The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-04-14
INDUSTRIAL QUESTION.
Ex- Mayor Hewitt Gives His Ideas
of HOW to Solve It

Washington, April 1.-THE industrial
commission recently requested ex-May-
Abram :. Hewitt of New York to
appear before it and give his views on
industrial questions. He was unable to
attend because of i'll health, but sent a
letter in which he refers to the testi-
mony taken by congressional COM
mittee in 1873 of which he was the
chairman and the fact that the commit
tee made no report. He continues: No
human being could possibly evolve from
this mass of contradictory evidence any
definite conclusions whatever as to leg
islation in reference to the relations of
capital and labor except possibly the
one conclusion that legislation could do
no good and would probably be mis-
chieVOuS.
Corporations have continued to grow
and at the present moment they threat
en- to absorb the entire industrial bust
ness of the country which is capable of
being administered by centralized man.
agement. This is precisely the direction
which L anticipated, and seems to me
to be in accordance with the evolution
which has taken place within the last
half century and which may be in ac-
cOrdance with natural law. If there be
natural laws involved in the progress
of modern civilization. My own view is
that when industry has been sufficiently
centralized, and the ownership widely
diffused through the distributing of
shares, the workman will gradually ac-
quire these shares and control the pro-
perty which they represented. In fact
| cannot see any other outcome of the
present movement towards the CONSOLE
dation of industrial enterprises than. the
transfer of the control to those who are
actually engaged in the work of opera
ton. How far legislation can be made
to promote this desirable end 1 am I'M
able either to predict or suggest. AS a
general suggestion 1 regard legislative
interference with capital and labor as
perniciouS. Women and children may
properly be protected from abuse, but I
n fa-
guarded by compelling the parties con-
cerned to settle their own differences
and decide upon their own interests.
The corporate movement. however
advantageous to society. do not doubt
that with time, spread of knowledge
through technical education and the
general improvement in the intelligence
of men who, under our modern condi-
lions of industrial life, have ceased to
be machines and have become operators
of machinery, the standard of self-re-
spect, of comfort and of happiness will
be permanently raised.
There is one question, however, with
which society will probably have to deal
and that is the increase of population.
forbear to discuss this question for OBJ
vious reasons, but it is quite evident
that in the future the world will eXper-
fence more danger from redundant pop
ulation than from any other cause. The
time, however, is far distant when this
question will become of any practical
Importance, although in some countries
in the world it presses for solution to-
day. In France the standard of COM
fort has been raised by the control
which the people seem voluntarily to
have exercised in regard to the increase
of population. Whether the moral
standard in France has been degraded
by this or any other cause, do not
pretend to judge. This is a question for
moralists and it may become question
for legislators.