Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1904-05-28

"niie ~ mas not always been regarded
as certain that what you have earned
and saved Is yours, it has always been
obvious that itAs not mine. If 1t has
become harder to defend the law of
property, whether individual or cor
porate, in our own times, 1t is not be-
cause its foundations are any less
secure or its rights any less sacred
1t is because the inventions of avarice
and greed have filed the hearts of
millions of people with resentment
against the whole tribe of promoters.
underwriters, stockholders. and
cheats at common law. And | venture
the opinion that the law of property
which we have inherited from our
fathers, the immemorial prescription
OF civilization which guards the earn
ings and savings of labor, whether
invested in farm, in cottage. or In
the stocks of railroad bank. or a
manufacturing company, never had
more defenders to fight for 1t than it
has today
Unhappily there is and probably al
ways will be prejudice more or less
general against great wealth in the
hands of others, but in a country like
this such a prejudice is confined with
in the narrowest limits and as a poll
tical asset has proved absolutely
worthless. Even corporation, like
bank or a railroad, no longer has to
contend with the swarm of petty mis-
conceptions which at one time threat
ened to hinder the development of
these indispensable agencies of com
merce and business. AS the people
have studied the trust problem a
good many common errors have been
eliminated from their judgment, and
good many advantages in these or
ganizations have found appreciation.
Savings Must Be Shared With Con-
sumner.
In so far as they stand for an evo-
luton, for a law of progress under
which enterprise once conducted
by individuals have
grown into partnerships, into COM
panies, into corporations, and even
into legitimate combinations, bringing
many separate properties under one
there is much to be
said in their defense The people of
the United States, with their accus-
toned prudence, have been slow to
frame a wholesale indictment against
them, for when the record is examined
neither political party appears to have
done very much to circumvent their
plans. If they had been in realty
lideous monsters about to seize the
market place by the throat, does any
body doubt that the terror and dis
.ress of the public mind would have
iound an immediate and effective re- !
'ponse from the law-making powers
If the government?
The trust of these times is a single
regularly chartered under :
'tate laws, which has acquired, in one I
title the separate properties which
constitute its plant so that the prob
EN- Of dealing with it without rewrit-
ng the whole law Of corporate prop
.rty becomes at once difficult and OBJ
icure. The trustees who formerly
separate properties freely
to their control by the
'wners have disappeared, and the
'oard of directors exercising all the
egal rights of proprietorship over
ombined properties have taken their
lace am not sure that this trans
ton of industries from the hands of
everal corporations into the control
I the single one, If 1t could have been
iade within certain well-defined linn
IS and in perfect good faith toward
he public, would have in the long run
cen regarded as against the general
relfare. 1t permits so many savings
4 production and distribution and
yoids 50 many of the wastes of the
ommon methods of business that ,
lere are reasons for believing that |
he public would have taken no detri- ,
rent, but advantage rather from it. A.,
1t has been so uniformly true that ,
le process of cheapening production ,
nd facilitating transportation has {
lured to the benefit of the whole s
that it requires no very |
nusual confidence In the laws which /
overn this world to believe that these I
when honestly formed
nd honestly administered, might be /
blessing to the whole world. have 8
ever been disturbed because congress I
rs not been more swift to strike E
lem down. because I am sure that t
Iere are laws in the universe which Q