PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL ADDRESS the public weal. Therefore, they hesitated not because injustice would inevitably result from their forays against all wealth whether honestly or dishonestly gained, whether employed for public good or public harm. Remedies of course they proposed, for the politician cannot succeed by denun ciation alone. Some of them, apparently oblivious of the fact that the powers con ferred upon Congress by the federal con stitution are enumerated powers, and that all other powers are by that instrument reserved to the states and to the people, professed to see in the assumption of federal control of corporations, the true remedy. These were divided into two principal classes. The first, and by far the larger class, insisted that through the commerce clause of the Constitution, Congress could devise a plan by which it could take con trol of the insurance companies, trust com panies, great railroad and other corporations. In this manner, Congress could relieve the states of their several duties and obligations to their own creations, and at the same time effectively relieve such corporations from state control. In that class, in addi tion to the political leaders and other wellmeaning persons who had not especially studied our Constitutions, both federal and state, were to be found some who were interested officially in insurance, railroad and other corporations. In the second class were to be found those who, while not disagreeing with the first class in the assumption that Congress possesses the power by the Commerce and Post Road provisions of the Constitution, to centralize the greater portion of powers of government in the federal government, nevertheless insisted that the remedy thus proposed was not broad enough. With them the remedy of remedies is for the federal government to acquire the railroads and operate them. There were those, however, who, mindful of the limitation of the powers of Congress and appreciating the wisdom of the Fathers
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in securing to the states local self-govern ment, wisely took the ground that if the states had failed in the performance of duty, they should now proceed to repair such neglect. This class can be sub-divided into two parts, the first embracing those who deemed it wise to study the situation deeply, to provide for the immediate trial of existing remedies, and if the law be found inadequate in any respect, then to supple ment it by such other statute or statutes as should be found needful. The second class composed of adherents to the power and duty of the state, opposed the slower and safer method of those who proposed to look before leaping, and loudly proclaimed the necessity for legislation that should tear up that which is, both root and branch, and start anew. In the circumstances to which I have of necessity made but brief and inadequate allusion, the legislatures of many of the states assembled. That the majority of their members were animated by good purposes, I doubt not. Naturally they wished to meet what seemed to them the honest desire of their constituents, that all abuses be remedied. But the majority had neither the time nor the training to enable them in one short session, crowded with hundreds of bills, to go to the bottom of so vast a subject. Hence they were unable to say whether certain abuses were due to the inadequacies of law or to the failure of the authorities to enforce the law. Nor had they opportunity to make such a study of the bills presented as would enable each to determine for himself whether each bill was needed or whether it was prepared on right lines. In support of that assertion, I direct your attention to the fact that over twelve hundred bills were passed by the legislature of my own state, although four hundred eighty-four of them were prevented from becoming laws by advisory or other action on the part of the Governor. What a commentary on hasty legislation is to be found in the action of a
