Part 25 (2/2)

The settlement of the Alaskan boundary was a very notable diplomatic triumph, and Secretary Hay is ent.i.tled to much credit for it.

I cannot go into the many important matters which Mr. Hay disposed of as Secretary of State. He left a splendid record. I made it a point to keep in constant touch with him by visiting at his office frequently, and he always talked with me frankly and freely concerning the important negotiations in which he was engaged. The only criticism I have to make of him as Secretary of State is, that he was disposed, wherever he could possibly do so, to make international agreements and settle differences without consulting the Senate.

And, in addition, I never could induce him to come before the Committee on Foreign Relations and explain to the committee personally various treaties and important matters in which the State Department was interested. Why he would not do so I do not know. He was an exceedingly modest man and shrank from all controversy. It is seldom, however, that the State Department has had at its head so brilliant and scholarly a man as John Hay. He will go down in history as among the greatest of our Secretaries of State.

I will make some further references to the important results of the Roosevelt Administration in what I shall say in a later chapter concerning the work of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

William Howard Taft, now President of the United States, was President Roosevelt's Secretary of War, and a very able Secretary he was. I first knew him in Was.h.i.+ngton when, as a young man but thirty-three years of age, he was serving as Solicitor General under President Harrison. I followed his career very closely from the time that I first became acquainted with him.

As a United States Circuit Judge, to which position he was appointed by President Harrison, he was regarded as one of the ablest in the country. The Circuit Court of Appeals on which he served was a notable one. It was composed of three men who have since occupied the highest positions in the United States. William R. Day was first a.s.sistant Secretary of State, then Secretary of State, one of the negotiators of the Paris Peace Treaty, Circuit Judge, and later a Supreme Court Justice. Judge Taft was first civil Governor of the Philippines, Secretary of War, and then President; and he has only recently appointed his old colleague, Judge Lurton, the third member of the Court of Appeals, to the position of Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Judge Taft has occupied many high positions, all of which he has filled with great honor and distinction. I doubt whether he has enjoyed the high office of President of the United States. I myself have always thought that he would have made one of our greatest Chief Justices had he been appointed to that position.

Just before the National Convention of 1908 a.s.sembled at Chicago, in which convention I was chairman of the Illinois delegation, when every one knew that Taft was sure to be the nominee, I called on him at the War Department, and in the course of the conversation I took occasion to remark that I had always been in favor of him for Chief Justice, but it seemed now that he was certain to be the nominee for President, and his career would consequently go along another line. He replied: ”If your friend Chief Justice Fuller should retire and the President should send me a commission as Chief Justice, I would take it now.”

It is my purpose to practically close these memoirs with the end of the Roosevelt Administration, for the reason that I do not feel at liberty to write in detail of events occurring within the past two years. All that I will venture to say is that my relations with Mr. Taft as President have been of the most cordial and friendly character; and no one can question that he has been thoroughly conscientious in the discharge of the duties of President of the United States. That in 1910 the party went down in defeat for the first time in eighteen years cannot be charged to President Taft.

Nothing that he did as Chief Executive was responsible for that defeat. I myself believe that it was simply the result of the people becoming tired of too much prosperity under Republican administration. The newspaper agitation over the Aldrich-Payne Tariff Bill was mainly instrumental in turning the House of Representatives over to the Democracy.

The Hon. Philander C. Knox was Attorney-General in President Roosevelt's cabinet, as he had been in the cabinet of his predecessor.

He is now serving as Secretary of State under President Taft. He has had a long and highly distinguished career at the bar, and is probably one of the greatest lawyers of his day. He served in the Senate of the United States for some years, and upon entering that body he at once took his place as a leader on all questions of a legal and const.i.tutional nature. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, he had quite a commanding influence on important legislation coming from that committee. As Secretary of State Mr.

Knox has been successful to an eminent degree, and I have no doubt that his career as the Premier of the Taft Administration will add to his great fame as a lawyer and statesman.

I cannot refrain from saying a word in reference to the Hon. James Wilson, who was appointed Secretary of Agriculture by President McKinley, in which position he has been retained by both President Roosevelt and President Taft. He has served as a cabinet officer for a longer consecutive term than any man in our history.

I have been more or less familiar with the administration of the Agricultural Department ever since its creation, and I do not hesitate to say that Mr. Wilson has been the most efficient Secretary of Agriculture that we have ever had. He has accomplished greater results in that office than any of his predecessors, and should remain there as long as he will consent to serve.

CHAPTER XXI INTERSTATE COMMERCE

At the time I am writing these lines, no question of governmental policy occupies so prominent a place in the thoughts of the people as that of controlling the steady growth and extending influence of corporate power, and of regulating its relations to the public.

And there are no corporations whose proceedings so directly affect every citizen in the daily pursuit of his business as the corporations engaged in transportation.

Of the many new forms introduced into every department of civilized life during the past century, none have brought about more marvellous changes than the railroad, as an instrumentality of commerce. The subst.i.tution of steam and electricity for animal power was one of the most important events in our industrial history. The commercial, social, and political relations of the nations, have been revolutionized by the development of improved means of communication and transportation. With this changed condition of affairs in the commercial world came new questions of the greatest importance for the consideration of those upon whom devolved the duty of making the nation's laws.

In the early days of railroads, the question was not how to regulate, but how to secure them; but in the early seventies their importance grew to such proportions that the railroads threatened to become the masters and not the servants of the people. There were all sorts of abuses. Railroad officers became so arrogant that they seemed to a.s.sume that they were above all law; rebating and discrimination were the rule and not the exception. It was the public indignation against long continued discrimination and undue preferences which brought about the Granger Movement, which resulted, seventeen years later, in the enactment of the first Interstate Commerce Act.

With the Granger Movement of the early seventies, and the pa.s.sage of State laws for the control of railroad transportation, began the discussion which is still before Congress and the public as one of the live issues of the day.

It so happens that I have been intimately connected with this subject from the time I was serving as Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1873.

The State of Illinois, like most of the Western States, had a law on the subject of railroad regulation; but it was ineffective, and the commission under it had no practical power. I appointed the committee of the House of Representatives of the Illinois Legislature in 1873, of which John Oberly, of Cairo, Illinois, was a member, and it was that committee that reported to the House the bill which finally became a law, known as the Railroad and Warehouse Law of 1873. It is still the existing law in Illinois, and was for many years regarded as one of the broadest and most far-reaching of State enactments.

After I became Governor of the State, in 1877, I appointed a new Railroad and Warehouse Commission under the new law, and naturally took a deep interest in its work. During my term as Governor a resolution was adopted by the General a.s.sembly really looking to the abolition of the Railroad and Warehouse Commission, but on its face inquiring of me as Governor for information concerning the cost of maintaining the Railroad and Warehouse Commission, and the benefits, if any, of the commission, to the people of the State of Illinois.

To this resolution I promptly responded in a message to the General a.s.sembly, dated February 17, 1879, which in part I take the liberty of quoting here, because never afterwards in Illinois, so far as I know, was there any movement to abolish the Railroad and Warehouse Commission and repeal the Illinois Railroad and Warehouse Act.

After giving the pay and expenses of the board, I continued:

”To answer this portion of the resolution in a manner satisfactory to myself would include a recital of the many attempts that have been made in this and other countries to control railroad corporations by legislation. In a paper of this kind such a reply can not be made. I must therefore be satisfied with a glance at the advance that resulted in the enactment of the railroad and warehouse laws of this State.

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