GOVERNOR, 1903
they are ready to do their part in giving him recognition. When the stress comes the arms of Joshua have to be supported. Quay had earnestly tried to do a service for Pennsylvania. Little esteem did he win by the effort. The difference between his reputation and that of Clay over the country and abroad consists in the fact that Kentucky stood firmly behind Clay with all of his faults and that Pennsylvania, so far as expression went, failed so to stand behind Quay with all of his merits.
Having thought carefully over the policy which ought to be pursued in order to secure the public benefit, in my inaugural address I announced definitely these propositions:
1. There is too much legislation. More consideration ought to be given to acts of assembly and the bulk of legislation ought to be lessened.
2. The modern tendency to create new crimes by act of assembly ought to be curbed.
3. The state ought to be apportioned into senatorial and representative districts, as required by the constitution.
4. The ballot ought to be made more simple, and the right of a man to vote a straight party ticket, if he desired, ought to be maintained.
5. The power of corporations to take private property upon the theory of public need by the exercise of the right of eminent domain ought to be permitted, after the ascertainment by the state itself of the existence of such need. The right of eminent domain should be carefully restricted.
6. The state is interested, within reasonable bounds, in bringing about a condition of things in which, in the distribution of the rewards resulting from business ventures, capital shall have less of profit and labor more of compensation.
7. No man should be permitted to interfere, upon any pretense whatever, with another who may choose to sell his labor, and violence should be promptly and rigidly suppressed.
