|JK 273 .W27 Copy 1 1st i>tfswn ) SENATE Document iNo. 410 THREE YEARS OF THE NEW FREEDOM SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE JEFFERSON DAY BANQUET HELD IN THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, D. C. ON APRIL 13, 1916 By HON. THOMAS J. WALSH UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM T^IONTANA PRESENTED BY MR. OWEN April 19, 1916.— Ordered to be printed WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1916 K-^ MAY 'f D. 3 1916 Nc THREE YEARS O? THE NEW FREEDOM^ BY SENATOR T. J. WALSH. The State in whose name I am commissioned to speak in the United States Senate may very appropriately have a part in these festivities commemorative of Thomas Jefferson. It is the largest and the most remote of the commonwealths carved from the empire added to the Union through the wisdom and patriotism of that statesman. It was the scene of the greater part of the adventures of the intrepid ex- plorers, Ijewis and Clark, sent out by him in anticipation of some turn in our affairs through which the sovereignty of the young Republic would be extended over the vast territory they were to traverse. It has exhibited its attachment to the political principles for which he stood by sending to the National Congress, in both branches, a solid delegation of Democratic members. It is to-day overwhelmingly in sympathy with the purposes and policies of President Wilson and will give him its electoral vote as his own successor. In these cir- cumstances may be found some explanation of the choice of- a speaker to address you on ''Three Years of the New Freedom." I may venture to speak on this occasion as a representative of an even larger constituency whose rapid conversion to the party of Jefferson is a noteworthy incident in the politics of our thne. Barring Texas, not a State west of the meridian of Kansas City failed to give its electoral vote to the Republican nominee for President in 1904, and only Colorado and Nevada, stUl faithful to Bryan, exhibited any change of sentiment in 1908. Oklahoma, coming into the Union meanwhile, was recorded for the great Nebraskan. From all that vast country there remained, when Guggenheim became the colleague of the venerable Teller on the 4th of March, 1907, only the latter and the veteran statesman, Francis G. Newlands, on the Democratic side of the Senate. There are found there in the present Congress sixteen Democrats from that section. There were no conditions of a local character to which this change could be attributed, except it be that party ties bind less securely in the bounding West. A common conviction came over the country, revelation upon revelation had made the conclusion obvious, that the real power in government was passing, had passed in large measure, out of the hands of the people and was being exercised in fact by a relatively small body of men of great wealth, conveniently referred to col- lectively as ''Big Business." ^ter quitting the office of Chief Exec- utive of the Nation, ex-President Taft asserted in a public address that our country had narrowly escaped becoming a plutocracy. The scales recently fell from the eyes of Senator Root, and the "invisible 4 THREE YEAES OF THE NEW FREEDOM. government" stood revealed before liim in all its hideousness. The West did not discern the evil more clearl}'; it acted more promptly. It turned instinctively to the party of Jefferson. The tendency to which it j-ielded was hastened by the last effort of the Republican Party to enact revenue legislation. Continued in power by the elec- tion of 1908 on its promise to revise the tariff', it undertook the task with the result that the country stood aghast at the audacitj^ it displayed in the act it offered, licensing the plunder of the people by the giant monopolies and illegal combuiations. From that time forth it had no power to legislate touching any great questions of national moment. It was distrusted by the most high-mmded men who called themselves Republicans, and the country at large was equally suspicious of it. The Democratic Party came into control oi national affairs because the country had lost faith m the Repub- lican organization. The conviction became general that it could not or would not act except m conformity in substance to the washes of the interests whose methods have been more recently exposed by the revelations touching the lootmg of the New Haven and the Rock Island Railroads. The Democratic Party was called to power to restore popular gov- ernment. It has done so. It set about, pursuant to its pledge to the f)eople and its time-honored policy, to enact a revenue tariff. Dif- erences may exist, always have existed, touching the principle upon which customs duties should be laid. The wisdom of the Under- wood-Simmons law as a whole or in respect to specific provisions may be questioned but no man has had the hardihood to assert that in a single line is reflected a tender concern for any private interest rather than for the public good. The income-tax feature of the law, which will yield 8100,000,000 of revenue for the current year, makes a start toward lifting the ever-increasing burden of taxation from the backs of the needy and the toilers to place them in some fairer meas- ure upon those whose demands upon the Government are larger and who, blessed with great wealth, f-ecl them less. The act represents an honest effort to translate the popular will with respect to the national revenues into law.^ Since the panic of 1907, when practically every bank in the country suspended, the necessity for a reform of our banking and currency laws had been universally recognized. For six years the Repub- lican Party had labored with the problem without being able to advance a bill be3"ond the committee stage. Aldrich introduced his famous measure which went to the Finance Committee and never came out. Many believe it was framed to perpetuate the vicious control of the money system of the country by the great banking interests of New York. Whether it was or was not, the country refused to take a banking and currency law framed by Senator Aid- rich and the Republican leaders associated with him.' Within three months after the tariff bill was disposed of the Democratic adminis- tration had given to the Nation a banking and currency system so admirably fitted to its needs as to evoke universal encomium. In actual operation it has met every expectation of its most sanguine friends. Its permanency is no longer a subject of speculation.-' It is exquisitely adjusted to the genius of our people and the spirit of our institutions. But whatever may be its defects, the country is en- tirely satisfied that it was conceived and enacted in an honest desire to subserve the public interests. THKEE YEAES OF THE NEW FREEDOM. 5 The trust evil had contmued despite the ancient law into which more recent decisions had infused some vigor. Supplementary legis- lation had become a recognized necessity, but the country declined to give its approval to any of the numberless legislative proposals dealing with the subject before a Congress in which the Republican Party was dommant, lest it should be found eventually tKat the law had been emasculated mstead of strengthened. The last Congress met this demand without a suspicion being raised of a solicitude for monopolistic organizations that might be helpful politically on the one hand or of a disposition to harass business enterprises because of their size in response to popular clamor on the other. ^ As an incident of a quite general raid upon the public lands valuable for timber, coal, and oil a plot had been revealed to purloin the rich coal deposits of Alaska. Out of this grew the Ballir ger-Pinchot controversy resulting in the dismissal from the service of the one chief participant and the resignation of the other. Justly or unjustly, the opi: ion prevailed that the Alaska looters had been contributors to the Repubhcan cam.paign fund and were to be allowed to get away with the booty. >-To protect them from spoliation all lands in the Territory valuable on accomit of the coal m them were withdrawn from entry awaiting the enactment of appropriate legislation that woidd permit the development of these lands without riskmg their absorption by monopolizing interests. Seven years passed, however, and nothing was done. Meanwhile, the Alaska people heated their houses, cooked their meals, operated their gold dredges, and ran their little railroads with coal imported from British Columbia or oil brought from C?Jifornia. Nothing was done because the com"; try was suspicious that any measure emanatmg from a Republican Con- gress, subject to the mfluences that were known to be powerful in the councils of its leaders would offer oj)2Dortunities for pillage. The Sixty-third Congress promptly enacted a law openmg the coal lands of Alaska, so very generally approved that it passed both Houses without the formality of a roll call m either. Without known" g much about it in detail the country was satisfied to have the coal lands of Alaska opened under any law that a Democratic Congress would devise, that Secretary Lane would approve, and that President Wilson would sign. It was the same wdth respect to water powers. The country would not trust the Republican Party constituted or directed as it was to dispose of these tremendous natural resources. Development ceased in 1908 because congressional authority was withlield. The subject is being dealt with by the present Congress/ Bills for the reorganization of the Arm}^ are now engaging its attention, and kindred measures for the common defense, to which it is doubtful if the acquiescence of the Nation could be secured were they brought forward in the midst of the distrust which paralyzed even the well-meant efforts of some of its predecessors. A tariff commission, long discussed, will be authorized at the present session, but it will be a commission that will assemble facts to aid Congress in levying duties necessary to produce the requisite revenue and to make readjusftnents from time to time as required by the public interests. It wid justif}^ its existence by pointing out particulars in which the rates may be lowered rather than raised, and it will arm the committees with information concerning industries 6 THREE YEARS OP THE NEW FREEDOM. which will make specious appeals at the close of the war for duties that are unwarranted and oppressive. Rural credits will claim the attention of Congress next week, if my friend Hollis can have his way. 'Time forbids, and it is not to the present purpose, that the long list of legislative achievements of the administration now happily directing national affairs be referred to in detail. They have been possible because the National Congress enjoys a freedom to which it has long been alien. The majority are under no constraint because of obligations incurred in the expectation that they would be met with Govermiient favors. Their work has progressed unchecked by any current opinion that any unseen hands molded it. The fruits of popidar government restored are fast being garnered, and, save for a disagreeable but necessary police duty in Mexico, we enjoy profound peace in the midst of a world war surpassing in magnitude and horror any armed conflict in which mankind ever engaged. One by one the nations arc being engulfed in its awful vortex. Prudence and sagacity must continue to prevail if we are to enjoy uninterruptedly the blessings of peace. The country with one common voice applauded the President's proclamation of neutrality. No one at the time suggested that the quarrel was any affair of ours, and no less harmful issue can be raised than that we should have made or ought to make it such. We look with equanimity on perils passed and soon forget them. In the abounding prosperity of the past year the memory of the trials of the two that preceded it is already dim. The change in the administration, foreshadowed for a year, was naturally disturbing to business, particularly in view of the ambitious legislative program of the successful party, afterwards resolutely carried out. Coming into power in consequence of divergent views concerning domes- tic pohcies, foreign complications of a most extraordinary charac- ter — troubles in Mexico, troubles with Japan, troubles in China, speedily confronted us. In the midst of these conditions, naturally calculated to excite apprehension, if not alarm, the Governm.ents of the leading nations of Europe anticipating the early approach of "the day" redoubled their eft'orts to accumulate gold. They had been draining the world's supply into their coffers for two years before the storm broke. During that period France added to her normal supply $170,000,000; Russia, $150,000,000; and Germany, $100,000,000. Investment m.oney supplied in large measure in normal times from Euro{)ean centers disappeared overnight. Enter- prises that depended upon foreign capital were incontinently, not to say precipitately, dropped. Then the explosion came and the whole system of the world's exchanges blew up. Commerce with Germany v/as all but cut olf, with the allies imperiled and with neutral nations subjected to all sorts of annoyances. Ocean transportation was demoralized and even communication embarrassed. Our European creditors with claims presently maturing or past due to the amount of .$300,000,000 were clamoring for payment. The various devices to which resort was had to extricate the country from the ruinous conditions in which the war had involved it, I shall not take the time to recaU. But I may be permitted to say in this connection that never in the history of these United States was more consummate skill displayed in the THEEE YEARS OF THE NEW FREEDOM. 7 conduct of the financial affairs of the Government or a higher order of talent exhibited than that which, in that period of stress, the Nation commanded from Hon. William G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury. It is but just that the remarkable achievements of the past three eventful years should be intimately associated in the public mind, as they are, with the masterful character whom Providence and his countrymen in a seasonable hour called to the position of Chief Magistrate of the Republic. His vigorous and commanding intellect, his supreme patriotism, permeates them aU. Why should the country choose to return to the odious thralldom of a system of government best typified by Mark Hanna ? Is there not warning enough in the Gary dinner ? When, if ever, had we more need of a man in the White House who, with the patience of Lincoln, prepares for war, yet shuns it as the supreme calamity that may befall a nation, in whose heart is a ready response to the fervent prayers that nightly go up from millions of homes in this happy land that God may continue to preserve it in peace ? o LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 012 051 731 4 ^'^^M '! ,t»,*"'°^'=O^GRKS °°'2 0517314 ft Hollinger Corp.