The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-01-02
DEALS WITH TRUSTS.
P resident HadIey's Address at
Chicago University.

Chicago, Jan. 2-The convocation of
the University of Chicago was held here
today. These meetings usually call
forth great crowds of the friends and
supporters of the university, but today
with President Hadley of Yale as the
stellar magnet, Studebaker hall was
packed with an enthusiastic throng
numerically stronger than any hitherto
gathered on similar OCCASION.
President Harper of the Midway in
stitution, introduced President Hadley
who delivered the convocation address.
1t was expected that President Harper
would announce gifts to the university
aggregating $3,675O 900. but this matter
was deferred till after the delivery of
the convocation address.
President Hadley said in part:
AN unusually well informed foreign
critic, Mr.. Muirhead. has recently pub
lished the opinion that the standard of
personal morality in America is de-
cidedIy higher than in England, that of
commercial morality probably a little
lower and that of political morality
quite distinctly lower There is reason
to think that in this view he represents
the concensus of opinion of well in
formed observers on both sides or the
Atlantic. The causes for this cOndlIlOn
failure to carry into politics the same
kind of ethical standard which is ap-
piled in matters of personal morals I'M
plies as a rule that there is something
in peoples political condition to
whose understanding it has not fully
grown up. Such a failure implies de-
feet in public judgment rather than in
individual character. 1t indicates that
we do not know what virtues must be
exercised for the maintenance of Or
gained society as well as we know
what virtues are necessary to the har-
| monious living of individuals among
| their neighbOrs.
Organization in business, in local
politics and in national politics has
brought with it an inequality of oppor-
tunity and unfairness of conditions in
which the game of life is played. Com
| petitiVe business is giving place to
/ trusts. The town meeting has been sup
! planted by the organized municipality.
| The old federation of states with strong
| traditions of home rule has become
| centralized nation reaching out beyond
| its old borders to rule over other ma
| lions less civilized than itself.
| Under these circumstances it be-
| comes impossible for the community to
| rest compiacently in that egotistic NOR
ality which seemed sufficient for the
| needs of a generation earlier We can
| no longer rely upon competition to pro-
| tect the consumers against abuse when
| industry has become so highly organic
| ed that all production is centralized in
the control of a single body. 1t is no
! longer true in the sense that 1T was so
| years ago that each man may be left
| free to manage his own business and
that the community will find it's work
| best done as a consequence of such
| freedom. Commerce and industry are
no longer to be regarded as games
where we have nothing to do but to
applaud the most Skillful player when
he wins and rest in the assurance. that
his triumph is in line with the best in
tereStS of the community as q whole.
| What once was regarded as a game has
now become a trust, not merely in the
superficial and accidental sense in
which the name trust is now applied
to all large combinations of capital but
in a profounder sense-as a. trust exer-
cised on behalf of the public, which it is
in the power of those who control this
capital to use we'll or i'll at their pleas
ure, without adequate restraint from
any quarters. Where competition has
| thus became a remote contingency and
where law is almost necessarily made
quate unless it be made so strict as to
forbid the good no less than the evil in
| private business enterprise, a new sys-
| tenn of ethics is a matter of vital neces-
| sity for the American people-a system
| which shall treat the director no longer
as an individual pursuing private BUSH
ness of his own and with the right to
resent the suggestion that he should
| conduct it unSelhShly but as having
moral responsibilities to his stockhoId-
ers, to his workingrnen and to his con-
sumers that purchase his goods or his
services. In the absence of such an
ethical advance, no political or legal So
luton of the so-called trust problem is
| likely to be effective.
Until there is a fundamental reform
in the code of political ethics which the
community imposes upon it's members
public trusts will be no more adequate
| " controlled than private ones Nay,
| they are likely to be even less ade-
quately controlled because a public Of
/ 81 hA1l hi IL ~
a ring and acknowledging no allegiance
to standards higher than those which
have made his organization successful
is as a rule more firmly intrenched in
authority than the representative OF
any private corporation, however eX-
tensive or powerful. Until such a change
is made, the sOcialistic ideal of reform
ing abuse of private trust by the sub
stitution of public trust will be but tbs
substitution of one set of masters fol
another
IF this difficulty is felt in interna.
affairs, here those who suffer are at any
rate citizens and men of action, with
the power to make their protests hearC
even where they can not make theil
resistance successful much worse will i
be in dealing with colonies and depen
| denotes.
= Under an imperialistic policy ou1
S government can not remain where i
e was 1t must grow either worse or bet
e ter. It can not remain a game in which
}, the struggle for success is as far as pos
= sible disassociated from the mora
), sense of the participants. 1t will in
= volve either a direct breach of trus
t or a direct acceptance of trust.
d "Our own experience with problems
!; | other than these and the experience o
England with this particular problem
| both warrant US in the belief that w
shall move toward a, better solution
| rather than toward worse.
"A country which has in so many o
it's parts passed in a single generation
from the lawless of frontier life to tn
extreme of legality, may readily in
). generation more pass from a stat
where conceptions of public duty ar
bounded by legality alone to one wher
5 they are inspired by a moral obligation
= which will carry into the conduct o
public affairs the principles and tn
5 sentiments which We recognize as priv
ate ones"