expense of local and neighborhood trade. In the end the thing that is for the benefit of the people will prevail as against conservatism. The proper sort of parcels post might be just as useful to nearby retailers as to those in distant places. It is evident that we shall not have a postal innovation of this kind until the subject has been very thoroughly worked out. Postal At intervals for a great many Telegraph years past there have been agitaand Telephone? tions in favor of the taking over of the telegraph service by the Post-Office Department, as in foreign countries. In several foreign countries the telephone service is also governmental and connected with the post-office. We are now looking on in this country at a great amalgamation of telegraph and telephone facilities. If the vast monopoly thus forming shows an enlightened spirit, the result may be an improved and cheapened service for the people, both of telegrams and messages by telephone. Such a monopoly would have to come under public regulation, and it would be especially adapted to the kind of oversight provided in the new federal incorporation bill introduced in Congress last month. The evolution of this great unified service of swift intelligence must require a considerable time. But ultimately it is not unlikely that a post-office department developed on thoroughgoing business lines may absorb the united telegraph and telephone service. All of this lies in the future, but it is well to look forward sometimes and consider our probable tendencies. Three months have now passed "Party Pledges and away of the first regular session Current Politics of the Sixty-first Congress. In its special session, lasting from the middle of March until August 5, it was occupied almost exclusively with the revision of the tariff. That subject being out of the way for the present, there seemed an unusually good opportunity to achieve in the long regular session some notable legislation. The prospect, however, of putting any great measures upon the statute books has been steadily diminishing. Mr. Taft has been trying to arouse the Republican majorities in Congress to united action by sounding the slogan of party pledges." When he is asked what he means by party pledges he refers to the latest Republican national platform, adopted at Chicago. Now it is quite true that some things in that platform represent ma 66 ture and undeniable party opinion. But other things,-to some of which Mr. Taft points with particular insistence, were inserted at the last moment by members of the Resolutions Committee at Chicago in order to placate a handful of people whose support was desired for something else. Two More States For example, one of the things Undeveloped that Mr. Taft has been pressing with the most urgent insistence is the immediate admission to Statehood of the two Territories of New Mexico and Arizona. A more undesirable proposition could not well be brought forward. There is not a man in public life in Washington, whether President, Speaker, or heads of the committees on Territories of the two Houses of Congress, who would think of favoring such a thing on its pure merits. They all apologize for it in private. Every opportunity for self-government that Arizona and New Mexico could reasonably wish for they already possess as Territories. And they are far from that condition of development which would justify their sending four Senators to Washington to help govern this great republic. Some ten years ago a socalled omnibus Statehood bill" was moving swiftly toward the point of becoming a law. There was no opposition to it in the House; it was almost ready for passage through the Senate, and the President was prepared to sign it. It would have admitted what is now the symmetrical State of Oklahoma as two small States with a ragged, accidental boundary line separating them; and it would have admitted Arizona and New Mexico, both of which were in a condition of most scandalous unfitness. The entire business was an example of log-rolling; political trading; lobbying by mining corporations; railroad influence; Rough Rider sentiment,-in short, a throwing to the winds of regard for statesmanship and the wise making of history. invests the child with certain attributes. It is our theory that the National Government is one of limited powers delegated to it by a number of pre-existing and indestructible sovereign States. It is now proposed, at this very session of Congress, to pass the magic wand over the desert sands of Arizona and over the adobe huts of the humble Spanishspeaking people of New Mexico. Then we shall have two more sovereign States able to assert that they have graciously yielded up some of their original and indestructible attributes of sovereignty. They will become full partners in that limited government at Washington which had bought them for a song, from Mexico, and which ought to have dignity and firmness enough to keep them in their proper place of tutelage for perhaps forty years yet to come. The gentle reader who does not understand these things ought to be told that Statehood promises always bob up in platforms with a view to conciliating delegates in national political conventions. The pressure at the local end is more usually applied by the people who expect to get the seats in the United States Senate and by the interests that lie behind these aspiring persons. chairmanship, nobody supposing that the agreed program was going to be disturbed. But Senator Beveridge was not sufficiently. impressed by the doctrine of " pledges" and "bargains." There were those who did not believe that the four-State program was a proper one, and the new chairman was advised to study the question on its merits. He studied it even more thoroughly than his advisers had done. And he proceeded to block the program. He found a ready and strong supporter in Senator Nelson, of the same committee. Other members of the committee came into line, and Mr. Beveridge gradually secured for his views the authoritative support of his fellow Republicans in the Senate, excepting for a few who were affected by particular arguments not related to the national welfare. Senator Beveridge and those who stood by him succeeded in compelling the two halves of the old Indian Territory to come together again, and brought them into the Union as the one fine State of Oklahoma, for which nobody in the years to come will have any apologies to make. Oklahoma may have tried some rather crude experiments in her constitution and her statutes, but she will be the peer of her immediate neighbors. This magazine has sometimes ventured a few words in recognition of the public work of the Senator from Indiana. The time will come, a few generations hence, perhaps, when the people of Oklahoma will get a true perspective on the history of their own commonwealth. They will then erect a statue to their real founder,-namely, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories,-who had not only the right sense of history and the large vision of the future, but who also had the firmness and the fighting power to carry his measure to completion. A Plucky Man's Surrender Up to this time Senator Beveridge has been able to resist the schemers who have been at work incessantly to bring in New Mexico and Arizona. Some of these people have wanted to control the taxing power in those Territories on account of their large mining interests. Others have had political as well as business motives. Democrats have been so sure that they could control New Mexico and Arizona as States that they have naturally wanted to bring them in by way of balancing the "cowboy" States of the Northwest, such as Wyoming, and Idaho, and Montana. They are much less to be blamed than the Republicans. Mr. Roosevelt wanted to keep his promises to his Rough Rider friends, and felt that, since the admission of those States some day was inevitable, his administration might as well have had the credit. Mr. Taft has been touring those parts of our beloved country, has made promises even stronger than Roosevelt's, waves the Chicago party platform in the face of Congress, and supports the chairman of the National Republican Committee in the demand for admission in time to give the credit to the present Administration amply in advance of 1912. If this be plain speech, it is all faithful and true; and nobody who knows the facts will venture even a mild denial. On the main point, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories has now yielded to the Administration. Who Will The Territories of Arizona and New Mexico are going to be Senators? authorized to prepare constitutions, and to enter upon Statehood after the acceptance of their organic instruments. It has been the tedious task of the Senate Committee on Territories to get the tricks and schemes worked out of the bills as drafted for enabling acts. Among other things, Congress is likely to insist upon converting New Mexico into an English-speaking State, and even having English taught in the public schools. There will be an effort made to guard the public interest in lands and in other minor ways to minimize the calamity of adding to our forty-six States two more that are not at all prepared for the responsibilities of Statehood. But there will be no way to mitigate the objection of having four new Senators of the United States come from communities which have not as yet bred national statesmen, and which have little reason to be proud of those who will most eagerly seek the places in Washington. The Railroad Bill limit the power of the railroads to buy or hold stocks in other corporations. Furthermore, as respects prosecutions for violating the Interstate Commerce act, there ought to be some better distribution of authority and initiative between the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Department of Justice, while there is much to be said in favor of Mr. Taft's plan of organizing a distinct Court of Commerce to have jurisdiction in these transportation cases. There seems to be a fair prospect that some of these suggested changes may be adopted in the present session, but the business is not advancing eagerly. Federal The Federal Incorporation act drafted by Mr. Wickersham and others under direction of the President (upon the outlines of which we made some comment last month) has been perfected in certain details and introduced in both houses of Congress. In each house it was presented by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee,-Senator Clark, of Wyoming, and Representative Parker, of New Jersey. As introduced, the bill concerns companies with a capitalization of $100,000 or more. apply to banks. It is not intended to It does not propose compulsory Federal charters. Its design is to permit companies doing an interstate business to incorporate under Federal law and to meet certain conditions which would, There is no great pressure on the part of the public for any further legislation affecting interstate commerce, that is to say, regulating railroads. It is true, however, that the Republican National platform promised to do certain things in this direction and that experience shows that they ought to be done. There should be further authority in the hands of the Interstate Commerce Commission over rates and classifications, and some public control of the issue of stocks and for us we'll never get past this gate dog." bonds. It would seem advisable, also, to THE LITTLE BILLS: "If Papa Taft don't look out From the National Syndicate (Baltimore) in the case of their conducting their affairs with propriety and good faith,-exempt them from all practical danger of being prosecuted, whether under State or Federal statutes. Mr. Taft, who strongly urges the consideration of this measure, admits that it is not in the line of any specific platform pledge of the Republican party. It is, however, much more in accord with party pledges than either the corporation tax that was adopted in the short session or the income tax that is contemplated in case of the adoption of the impending constitutional amendment. Copyright, 1908, by Harris & Ewing SENATOR CLARENCE D. CLARK, OF WYOMING gress does not know how the law ought to be amended, if at all. Business men do not know how to carry on large industrial companies without incurring risk of prosecution. A great number of the large companies, of which the Standard Oil is a type, have been formed by bringing together a series of smaller companies engaged in the same kind of business. For various reasons of convenience these smaller companies have been kept nominally in existence, their stock being held in the treasury of the absorbing corporation or "trust." Under the Taft-Wickersham Federal Incorporation bill this form of organization would apparently be illegal. The CirPlatform pledges would seem to cuit Court has called this form illegal in the have required an amendment of case of the Standard Oil Company. There Court. the Sherman Anti-Trust law. lie ahead of us, apparently, some important Mr. Taft and his advisers have, however, changes in the structure of the great indusdecided not to advise any changes in that trial companies, and in their relations to law statute. It has been decided to await the and government. Their bigness will not be decision of the Supreme Court in the pend- assailed, but they will not be permitted to use ing Tobacco and Standard Oil cases. It is destructive or intimidating methods for the hoped that the court will give so broad and extinction of competitors. It will sometimes rounded an interpretation to the existing laws be difficult to draw the line, but in general that Congress may know what to do on the the rules of conduct in such cases are not one hand, while business men may know hard to determine. They could be found unwhat to do on their part. At present Con- der common law with no federal statute at all. Waiting for the Allaying Anxiety. Governor Apprehension and uncertainty law. No part of the $100,000 appropriated about possible attacks upon large for the expenses of collection can be used to corporations have recently had a index and display the returns of the corporamarked tendency to disturb the stock mar- tions and to make them accessible to the ket, and there has been fear lest they might public. If no special appropriation is made also retard the progress of actual industry. by the present session of Congress for this Mr. Taft has used various occasions, not- purpose the element of publicity will be enably that of his speech at New York on Lin- tirely eliminated from the operation of the coln's Birthday, to assure the business world law. Meanwhile, several cases intended to that there is no intention to pursue corpora- test the constitutionality of the tax are pendtions in a hostile spirit. It is true, as he said, ing in the courts. that "it rests with the National Government to enforce the law." And he went on to say: "If the enforcement of the law is not consistent with the present methods of carrying on business, then it does not speak well for the present methods of conducting business, and they must be changed to conform to the law." It should be remembered, though, that the present methods of carrying on business have been developing for a long period, and that this very law to which Mr. Taft refers has been lying unchanged and almost ignored on the statute books for many years, until recent agitations. If the modern ways of doing business are right, then why not change the law to make it meet actual conditions, instead of trying to change the structure of the business world to meet the arbitrary requirements of an old statute? The The Internal Revenue officials Corporation throughout the country reported Tax late in February that corporations, as a rule, had been dilatory in filing the statements required by the new federal tax law. In several of the large cities, however, it seemed probable that there would be few missing returns on the first day of March, the expiration of the term provided by the law for the rendering of these statements. The return through the mail of blanks which had been forwarded to the addresses of corporations by the Government officials indicated that many companies that had received charters probably never engaged in actual business. In the Territory of New Mexico, for example, the list of corporations chartered showed more than 26,000, but it is strongly doubted in the office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue if there are 5000 corporations on the actual list. On the whole, it seems probable that the income-producing quality of the new corporation tax has been greatly overestimated. It was also discovered last month by President Taft that no appropriation had been made by Congress to make effective the publicity feature of the Much time must elapse before the Hughes and the fate of the income-tax amendIncome Tax ment to the federal Constitution can be known, but newspaper speculation as to the outcome cannot wait for legislatures to meet. Meanwhile, opponents of the measure were greatly encouraged in January by the special message which Governor Hughes sent to the New York Legislature recommending rejection of the amendment. Governor Hughes, who declared himself in favor of a federal income tax on principle, objected to the proposed amendment on the ground that it would confer on Congress the power to tax incomes derived from State and municipal bonds. It may be held, of course, that Representatives and Senators, jealous of the rights and privileges of their respective States, would never consent to the imposition of any federal tax that would work injury to State or local governments, but Governor Hughes was able to show that Congress has attempted to impose such taxes in the past, and at all events a power should not be conferred if it is not intended that it should be exercised. Federal Supreme Court decisions were cited by the Governor in support of his contention. While his argument was both cogent and lucid, its importance lay not so much in the soundness and force of its legal contentions as in the effect which such a deliverance in the form of a message from the Governor of the Empire State to the Legislature was sure to have upon the discussion of the income-tax within and without the State. It had been assumed from the outset that the State of New York and probably all of New England would reject the amendment. Other States, it was known, were waiting on the action of New York. The message of New York's Governor gave the opponents of the amendment throughout the country an argument which they could use with telling effect in their legislatures. Up to the present time, however, they have had little opportunity to use it. |