Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1902 — THE PRESIDENT’S PRINCIPAL RECOMMENDATIONS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE PRESIDENT’S PRINCIPAL RECOMMENDATIONS.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S message to Congress Is less voluminous than those of many of bls predecessors, containing in full only about 12,000 words. It may be called a concise and on the whole an optimistic document. The President congratulates the country on the prevailing prosperity, and he assures us that while the prosperous wave will recede and at times there will again come periods of depression, the tide will continue to advance. No country, he says, has ever occupied a higher plane of material well-being than ours at the present moment, and he predicts that the American people will permit of no national retrogression. The President in dealing with the trust question holds that corporations, and especially combinations of corporations, should be managed under public regulation. Capital,,he says, has the right to combine for Its own protection and for development along industrial lines, and that labor has equal rights. But that when capital has combined to such an extent as to-stifle competition the law-making power should remedy such a condition, apd if labor in combining interferes with the rights of others or with the welfare of the general public stub combination must likewise be regulated by law. He urges that any defects in the existing law should be eradicated and the power given the Department of Justice to accomplish the real reforms the lawmakers intended when legislation regulating the trusts was enacted. The President lays some stress on the need of conservative tariff legislation, which, while not attacking the foundation upon which the Republican policy of tariff for protection is built, will remodel it to meet new conditions and remove any evils that the prolonged imposition of present tariffs may have caused. The foreign relations of this country are reviewed in a very brief and formal manner. No International question is pending in which this country Is vitally Interested. There is not a cloud on the horizon, the President says, but he advocates provision for a thoroughly efficient navy to insure a continuance of this state of affairs. On Cuban reciprocity the President stands precisely where his predecessor stood on this question. He favors and urges the largest possible measurement of trade reciprocity and pays particular attention to the Implied pledges of this government to see to it that Cuba was put upon her feet in a business as well as a political way, and not until that has been done through a measure of reciprocity will the duty of this government toward Cuba have been done. The unusually large Immigration to this country during the last fiscal year and the great proportion of undesirable immigrants that have sought and. In some cases, secured entrance to this country impels the President to recommend corrective legislation along the lines laid down by the present administration of the immigration office. The strengthening of the civil service receives the approval of the President, nnd the recent signing of the contract with the Pacific Cable Company is referred to ns another step toward the advancement of the interests of this country In the Pacific Ocenn nnd the far East. The President refers to Congress having already wisely provided that we shall nt once build an Isthmian canal, if possible at Panama. He reports that a good title can be acquired from the French Panama Canal Company, and tells that the negotiations with Colombia are still pending.

PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT.