The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-04-14
ISSUES OF TO-DAY.
Justice Van Wyck on the Problem
of Trusts and Imperialism


of Trusts and imperialism
The toast, to which you do me the
honor of inviting me to speak, must be
carefully circumscribed, since the direc-
,tions in which 1t points are innumerable.
Your patience and my voice would both
finished If l Should venture te discuss
with anything like adequacy even "a very
few of the more important branches Of
pass, as you know, that our country is
now the greatest center of industry and
the chief producer Of exports on the
enterprise are. to be found on every sea
and in the remotest hamlets Of every
civilized and half-civilized land. Our
steel rails, for instance, are being laid
in British India. and our locomotives are
in demand in Europe, Asia and South
America; more than two-thirds of the
and were it not for the abundance Of our
soil, combined with, the well applied la
Dor of our husbandmen. the inhabitants
of several of the chief nations would suf-
fer for the lack of food. In the villages
of Arabia the American lamp filled with
American oil may be said to typify the
mental light which, we trust, is destin-
ed to reach those remote hooks from our
centers of Christian culture; our reaping
machines are finding increasing favor
among the farmers of Russia; the cleo
a cheerful radiance over Cairo and Je-
rusalem; France has become a consid-
cradle purchaser of American wines;
and the people of the British isles are
reading newspapers printed by presses Of
American invention on American paper
and walk about their daily business in
lean. built ships Of war: China is coming
to terms with our men of enterprise for
the opening up of some of her too long
tralia we find a still improving market
for all sorts of Yankee notions.
These surface facts with which every
assumed to be familiar, suffice to show
how very wide and complex is the field
of American commerce and how neceS-
sary it must be for er-dinner speak
erS, who have had it assigned to them
a subject, to remember at once the
limitations of their own knowledge and
the exhaustibility of their hearers.
ELEMENTS OF GREATNESS.
That a country shall be great COM
mercially several things must coexist
within it's borders 1t must have the
necessary natural resources; its people
must be skilful and Industrious, enter
prise must be fostered by just laws and
the spur of free competition and, finally
as the very cornerstone Of the whole
structure, the sense of individual honor
must be sustained in full life. OF these
not plainly in operation in the whole cir
Gle of our industries today. Abundance
of our natural resources there is no
room to doubt The skill and readiness
to labor of our people are not less evil
dent The plain American has never
been surpassed as a whole-hearted be-
lever in the gospel of honest toll. Nor
happily, is it open to question that our
merchants exhibit in all their dealings
as fine sense of honor as can be found
within the compass of the globe
Commerce, one. of the civilizers of the
world, is necessary element in the
preservation of the prosperity and the
happiness of our country. 1t must be
between our own people in all home en-
terprises, securing for them untrammel-
ed business intercourse and enlarged OPP
portunities for individual advancement,
and second. by the freest competition
between the internal freight lines from
and to the seaboard, securing the lowest
practical freight rates to the ocean for
all kinds of products.
| venture to affirm. however, that some
thing remains to be desired in these two
particulars l mean in respect to Just
laws and the spur to free competition
The laws are not just which burden the
many to the end that favorites may grow
fat. as in the case under our so-called
are suffered to lay their hands on the
throat Of individual enterprise, the spur
of free competition is blunted If not de-
stroyed. We have seen in these recent
days a disposition evinced in certain
quarters to dismiss the Declaration of
Independence as no longer applicable in
modern society. In putting themselves
in this attitude toward the basic doctrines
of the republic, the supporters of q tariff
for the enrichment of the few and of trust
for the killing of equal opportunity are
not open to charge of inconsistency
1t is the foulest mockery of reason to
trine Of the equality of all men before The the
law of the land and in the next to an
plaud tariff system which squeezes the
blood out Of the average man. for the fat
tening of select individuals who have
mastered the art of depraving all federal
government and directing a new feudal-
ism which proposes to divide the land
into plutocratic dukedoms.
INDUSTRIAL EQUALITY.
In respect to these matters. citizens
who think as the founders Of the repub-
lie did. take their stand firmly on the
| ground that equal before the law means
equality of Industrial opportunity in SO
far as the action OF the government is
involved. The tariff has been one pro-
| life source of monopoly, and the mon
strous misuse of the franchise giving