National Expansion
1920 had to do with settling the issues of the war, with readjusting the finances of the country, and with restoring to a normal peace basis the enterprises which had been disturbed by the war. Foremost among these tasks was the enactment of a bill for the government supervision and regulation of the railroads after their return by the government to private control. The period of government war control, under the Democratic administration, had caused a deficit of more than half a billion dollars in the railroad account and had greatly disorganized the roads and enormously increased their expenses. These circumstances made the framing of a satisfactory law a difficult matter, but in the task the Republican majority in Congress succeeded in a manner which won almost universal approbation. In this and other post-bellum legislation the Republican party showed itself thoroughly reunited and steadfastly intent upon pursuing those progressive policies of service to the public welfare, and at the same time those resolute conservations of the rights of the individual citizen, of propery and of business, which had been characteristic of it from its foundation. In the pursuance of such policies it knew and it knows no sectional divisions, no class distinctions, no discrimination of race or sex in the vindication of civil rights. North, South, East, West; black and white; rich and poor; employer and employee; man and woman, native and naturalized—all are the same to the party which in the fulfilment of its nameis devoted to the progress and prosperity of the Common Wealth.
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