New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1904-01-17
PRESIDENT ELIOT ON LIBERTY.

In his address to college men at the reception
of the Brooklyn University Club on Friday
evening, President Eliot took up a question
which has been before discussed by other lead
of public opinion, and came 10 the same
conclusion, that true American liberty is gravely
menaced by associations OF employers on the
one hand and employees on the other. His ad-
mirable and impressive utterance should have
great influence In arousing educated men to the
sinister meaning Of the present day drift to
grind individual liberty and crush out indvid-
ual opportunity between the upper and neither
millstOnes OF iHtolerant and exclusive organ
izations. Educated men have been too much in
clined to accept standards of business ethics as
they found them, enter the service of liberty de-
stroying corporations that offered them advance
ment, and make terms with liberty destroying
labor unions when it would conduce to their
business success. The Brooklyn men who heard
President Eliot's calm, clear and convincing ex-
position OF the present state of affairs must
have been aroused 10 a new appreciation of the
gravity Of the task which they have to preserve
freedom, a task which, in spite Of warnings
they and other happy go-lucky Americans are
prone to estimate lightly.
1t is somewhat startling To find President
Eliot quietly announcing, not as a figure of
speech, but as an actual simple fact, that In
Boston to-day there is less liberty than there
was in 1T15. Our ancestors fought King George
because he would not give them enough liberty
I'm that year. They endured long war and
then established a government with a consti-
tuition TO secure the blessings of liberty to them
selves and their posterity. Less liberty for
their posterity now In Boston than when they
revolted against petty tax on tea which inter
fered with nobody's comfort ability to earn
living where and as he chose? Yet, IL we con-
slider, we shall see that the statement is liter
ally true. King George never dreamed of such
interference with the colonists as the free citi-
zens OF the United States and the common
wealth OF Massachusetts and Of every other
commonwealth in the land daily endure at the
hands OF irresponsible combinations which have
usurped the power OF telling them who may
build their houses and at what price, whom
they may employ and at what wages 1t has
become q well known fact that in many cities
the workers and the employers IN the building
trades are In a combination to defraud and
tyrannize over the citizens. When a house is
to be built corrupt circle decides who is TO bid
for Il at an eIorbitant price and what bogus
bids are to be put In to support IL. The owner
is helpless. II he rebels he can find no other
contractor 10 do the work. or, IL he does. a
strike will put a stop to the endeavor
Similar conditions exist in other lines OF bust
ness Between the tyrannical rule OF the trust
on the one hand and the labor union on the
other, whether the two work in opposition or in
harmony. the average citizen is helpless. Every
action OF his life is controlled by these forces
He In subjected by them to extortion; his con-
venience, his business even his health and life
are rathlessly sacrificed to their prerogatiye,
for which they are more selfish and more anbi-
tious, and more unscrupulous than King George
ever was for the power and prestige OF the
British Crown. 1t In time for educated men
and men OF Colonial ancestry to awake to the
danger, ana President Eliot performs a public
service when he uses his greet influence over
them to work for the safeguarding rather