The record-union., 1899-04-20

tAdl Tree, that WOulu PUT tiiS oAA5AAe -
death upon it by cutting the tap root
from which it's life has been drawn.
And yet, fendish as that act would De.
such is the effort of the parrlcldal
hands that are to-day striving to enm-
mate individualism from our national
life through the substitution or a col
lectivism born of the abuse of the State
power to create a class OF corporations
that are beginning to dominate not only
the public affairs of each self-governlng
community but the private business OF
every individual. Legitimate corporate
enterprise, the Indispensable agent that
has done most to advance our rapid
national development, should never pc
'cOnfounded with it's illegitimate brother
born in the dark embrace OF pernclous
State legislation, in which 1T is now
finding refuge beyond the reach even
of the Federal judicial power as az
present expounded. Originating in an
unholy combination to control the Oil
traffic of the country, the silent mon
ster has of late multiplied his species
with such alarming rapld1ty that from
his breeding ground in one of the an
cient States near the metropolis he is
sending forth his progeny to enclrcle
with their folds nearly every important
branch of industry upon which the daily
life of the people is dependent.
Nothing can be more startling than
to read in journals of the day the ever
swelling list of these blighting monopo-
lies in restraint of trade, involving
criminal conspiracies of wealth against
honest and competing labor, whose ag-
gregate now reaches thousands of mill
ions. When that list is examined we
may well exclaim, in the words of the
indignant member of the Parliament of
1901, who cried out, when a much
shorter list of monopolies was then un-
der discussion: Is not bread among
them? Nay, if no remedy is found for
these, bread will be there before the
next Parliament
I'VE may be sure that unless the
growth of the trusts and monopolies, in
whose deadly coils the entire industrial
life of this country is now writhing in
the agony of Loacoon, is checked very
soon, no article of consumption, not ex.
cepting bread, will escape their control.
The favorite remedy proposed by the
unthoughtful for the exterminaIIon OF
this stupendous evil involves the idea
of State socialism, in which the SUI
preme political authority will be author
lied to crush all private monopolies by
becoming itself the sole and giant mo-
nopoly That remedy is worse than the
disease; the menace must be rmoved
by legal and constitutional means. AS
the evil peryades the entire community.
redress must come through the exercise
of Federal power.
IF the courts of the United States
persist in declaring their arms too short
to crush the monster in the lair made
for him by State legislation, then they
must be heightened by an amendment
of the Constitution itself. The driving
force necessary for the attainment of
so serious a result can be supplied only
by an awakened and imperious public
opinion resolved to advance by falling
back upon that purer and nobler spirit
OF individualism that animated the re-
public before its life was clouded by an
abnormal concentration of wealth in
the hands of a comparatively few indi
viduals and corporations concentra
ton resulting not from honest indi-
vidual effort, but from the ravishment
of State power that belonged to the peo-
pie as a whole.
some of the craven images set up by
this generation. Suppose Miles Stand
ish and Paul Revere, or even the aristo-
cratic Washington and Adams could
walk again among US and see people
great and small bending the pregnant
hinges of the knee to one of our new
potentates, born of trusts and monopo-
lies, who can count his wealth by hun
n dc IF iy,o 1oo
surrounded by courtly retinue, who
fixes the price of almost everything but
bread, and who sometimes names those
who are to sit in the Federal Senate al
Washington. In the presence of such
a potentate, I fear the fathers of the
revolution would be constrained to ask
if it was true that such a person Is
really an American citizen. We have
certainly reached time when we may
feel that
"Ill fares the land to fastening ills
prey,
Where wealth accumulates and mem de-
cay.
''And yet we are not beyond the help
of the physician. No people, however
prodigal they may have been, can be
denied the right to return in penitence
to the house of their father. And was
ever people blessed with such fathers
as our own-so strong, SO noble, SO ma
jestic in their simplicity as we view
them through the twilight of century
ago. transf1gured upon it's horizon and
crowned with a. halo of its dying glory.
Let us arises and return to the house of
our fathers. over whose ancient portal
still remains the now strange inScrip-
ton, plain living and high thinking; Let
us drink deep at their pure fountains
resolved to ride to higher things
through the establishment of their
true and simple ideals upon affairs that
have been usurped by new and strange
gods. In that gentle spirit let each one
of US, young and old. strive to draw
fresh inspiration from the deathless
words of Boston's gentle poet, who has
enshrined himself in the noblest of all
invocations:
Built thee more stately mansions, o
my SOUL
AS the swift seasons roll,
Leave thy low vaulted past,
Let each new temple, nobler than the
last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome
more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thy outgrown shell by lfe's
unresting sea-
MEDALS OF HONOR.