which can sell its products cheaper abroad than it can to the American people, is capitalized for $1,400,000,000; about $600,000,000 represents the real investment. Eight hundred million dollars of value is created to be distributed amongst a few intimates while the American people at large are taxed to pay the dividend.

And our express companies! Every large civilized country in the world has a parcels post system. The United States is the single exception. Though there is a deficit amounting to millions of dollars a year through the establishment of a rural mail delivery, no attempt to establish a parcels post system operated through these carriers has yet been successful. Theodore Roosevelt, our great reformer, though in Washington seven years, and knowing that it was the express companies of the United States which made impossible the passage of this legislation, never made the dramatic appeal to the conscience of the American people that he is doing at the present time. The Sherman law was on the statute books at the time and could have been enforced. Some of those men could have been jailed, and should have been jailed if our strenuous President had been as sincere in his efforts in office as he is in his efforts for office. Only a short while ago the earnings of one of these companies were so enormous that the directors were afraid to let them be known to the American people and an adjustment was made by giving every stockholder two additional shares for every one held, a dividend of 200 per cent. Postmaster General Wanamaker said: "There are four reasons why America has no parcels post system

- 1st, The Adams Express Company; 2d, The American Express Company; 3d, The United States Express Company, and 4th, The Wells Fargo Express Company."

The sugar trust is another example. The little joker in the Payne-Aldrich bill, which President Taft has described as the best tariff law ever made, takes fifty millions a year out of the American consumers. Though comparatively little of the sugar used by the people of the United States is produced in this country, sugar

costs the people of the United States twice as much as it does the people of Europe.

The cotton and woolen factories here in New England are tremendously over-capitalized. It is laughable to hear the manufacturers of these great corporations rebel against the action of the Legislature in reducing the number of hours on the ground that the mills in New England cannot compete successfully with Southern mills if shorter hours are compelled by law. Many mills in New England have paid out in dividends in a few years vastly more than the amount of the original capitalization; at the same time it is a matter of public record that the wages of the average employee are only $7.50 per week, and that many children are employed and paid only $3 a week.

It is this enormous over-capitalization and watering of stocks that is directly responsible for the high cost of living, notwithstanding the statement of Senator Lodge to the contrary. Practically every industry in the country which could stand capitalization has been taken over in the past few years by banking syndicates. Properties having an actual value of a few hundred thousand dollars, paying 12 or 15 or 20 per cent, have been capitalized on the basis of 5 or 6 or 7 per cent. The result is that the apparent wealth of the United States in industrial and commercial and business enterprises is capitalized at more than the real wealth, and the American people are taxed to pay the difference. Only a short while ago the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York declared a regular quarterly dividend of 25 per cent and a special dividend of 130 per cent. This extra dividend is not the largest ever authorized by this bank. For more than eight years the average disbursement to stockholders has been something like 250 per cent, and though the par value of its stock is $100, the stock has recently sold as high as $4,500 a share. This is only a single instance, and is not only true of bank stocks but of many cotton and woolen mills and other forms of industry. How unjust this over-capitalization is

to the average cotton operative and woolen operative here in Lewiston can be seen in the fact that wages here, as in every other big manufacturing center, are presumably based upon the ability of the companies to pay reasonable dividends. When a dividend of 6 per cent is asked for by the stockholders, based upon an honest valuation, the operatives should be willing, and are willing I know, to meet the demand in a spirit of fair play and equity, but when 6 per cent dividends means 6 per cent upon millions of capital which has never been invested it is the rankest kind of injustice.

The time has come, therefore, when the American people must assert their spirit over the few men who have hitherto drafted legislation, determined the decision in many of our courts, and even disposed of the enormous wealth of the country in whatever manner seemed best suited to their own selfish purposes. Drastic action against the tyranny of these men is the necessity of the hour.

Never will there be such action by the Republican party. All the protests against the execution of the present Payne-Aldrich tariff by the Republican insurgents were hopeless and will be hopeless. Speaker Cannon is supreme in his own district, and though there is little likelihood of his return to the speakership because the Congress is Democratic, yet he will dominate the Republican minority, and hold the whip hand, so that no legislation except that which is friendly to the intrenched wealth of the country can be successful. Here in Maine you have the opportunity to judge the power of the Republican machine. It has held the state steadily in its clutches for years, and has been run mainly in the interests of the wealthy men. President Roosevelt, with all his talk about corruption, never lifted his finger in Washington to reduce expenses in framing a proper tariff bill or to punish the big criminals. What reason have we to expect any different course from him or those in the battle with him? He stands for his close personal friend, Senator Lodge, who is a

staunch advocate of the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill. Yet he must realize, if he knows anything about the public record of Henry Cabot Lodge, that he is pleading for the return of a man to the United States Senate for six years who, day in and day out, has stood for a system of government which has made a few fabulously rich while compelling millions to labor incessantly for enough to keep body and soul together.

There is no help for the evil situation into which we have been brought by the Republican party. It must be, as it has been for so long, the enemy of the people and the friend of privilege. To you, men of Maine, it is given to sound the tocsin for the country. Let it be the first blow to the money power and the first victory for justice and the people.

REFUSAL OF NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR. STATEMENT ISSUED SEPTEMBER 26, 1910.

Men have been kind enough to tell me that I ought to stand for governor. The publicity given to this suggestion has caused an unexpected and an embarrassing activity among my friends throughout the state. It has tended to confuse the situation. Local Democratic leaders have told me that the doubt whether I would permit myself to become a candidate has disturbed alignments and postponed decisions in different localities.

It will not be wise to allow this condition to continue. The Democrats to-morrow will choose the delegates who at the coming state convention will nominate the Democratic candidate for governor. So great is the probability that the Democrats at this convention will be able to elect the next governor, if they select their candidate wisely, that it seems to me of the greatest importance to make their task as easy and as simple as possible. Eliminating every unavailable candidate is one way to simplify the problem of selecting our candidate for governor. I am keenly conscious of the great opportunity which is afforded me to lead the Democrats to victory in the state this year, and no one would appreciate the honor more than I; but on reflection it does not seem to me that I ought to lay down the task in Boston which my city so recently put in my hands, and which is still so far from complete. Therefore, I must ask the Democrats of the state not to consider my candidacy.