Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-12-06
PLEAS FOR HONESTY
Insurance Inquisitors Would Reform Business Methods.
MORALITY SUBORDINATE TO SUCCESS
Why Not Carry Football Reforms Into Trade Relations and Have More ssOpen Play' and No
 Secret SignaIs7

NEW YORK, Dec. 6-At the dinner of the New York Alumni association of the University of Rochester Senator Armstrong, chairman of the insurance inquiry, and Charles E. Hughes, its chief counsel, made vigorous and nota- ble pleas for honesty in business deal- ings. MT. Armstrong said in part:
 We are, not faultless people, and who is so credulous as to believe that the revelations of the insurance inves- tigation are peculiar to the insurance business? The morality of the busi- ness of the country has been subor- dinated to success if not, indeed, to greed. It is time for us to halt and mark time lest we rush over preci- pice.
 "Yet we shall lose the lesson if we but point with scorn to the men who have been unmasked-if we do not inspect our own consciences. The leg islature comes from the people who have developed these business prac- tices, and the legislature reflects per fectly the vices as well as the virtues of the constituents. You always will have the legislature you deserve. You never will have legislature that is better than you yourselves are.
 "You have spoken of reforms needed in football. We need the same reforms in business We want more open play and less mass play with secret signals. We need a minimum of legislation with a maximum of publicity. Competition will do the rest. The committee in yestigating insurance has not been car ried away by the space given it by the press or by the criticisms directed against conditions and men we have unmasked, and we shall get the great est good from the moral awakening that has been brought about"
 MT. Hughes said:
 ''Your president secured from me promise to attend and speak at this dinner long before time when had thought of the embarrassing position in which I might find myself. Later, when I tried to get out of the promise, found MT. Payne more 'rantankerous' by far than our friend up the river who didn't care hang
 q cannot speak to you of what is up- permost in my mind, for the interroga. tions of tomorrow must not be uttered today. It is not yet time to add to our literature the "Reminiscences of An h. quisitor.'
 "Yet there are certain fundamental principles which I may speak about. This is not time for any one to be dis heartened. It is a time for confidence and not for despair. l believe in the soundness of American life, and yet know we need an Illumination of vision to see the multitude who will not bow the knee to greed nor betray trust nor falter in the presence of an oppor- tunity for evil. This is time for searching hearts, time of repentance and of resolve, when we need revival of the sense of honor and better per spective.
 'It is a time when we want to hear less of the man who was born poor and achieved great fortune and want to hear more of the man who remains unsulied although he may have died poor. It is time when we want more of chlvalry, more of the spirit of knight hood, that sensibility to pain and chas- tity of honor that feels stain like a wound. It is time when we need a change of the burden of proof so that every man of wealth or of office may answer immediately when asked, Where did you get it?'
 "We must look to the college hall for a place lacking a spirit of sordidness. College men are the very ones to whom we ought to look for men who will never mistake true manhood. and yet the American desire to get there, the American desire for success. breaks down many a college man and sends him into the world ready to make hundred yard dash for wealth and posi- tion."