The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-02-11

AS Wen might the humble sutton for the
fair hand of Penelope attempt to bend the
DOW OF Ulysses as for any one on such an
occasion as this to endeaVor TO do full
justice to the toast. safety the Best In
Vitauon to Capital" The truth embodied
IN this aphorism lies at the foundation of
all successful commerce, and is the open
sesame to all judicious investment. A fair
statement carries on its face, the argu-
ment of just cause, and the toast, to
which, by your generous courtesy, am in
Vited to respond, is an axiom which lati-
tude and longitude, legislation and geo
graphical lines, can neither alter nor
amend.
Neither air nor soil, law nor language.
nor race, nor creed, can reach or control
that inner force self interest, and self in
terest is the germ of every investment and
safety, the sun whose beneficent rays
warm that germ into life and frution
Gathered as we are to consider matters Of
local concern, We cannot do this intelli-
gently without taking some account of our
environment; any more than we can COM
prehead a part without understanding the
whole to which that part belongs.
We, Georgia, constitute simply an inte-
grail part of a complex civilization, en-
bracing not only the other forty-four states
of our union, but under the unifying pow
er of steam and electricity, a very small
integral part of the human race whose
heart beat is felt around the earth.
Standing over and above US ALL and
representing US all in the eyes of the bal
ance of mankind Is our general govern
ment whose declarations, legislative and
judicial, control the very atmosphere of
American trade When we look in this di-
rection in a legislative way, we see uncer-
talnty rising mountain high above the hor-
lion and resolution sicklied Ger with the
pale cast of thought" The time is threat
ened when a private citizen who enters
into contract with another private citizen
for the delivery of one hundred head of
cattle, may have the government step in
and disturb what ought TO be
sacred contractual relation, and declare
that one hundred goats shall be legal ten
under such a contract. The freedom of
contract is being abridged and taken away
from the people, and the inviolability of
contract fast becoming a scott and a by
word with many who are in authority
Oh! that the heroic dead, whose brain
created whose blood cemented and whose
patriotism preserved our infant republic,
could be summoned back to life for one
brief hour, that they might purify the
mephitic atmosphere of modern politics,
right the ship of state and give us new
chart and a new compass as we enter the
twentieth century! If that little noun
tain near Charlottesville could give us
who, eX mera motu, refused the issuance
of a false certificate of value, his voice
might calm the troubled waters and drive
away the murky clouds that hang above
US like a mighty pail. If your neighbor
hires your OK, the law ought to require
him to return the same OK, or one of
equal value together with his hire but
the law-making branch of our govern
| ment has seriously proposed to permit him
| to cancel his obligation by delivering
| back to you an animal of smaller size.
| This is not the kind of safety which is
| the best invitation to capital. When we
| look to the judicial field we see here in
| some grave and important question re-
| volVing kaleidoscope of uncertainty. ]
speak, of course, of such ruling as more
| Immediately and extensively affect capital
| and arrest the attention of investors Take
| the construction of the interstate COM
merce clause of our constitution as given
from time to time, and from Gibbons VS.
| Ogden down to Henderson Bridge Com
pany VS. Kentucky, we have line of de-
| ciSions little better or more stable than a
sea of shifting sand. At the end of a
| century we have about as much unfixed-
! ness as we had at the beginning, and to-
day, from the latest deliverances of our
| Federal Supreme Court all capital in
| vested in interstate business is practically
| at the mercy of numberless and varient
|
| fevered ambition of the demagogue need
| go no further for themes for lurid elo-
| quence or material for doubtful platforms
| Intangible property is the blanketed ghost
! of the future, the futtering of whose
| draperies in the varient winds of the
| hour, is not reassuring to uninvested cap
| tal. These and other uncertainties that
| play an important part in our economic
| history, becoud our national horizon, and
| are mentioned for the thoughtful consid-
| Grafton of thoughtful men here and else
| where.
| Coming into the borders of the empire
| of Georgia, a cursory glance reveals the
| fact that here we have need of more of
| that safety which is the best invitation to
| capital Cost and compensation are the
| vena cava and the aorta of commerce
! They are the life lines of successful trade
| Whenever the line of compensation is
| above the line of cost you have activity
| and prosperity; whenever the difference
| between them is wiped out you have
| stagnation; and whenever the line OF
| compensation is below the line of cost you
have failure.
| In obedience to a combination of forces
extrinsic and intrinsic. railway freight
rates in the United States are the lowest
4 in the world, being five-eighths as much
| as those of force on the continent of Eu-
rope, and less than half those prevailing
| in England. In Georgia freight rates
made by law are lower than in any other
| Southern state, and among the very low
| est on earth. Here we have had fifty mil
| lion dollars of invested capital stretched
upon the bed of Procrustics for years, and
over that bed has hung the sword OF
Damocles in the open threat that if inter
| state rates were not made satisfactory, To-
! cal rates would be cut. Lying prostrat
on a bed, which they are made to fit
either by extension or excision, the rail-
roads are powerless to help you awaken
! the Industries that sleep at your feet. As
long as the lash hangs above them, smart
! ing under its vigorous application, they
dare not heed your Macedonian cry.
| Uninvested capital is free. To it the
world is open. Not so with invested cap
| ital 1t is hopeless. And whether we con-
slider it or not, the owner of free capital
| is going to look well TO the treatment ac-
corded invested capital before allowing
| his own to be clipped of its
wings. Wooing the one, though
with all the witchine
melody with which Orpheus beguiled Eu-
| rydice, while binding the other like Prom
| etheus, will prove only Ssyphean labor
| Has not the time arrived when self in
terest, as well as an awakened sense OF
public justice, should put an end TO this
| irrational warfare which is only kept
alive by the notified army Of small place
hunters. The canopy of public office