CANDIDATES IN PARALLEL COLUMNS MR. WILSON In an address at Nashville, Tenn., on February 24, 1912, Governor Wilson said: THE TRUSTS "If you want to cure men of joy riding you won't break up their automobiles, but catch the men that do the joy riding and see that these very useful and pleasant vehicles of our modern life are left for legitimate uses. If you want to stop joy riding in corporations for that is what is being done you will not break up the corporations; we may need to use them; but you will break up the game, namely, that use of corporations. With the necessary legislation, we can say that a corporation, so long as it acts within the limits of the law, is something we won't look inside of. But the minute somebody inside begins to use it for purposes he has no right to use it for, then we are going to turn it inside out and see who is inside. Anything that is wrong must have originated with some person in particular. When you have found that person and given him a season to think it over in the penitentiary the thing will be stopped, and business will be relieved of the embarrassment of breaking up its organization in order to stop these practices.' THE TARIFF In an address at Nashville, on February 24, 1912, Governor Wilson said: "In field after field of our economic exchanges, competition has ceased to determine price. Monopoly in one form or another has taken the place of competition, and now, without competition, these gentlemen who lie so snugly behind the high wall of protection are determining arbitrarily what the prices of everything from food stuffs up are to be." MR. HARMON In his speech before the Democratic Club of East Saint Louis, January 12, 1912, Governor Harmon spoke as follows: THE TRUSTS "Now we find the business of the entire country disturbed and halting because this wretched system of favor taxes has brought its certain result. Unnatural competition was stimulated by these and then suppressed. by the formation of trusts and combinations, in order that dividends might not cease on stock which was the capitalization of this special advantage. Instead of cutting off the source by reforming the tariff it was sought to control the stream by forbidding these trusts and combinations. "It is significant that the Sherman antitrust law and the McKinley tariff law were under consideration at the same time and passed at the same session. That tariff law went far beyond earlier laws in the bestowal of special favors. There was plain warning of its evil effect and the leaders did not dare face the country on it without a law to prevent stifling the competition from which great benefits were promised to the people. For the only element of harm in devices to restrain trade and secure monopoly lies in their effect on competition. "So we are confronted with a delicate and difficult situation which it will tax our skill, wisdom, and patience to handle so as to let the natural, healthy forces of industry and commerce get into action again, without needless injury to legitimate business in removing the obstructions. "The first step, surely, must be to redeem the tariff from its perverted use and restore it to its proper place as a revenue measure, by gradual reduction so that all concerned may have time to prepare for the change. With the chief cause of the country is trouble thus removed I believe we shall (Continued on page 23) In an address before the National Democratic Club in New York on January 3, 1912, Governor Wilson said: "All the lifeblood of the THE PERSONAL PLATFORMS OF THE CANDIDATES IN PARALLEL COLUMNS — (Continued) MR. TAFT as changing the tariff, upon which all business rests, without knowing what the facts are." This statement is in keeping with the veto messages of President Taft when he refused to approve the different tariff bills sent to him during the special session of Congress of 1911. The President was an earnest advocate of a Tariff Commission, and although the Tariff Board was not all he wanted in that direction, he set it at work gathering facts and statistics on different tariff schedules and sent the results to Congress when completed, recommending that the tariff be revised in accordance with the findings of the Board. President Taft has always declared for the principles of protection, the rates of duty to be measured by the difference in cost of production at home and abroad. He always has said that an impartial commission is best fitted to ascertain such differences. He has often commended the present tariff law as the best that has ever been enacted both as a revenue producer and a measure of protection, and though never asserting that it was perfect, has insisted that it should not be amended without adequate information after impartial investigation. INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM, AND RECALL In a speech at Columbus, O., August 19, 1907, when Mr. Taft was Secretary of War, he criticized Mr. Bryan's demand for the referendum (initiative was not mentioned) and said: "We must call upon fourteen millions of electors to legislate directly. Could any more burdensome or inefficient method be devised than this? I believe that a referendum made under certain conditions and limitations in a subdivision of a State on certain issues may be healthful and useful, but as applied to our National Government it is entirely impracticable." President Taft vetoed the joint resolution admitting Arizona as a state solely on the ground that the constitution of the proposed state provided for the recall of MR. ROOSEVELT he took no pains whatever, he made no effort whatever, to have it introduced into Congress while he had the power. Moreover he does not now show the slightest understanding of the point which Mr. Roosevelt insists upon as fundamental, namely, the point that the tariff shall be continued primarily in the interest of the wage worker and the farmer. Mr. Roosevelt has recently written to the Northwestern Agriculturist stating anent reciprocity with Canada that, in any future agreement to revise the tariff in any way whatever, the revision must be made in such way that the farmer does not bear the whole burden; that, on the contrary, he simply pays his fair share and gets his fair share in return. In his speech at Sioux Falls, September 3, 1910, Mr. Roosevelt said: "It should be the duty of some government department or bureau to investigate the conditions in the various protected industries and see that the laborers really are getting the benefit of the tariff supposed to be enacted in their interests, and if from any investigation of a certain industry it appears that the tariff supposed to be imposed for the benefit of the wage worker results in such shape that the benefit does not reach him, the tariff on that industry should be taken off." INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM, AND RECALL In his Columbus speech, February 21, 1912, Mr. Roosevelt said: "I believe in the initiative and referendum, which should not be used to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative. The power to invoke such direct action, both by the initiative and referendum, should be provided in such fashion as to prevent its being wantonly or too frequently used. In short, I believe that the initiative and referendum should be used, not as a substitute for representative government, but as methods of making such government really representative." Mr. Roosevelt, referring to the Dred Scott decision, said that under our federal (Concluded on page 24) THE PERSONAL PLATFORMS OF THE CANDIDATES IN PARALLEL COLUMNS- (Continued) MR. WILSON being drained from the farms into the factories. A great many of the morbid conditions of our society are due to this same excessive fostering of one stage of national life at the expense of the other. And now we have stimulated it so much that we have not a large enough market for the means of disposing of the surplus product.. "We talk about American laborers competing with the pauper labor of Europe. Haven't you known a machine that cost $500 to compete successfully with a machine that cost $50 that did so much more and better work? . "The most beautiful theory of all is the theory of the cost of production. The Republican party said they wanted to proportion protection - proportion rate of duty to the difference in the cost of production between the foreign manufacturer and the domestic manufacturer. Which foreign manufacturer and which domestic manufacturer? Where is your standard in the difference in cost of production? . "The theory of the Republican party has been, if you make the great captains of industry rich, they will make the country rich. It is not so. "Now what are we going to do? I wish I might hope that our grandchildren could indulge in free trade, but I am afraid that even they cannot, because it is likely that for an indefinite period we shall have to pay our national bills by duties collected. at the ports. Therefore, we are to act upon the fundamental principle of the Democratic party, not free trade, but tariff for revenue, and we have got to approach that by such avenues, by such stages, and at such a pace as will be consistent with the stability and safety of the business of the country." INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM, AND RECALL The following is taken from a published letter from Gov. Woodrow Wilson to Prof. R. H. Dabney of the University of Virginia: "About the initiative, referendum, and MR. HARMON make our way safely back to normal conditions. But, as Jackson said, we must all 'lay aside mere local considerations, and act with the patriotic determination to promote the great interests of the whole." THE TARIFF In the course of his speech at Baltimore, January 17, 1911, Governor Harmon referred, in part, to the tariff as follows: "We believe the raising of public revenue to be the proper object of all taxation; that, whatever the process, the government can and does tax nobody but its own citizens, from whom comes every dollar it gets; that tariff taxes, being laid on articles for consumption, apportion themselves among the people according to the amounts consumed, so that levying them properly means an adjustment of burdens among consumers, according to their ability to pay, and not a distribution among manufacturers of rights to collect tribute from consumers; that what the Government needs is known and the way to collect it without injustice to any citizen is easily found, while no man or body of men can discover or apply a proper rule for levying taxes on all citizens for the benefit of a few, and, besides, what is wrong cannot be made right by the way it is done; that taxes on imports for needed public revenue afford the only advantage to American manufacturers which the Government can justly give, or that the country ought to be burdened with, in view of the cost and risk of the long shipment imported goods must undergo; and that American labor does not get the benefit of exactions from the people demanded and authorized in its pretended interest." INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM, AND RECALL In his speech before the Constitutional Convention of Ohio, February 8, 1912, Governor Harmon spoke as follows: "I am not convinced that the initiative and referendum, applied generally to subjects of legislation, would be an improvement on our system of government by (Concluded on page 24) THE PERSONAL PLATFORMS OF THE CANDIDATES IN PARALLEL COLUMNS—(Concluded) MR. TAFT judges. “This provision of the constitution," said the President, "in its application to county and state judges, seems to me so pernicious in its effect, so destructive of independence in the judiciary, so likely to subject the rights of the individual to the possible tyranny of a popular majority, and, therefore, so injurious to the cause of free government that I must disapprove of the constitution containing it." At Toledo, O., March 8, 1912, he said: "A most serious objection to the recall of decisions is that it destroys all probability of consistency in constitutional interpretation. Finally, I ask, what is the necessity for such a crude, revolutionary, fitful, and unstable way of reversing judicial construction? . I do not hesitate to say that it lays the ax at the foot of the tree of well-ordered freedom and subjects the guaranties of life, liberty, and property without remedy to the fitful impulse of a temporary majority of an electorate." MR. WILSON recall: I surrendered to the facts. My whole pre-possession - my whole reasoning was against these things. But when I came into contact with candid, honest, public spirited men who could speak (with regard, for example, to Oregon) from personal observation and experience, they floored me flat with their narration of what had actually happened. I found in the men who had advocated these things, who had put them into operation, and who had accomplished things by them, not critics or opponents of representative government, but men who were eager to restore it where it had been lost. "Each state must judge for itself. I do not see how it could be made a subject of national policy. "The recall of judges I am absolutely against, and always have been. It is a remedy for a symptom, not for a disease. "As for the recall, it is seldom used outside the municipalities. It is merely 'a gun behind the door."" MR. ROOSEVELT system the remedy for such a wrong as Lincoln described was very difficult, but that "the decision of a state court on a constitutional question should be subject to revision by the people of the state." If such a decision should be reversed, "the popular verdict should be accepted as final, and the construction of the constitution definitely decided - subject only to the action of the Supreme Court of the United States." Mr. Roosevelt has perfectly clearly stated his position regarding the recall. He states that our aim is to get the best type of judge and keep him on the bench as long as possible, and if necessary take off the bench the wrong type of judge. But the question of applying the recall in any shape is one of expediency, merely. He does not believe in applying it where it is possible to avoid it. But that sooner than permit the continuance of a system by which unworthy and corrupt judges persist on the bench he would favor any necessary method of removing them. MR. HARMON representatives, which, while it has shortcomings like all human institutions, I do not believe has proved a failure. "The measure is confessedly an experiment, and as several states have recently undertaken it, my attitude is like that of 'the man from Missouri.' I have always found it wiser to profit by the experience of others, in matters of doubt, when I could, rather than by my own. And no one can justly claim that this new departure in government has yet passed the experimental stage in other states. "It is a safe rule to judge others by one's self, and I gravely question whether, as a private citizen immersed in business and personal affairs, I should be able, however willing, to devote to a proposed measure— unless it were a very simple one involving no details the study of its own provisions and of their effect on other laws or subjects, which is required to qualify one to take part in the important work of legislating for a great commonwealth." GETTING TOO MUCH MONEY A MAN from Pennsylvania sat in a brokerage office in New York a month or so ago talking things over with the head of the firm. He had never done business with that house before and was not sure whether he would this time. He had come frankly asking advice and counsel. This was what he heard: "Your investment is unsound from top to bottom because you have disregarded two fundamentals. In the first place there is not a security on this list that can be sold in any marketplace. In the second. place, you are making altogether too much money for safety!" "How do you mean, 'too much money"?" asked the visitor. The experienced financial man laughed. "Well," he said, "you seem to me to expect to make as much money out of your investment as though you went into business with it. You seem to think that if you lend a man the money for business purposes he ought to pay you about 15 per cent. a year for the use of it. Yet you know perfectly well, because you are a manufacturer yourself, that 15 per cent, is about all you can expect in your own business on the actual value of your plant and capital. If these people to whom you have lent money are to get as much out of this business as you do out of yours they would have to earn about 30 per cent. on this money so as to pay you your 15 per cent. and have a fair return for themselves." The visitor had never seen it in just that light. He argued that, since he could make a big return on the money in his own business, he thought that all his money ought to bring him as good a return, otherwise he did not see the use of investing it at all. Nothing could shake him in that view of the situation, and the banker finally gave him up, advised him to stick to business and leave investments alone. He went away from that office, with nothing gained except the single idea, "too much money." This same thing, in a greater or lesser degree, is happening all over the country all the time. From my own experience in answering letters to this magazine, I believe that the worst victims of the "too much money" habit are women. That is the reason, of course, why a list of selected women investors is almost always the first list bought by a promoter who is going into the "get-rich-quick" game. Apart from the "get-rich-quick" game, it is also a fact that in the legitimate investment market a very high rate of interest or dividend is extremely alluring to women. The "too much money habit seems natural. A man who feels that he is entitled to 7 and 10 per cent. on his money because he thinks he has business sense enough to earn that amount will reckon on getting some of it by the use of foresight in choosing securities selling below their real value and allowing his principal to grow in a natural and spontaneous way. A woman, however, wants it all to come in in dividends or interest. It may seem invidious and unkind to add that, next to the women of the country, the choicest victims of the "too much money" habit are country doctors and country clergymen. A business man, who has been a consistent investor for twenty years, made the statement not long ago that, whenever any of the securities which he owns get to a price where they pay 7 per cent. on the market value (as when a security paying 5 per cent. on par is selling for 71 or 72), he invariably sells them. He admits that this rule has brought him heavy losses at times, because the conditions that caused the 7 per cent. basis were only temporary; but he adds that for every loss that he has had on this account there have been two occasions when, if he had not sold on the 7 per cent. basis, he would have had a heavy loss on account of the complete cessation of dividends or interest. Out of his experience he has evolved a theory that, in two cases out of three where stand |