There are one or two things that I would like particularly to say in this chamber, and to the members of the Texas Legislature. I received a copy of the resolution passed by your body, introduced, I understand, by ex-Minister Terrell, in reference to the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act. I wish to thank you most heartily for what you did. I think, Governor, Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen, that the longer our experience in public office is, the more we realize that at least ninety-five per cent, if not more, in importance, of the work done by any public officer who is worth his salt has nothing whatever to do with partisan politics. The things that concern us all as good citizens are infinitely larger than the matters concerning which we are divided one from the other along party lines. Fundamentally our attitude in our foreign affairs and in reference to foreign nations must in the long run, if we are to be successful as a people, be based upon certain common-sense rules of conduct, the identical rules upon which every self-respecting citizen must base his private actions. This is equally true as regards all questions dealing with capital and labor; and especially with those dealings with the great aggregates of capital usually to be found in corporate form through which so much of our business at the present day is conducted. It is essential, in dealing thus by legislative action with corporate wealth, or indeed with wealth in any form, that we remember and act upon certain rules simple enough and commonplace enough to state, but not always easy to act upon. Most emphatically we can not as good Americans bear hostility to any rich man as such any more than to any poor man as such. My experience has been that the man who talks over-loudly of his hostility to corporate wealth can not be trusted even to antagonize corporate wealth when it is wrong. Let us be moderate in our statements; but let us make our deeds bear out absolutely our words. With this preliminary I would like to say in brief just what my position is as regards the particular question with which I had to deal and as regards which the Texas Legislature took the action I so much appreciate.