The herald., 1895-05-03

Without redress or remedy under the
present laws, American people are now
paying interest on a capital stock amount
ing to billions of dollars. which never had
real existence. One railway system is
at present a greater menace to the integ-
rity and perpetuity of the nation than
was ever the institution of slavery. 1t is
the strongest enemy of society and the
chief danger of anarchy, and it has become
such through the manipulation OF legls-
latures and the protection of courts. The
command and administration OF the rail-
way system law is the most immediate
national problem which demands legislat-
i've and judicial solution. The people
ought not much longer maintain
what are practically public corpora
tions privately owned, with no
responsibility for the public well
fare, no accountability to the public
will, and virtually not amenable to public
justice. yet requiring the national courts
for their operation and the national
army for their protection. The social
wrongs and industrial disorder attribut-
able to the present conceptions and IN
terp:etatons of law are not mitigated by
the fact that the fault largely lies in the
enactment of the law itself. and in
precedent rather than in the judiciary.
Law is not fixed and mechanical. but
is vital and revolutionary courts are set
to make as we'll as follow precedent
The tyranny of code of an unchange-
able Interpretation of law may be more
destructive to liberty than the tyranny
of despot.
The speaker then dwelt for some time
on the inordinate and perverted sense OF
the worth of property, which makes it
the object of social worship; the rule OF
property has usurped the rule of the peo-
pie and legislative halls have been con-
verted into the lobby cham bers. Corpc-
rations next came under confederation.
Corporations that are the chief benetic :
iaries of legislation. and that use the laws
to achieve their ends, yet avail them :
seves of the laws extreme protection. but
are practically :, law unto themselves.
Street railway corporations were alluded
to which kill their hundreds through
profitable neglect or refusal to provide
appliances for avoiding such accidents.
President Lincoln was quoted when he
raised his warning voice in a message to
the thirty-seventh congress. in which he
said that labor is prior to and inde-
pendent of capital Capital is only the
truit of labor and never could have eX-
listed if labor had not first existed. Labor
is the superior of capital and deserves
much the higher consideration"
Much liberty has been lost and great
property despotisms have been built up
since A Abraham Lincoln spoke this un-
needed warning to the nation, for which
both his life and death gave divine
sacrifice. The law which was instituted
to protect and perfect our liberties has be-
come the instrument of their perversion
and peril, and the nation has become
the most lawless and socially destructive
of civilized people through the instru-
mentality of purely secular and indiyid-
nal conceptions of law.
In the extreme and competitive sense
in which individual rights are now inter
preted, government does not exist for the
protection of the individual. If our ma
ton is to be saved and civilization be re-
genera ed, the Hebrew and Roman and
Anglo-SaXon conceptions OF law must
all three be fulfilled in the Christian
and universal conception of law as existing
for the association of men in righteous
ness. Not only must law be protective
and become loving, but love must become
law. and all the statutes of the state and
judgments of the courts redemptive in
terlretations and applications of the law
of love; the true end of law is the re-
demption, association and perfection of
man. IH.hH ~