 1 the enforcement of the anti trust legis alon than to anything else much has een accomplished particularly marked is been the moral effect of the but it la increasingly evident that ere will be a very insufficient beneficial suit in the way of economic change ie successful prosecution of one device evade the law immediately develops lother device to accomplish the same impose what Is needed Is not sweeping of every arrangement good or d which may tend to restrict compete TO but such adequate supervision and gul atlon as will prevent any restriction competition from being to the detri ent of the public as well as such and regulation as will pre mt other abuses in no way connected ath restriction of competition of these auses perhaps the chief although by means the only one Is itself the result of dis matt promotion because of the mariad it brings in its train for such over often means an inflation at invites business panic it always con als the true relation of the profit earned the actual capital invested and it eates a burden of interest payments ilch Is a fertile cause of improper re or in limitation of wages it mages the small investor discourages rift and encourages gambling and spec atlon while perhaps worst of a 1 Is the and dishonesty which it impi es tor harm to morals and worse than any harm to material interests and e debauchery of politics and business great dishonest corporations Is far arse than any actual material evil they f the public until the national govern jent obtains in some manner which the iscom of the congress may suggest oper control over the big corporations imaged in interstate commerce that Is er the great majority of the big cor will be impossible to deal with these evils am well aware of ane difficulties of e legislation that I 1 am suggesting and the need of temperate and cautious alon in securing it I 1 should emphatic ly protest against improper radical or sty action the first thing to do Is deal with the great corporations en ged in the business of interstate trans rt atlon As I 1 said in my message of c 6 last the immediate and most essene need so far as legislation Is is the enactment into aw of me scheme to secure to the agents of e government such supervision and gul atlon of the rates charged by the of the country engaged in inter ate traffic as summarily and prevent the imposition of un st or unreasonable rates it must in ide putting a complete stop to rebates every shape and form this power to eulate rates like all similar powers er the business world should be exer aed with moderation caution and self but it should exist so that it n be effectively exercised when the he arst consideration to be kept in nd Is that the power should be affirm ve and should be given to some ad body created by the congress given to the present interstate corn ace commission or to a reorganized ter state commerce commission such should be made unequivocally I 1 do not believe in the vern ment interfering with private busl ss more than Is necessary I 1 do not leve in the government undertaking work which can with propriety be t in private hands but neither do I 1 aleve in the government flinching er seeing any work when it becomes ident that abuses are sure to obtain brein unless there Is governmental it Is not my province to the exact terms 0 the law which be enacted but I 1 call the attention the congress to certain existing con lone with which it Is e to deal my judgment the most important pro ilon which such law should contain that conferring upon some competent body the power to decide on the case being brought before it iother a given rate prescribed by a rail id I 1 reasonable and just and it la nd to be unreasonable and unjust en after full investigation of the corn lint to the limit of rate ond which it shall not be lawful to go the maximum reasonable rate ae it Ss cal ed this decision to go into act within a reasonable time and to tain from thence onward subject to view by the courts it sometimes nap ns at present not that a rate Is too h but that a favored shipper is given 5 low a rate in such case the commis in would have the right to fix this eady established minimum rate as maximum and it would need ly one or two such decisions the commission to cure railroad corn nies of the practice of giving improper rates I 1 call your attention to fact that my proposal Is not to give commission power to initiate or rates generally but to regulate rate already fixed or originated by the ids upon complaint and after invests alon A heavy penalty should be ex led from any corporation which falls respect an order 0 the commission I 1 ard this power to establish a maximum e as being essential to any scheme of il reform in the matter of railway EUl atlon the farst necessity Is to se re it and unless it 1 granted to the there 1 little use in touch S the subject at all continuing the president earnestly any spirit of hostility to e railroads pointing out the bene s to be derived by the fair dealing ads in the even bonded in of mice in this both the hon est railroad man and the honest ship per alike would be benefited ending the subject the president says all private car lines industrial roads refrigerator charges and the like should be expressly put under the supervision 0 the interstate commerce commission or some alm lar body so far as rates and agreements practice tica ly affecting rates are concerned the ate car owners and the owners of industrial ral roads are entitled to a fair and reasonable campen bation on their investment but neither private cars nor industrial ra inroads nor spur tracks should be uti iced as devices for securing preferential rates A rebate in icing charges or in mileage or in a division of the rate for refrigerating charges 1 just as pernicious as a rebate in any other way no lower rate should apply on goods imported than actual obtains to domestic goods from the american seaboard to destination except in cases where water competition Is the control ing influence there should be publicity of the accounts of common car biers no common carrier engaged in interstate business should keep any books or memoranda other than those reported pursuant to law or regu atlon and these books or memoranda should be open to the inspection of the government only in this way can violations or evasions of the law be surely detected A system of examination of railroad accounts should be provided similar to that now conducted into the national banks by the bank examiners a few first class railroad ac coun tants it they had proper direction and proper authority to inspect books and papers could accomplish much in preventing willful violations of the law it would not be necessary for them to examine into the accounts of any railroad unless for good reasons they were direct ed to do so by the interstate commerce commission it Is greatly to be desired that some way might be found by which an agreement as to transportation with in a state intended to operate as a fraud upon the federal interstate commerce laws could be brought under the juris diction of the federal authorities at present it occurs that large shipments of interstate traffic are control ed by con cessions on purely state business which of course amounts to an evasion of the law the commission should have power to enforce fair treatment by the great trunk lines of lateral and branch lines I 1 urge upon the congress the need tor expeditious action by the interstate corn merce in a I 1 tl ese matters whether in regulating rates for tran or for storing or for handl ng property or commodities in transit the history of the cases litigated under the present commerce act shows that its efficiency has been to a great degree destroyed by the weapon of delay almost the most formidable weapon in the hands of those whose purpose it is to violate the law the question of transportation lies at the root of all industrial success and the revolution in transportation which has taken place during the last half century has been the most important factor in the growth of the new industrial conditions most a ly we do not wish to see the man of great talents refused the re ward for his talents still less do we wish to see him penalized but we do desire to see the system of railroad transportation so handled that the strong man shall be given no advantage over the weak man we wish to insure as fair treatment for the small town as for the big city for the small shipper as for the big shipper in the old days the highway of commerce whether by water or by a road on land was open to all it be longed to the and the traffic along it was free it present the railway Is this highway and we must do our best to see that it Is deot on terms unlike the d highway it Is a very d and complex th ng to manage and it is far better that it should be managed by private ind ideals than by the govern ment but it can only be so managed on condition that justice la done the it Is because in my judgment ownership of railroads Is highly able and would probably in this country entail far reaching disaster that I 1 wish to see such supervision and regulation of them in the interest of the as will make it evident that there Is no need for ownership the opponents of government regulation dwell upon the difficulties to be encountered and the intricate and involved nature of the lem their contention Is true it Is a complicated and delicate problem and all kinds of d are sure to arise in connection with any plan of so ution while no plan will bring a 1 the benefits hoped for by its more optimistic abher ants moreover under any healthy plan the benefits will develop gradually and not rapidly finally we must clearly under stand that the public servants who are to do this becu barly responsible and delicate work must themselves be of the highest type both as regards integrity and efficiency they must be well paid for otherwise able men can not in the long run be secured and they must possess a lofty probity which will revolt as quick ly at the thought of pandering to any gust of popular ce against rich men as the thought of anything even remotely resembling to rich men but while I 1 tul admit the d fal cuttles in the way I 1 do not tor a moment admit that these difficulties warrant us in stopping in our effort to secure a wise and just system they should have no other effect than to spur us on to the exercise of the resolution the even hand ed justice and the fertility of resource which we 1 ke to think of as ly american and which will in the end achieve good results in this as in other fields of activity the task is a great one and underlies the task of deal ne with the whole industrial problem but the fact that it Is a great problem does not warrant us in shrinking from the attempt to solve it at present we face such utter lack of supervision such freedom from the restraints of law that excellent men have often been 1 tera ly arced into doing what they deplored because otherwise they were left at the mercy of unscrupulous competitors to rail at and assail the men who have done as iney chuia under the conditions accomplishes little what we need to do Is to deve op an orderly system and such a system can only come through the gradually increased exercise of the right of efficient government control the necessity for safety appliances on railroads recommended in the presidents message to the last con gress Is emphasized together with the necessity for a law regulating the hours of labor of railroad men on the labor question the mes sage says there has been demand for depriving courts of the power to issue injunctions in labor disputes such special limitation of the equity powers of our courts aou d be most unwise it Is true that some fudges have misused this power but th s doeg not justify a denial of the power any more than an improper exercise of the power to call a str ke by a labor leader would justify the denial of the right to strike the remedy is to regulate the procedure by requiring the judge to give due notice to the adverse parties before granting the writ the hearing to be ex parte it the adverse party does not ap pear at the time and place ordered what is due notice must depend upon the facts of the case it should not be used s a pretext to permit violation of law or the jeopardizing of life or prope ty of course this would not authorize the issuing of a restraining order or alon in any case in which it Is not already authorized by law I 1 renew the recommendation I 1 made in my last annual message tor an Invest loa alon by the depa ament of commerce anc labor of general labor conditions especial attention to be paid to the cond eions of child labor and child labor legislation in the several states such an investigation should take into account the various lems with which the question of child labor Is connected it la true that these problems can be actually met in most cases only by the states themselves but it would be well for the nation to endear or to secure and publish comprehensive information as to the conditions of the |