EDITORIALS
Vigilance DIRECT LEGISLATION is making headway. The initiative and referendum were favored in the messages of McGovern of Wisconsin, Stubbs of Kansas, Osbobn of Michigan, Johnson of California,...
...The people have lost all faith in them, and the men who contol them may as well understand, once for all, that the people will assert their power in this and other lawful ways until political parties are so reformed as to restore them to public confidence...
...Let there be no limitations that will in any way interfere with this complete working out of popular government...
...Is New Hampshire reform to be genuine or bogus...
...The progressive...
...But it has a priceless possession—it owns the Republican organizations in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine...
...More millions are to be called for...
...Bass, and Henry H. Hollis, a former candidate, are on their feet leading the Democratic forces to cooperation with the Progressives in connection with the twenty or more propositions of their platform which are the same as those of the Republican platform...
...but they would not...
...John D. Works is a Republican—a progressive...
...in 1907, 266 millions...
...The one supreme endeavor should be to free the political parties, and the country from the domination of the money power, banish the machine and the boss and make this Republic what it assumes to be—a government 'of the people, for the people and by the people...
...The country will soon see...
...This the bulk of the Democrats will promptly give...
...Its debts in 1901 were 57 millions...
...but some of them will be controlled by the Boston and Maine and New Haven Railroad which carefully manages to keep in its employ Democratic lobby lawyers enough to handle Democratic legislators here and there in emergencies...
...The next step for the railroad is to take possession of the legislature in order to repeal a fundamental law forbidding any raising of transportation rates, and after that, to prevent legislation for more adequately and justly taxing the railroad...
...Matches can be made from other substances, that are not injurious to health, and manufacturers must be compelled to use the non-poisonous kind...
...But the railroad determined to capture one more fort before the New Year, being a decision of the Board of Railroad Commissioners to allow ten millions of new stock to be issued...
...It had been supposed that most of the pending differences between the people and the railroad would go over to the consideration of the new legislature after the Governor's message...
...One More for the People FOLLOWING are a few expressions taken at random from the published writings of a man who is already widely known and will undoubtedly play an important part in the politics of the future: "There is an aroused public sentiment in this country to-day that means a change, if not a complete political revolution...
...Re- publicans have not a majority of the whole legislature and without Democratic assistance cannot carry their measures...
...The New Haven stock in 1901 was worth $213 per share—is now only $150...
...Occupational Diseases FEW PEOPLE can read about the effects of phosphorous poisoning without a shudder...
...The people have diagnosed the case, and know what is afflicting the country and they realize what the remedy must be...
...Direct legislation is the result of the corruption and inefficiency of political parties and the officers they elect...
...Now the PEOPLE of California will have one representative of their own in the upper house of Congress and the Southern Pacific one less...
...But there is still need for the utmost vigilance...
...The new humanitarianism, the idea that Society is in duty bound to protect the health of the workers, is forcing the government to make a beginning in the prevention of occu-patioHal diseases...
...Carr and Hollis have no doubt about carrying the state Democratic in 1912 if tha Republicans falter...
...Its nature is described elsewhere in this magazine...
...It remains to be seen whether the reform movement in the legislature now in session will attain significance in eastern politics or fall down into insignificance...
...But the Railroad is after them...
...Governor Bass and his reform associates do not mean to falter...
...None of the ten millions now demanded is to be spent in New Hampshire...
...They were written by John D. Works of California...
...The people, and the true representatives of the people, must guard against tampering—against "jokers" and in-noeent-looking restrictions...
...This malignant disease, known as phosphorus necrosis or "phossy jaw," is one of the hazards of the match industry...
...have come the direct primary laws and the initiative, referendum and recall, all movements intended to curb and curtail the power of machine-governed political parties and extend and increase that of the people at large, unrestrained by any sense of party fealty or obligation...
...Some of them, less under machine domination than others, will do their work thoroughly and well...
...Congress should lose no time in affording the same protection to the match makers in this country...
...No, dear reader, these expressions do not come from roosevelt or Pinchot or Bristow or Gore or WiLson or Folk or Heney or Kent or Poindexter or Tom Johnson...
...The initiative and referendum were favored in the messages of McGovern of Wisconsin, Stubbs of Kansas, Osbobn of Michigan, Johnson of California, Foss of Massachusetts, and others...
...But this year Claeence E. Carr, the Democratic candidate for Governor against Mr...
...This campaign against the "phossy jaw" has other important aspects, too, besides the protection of the health of the men, women and children who make matches...
...So the demand is made upon the Commissioners...
...This it did only by becoming thoroughly progressive under the lead of Robert P. Bass now Governor...
...One would suppose that the Boston Road and the New Haven Road with their $700,000,000 of capitalization could manage to wait a while before crowding for ten millions more stock...
...The initiative and referendum are demanded in order that the people may make their own laws...
...Public opinion is supporting these governors...
...Out of this condition of discontent (over betrayal of campaign and platform pledges, etc...
...It is now up to the legislatures to act...
...Other civilized countries have stamped out "phossy jaw" by prohibiting the use of phosphorous...
...Will New Hampshire Progress...
...NEW HAMPSHIRE is the only eastern state in which the Republican party saved itself from serious damage at the November elections...
...It is not a pleasant thing to read about, but even that is far less disagreeable than the realization that we in this country have not yet outlawed the use of this poisonous substance which brings misery and disfigurement and death to the workers who make the matches...
...He has just been elected by the legislature to the United States Senate to fill the place now occupied by Flint, of standpat fame...
...Senator La Follette's speech in the Senate on April 12, 1910, tells the story of the New Haven seizure of the Boston and Maine Railroad...
Vol. 3 • January 1911 • No. 3
