Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-28
oBERLIN GRADUATING ADDRESS
Scathing Rebuke to Men Who Abuse
Public Confidence.

OBERLIN, Ohio, June 2S-James B. Dill
of New York in the course of an address
to the graduating class of Oberlln college,
today delivered scathing rebuke to men
who misuse positions of honor and trust for
purposes of personal gain. In urging his
hearers to go back to beginnings MT.
Dill contended that grating" which was
foreign to the true American character, had
been developed by the mad rush for wealth
and the recognition of false standards by
educated men in the competitive struggle
for business power and social prominence.
"A large part of our modern prosperity,
he said, lis to a perilously large extent bot
toned upon an over-production of fraud
and sham. The crisis is acute A feeling
of distrust Is growing throughout the ceun-
try. Many branches of financial business
have been in one way or another taken pos
session of by the INSCRIPTIONS for the pur-
pose of deceiving the unwary. Trust COM
panies have been made the mediums of the
hotation of specious and fraudulent promo
tons.
Some companies in the field of life in
surance, the highest and in a
cred from of investment are, as we all
know now conduits through which the saw
ings of the policyholders are diverted into
operations for speculative purposes.
Credit and good faith. not money, are
the basis of business. Good or bad our
modern prosperity is founded on public con-
fdence. Take that away and the whole
fabric falls.
1.-The fact Is that the unprecedented ma
terial growth of the country, the resulting
creation of immense private fortunes, the
massing of great aggregations of corporate
capital. industrial combinations and railroad
mergerS-an have tended to concentrate the
attention of the people upon great financial
achievements and to establish In the high
est place in the popular estimation the cap
tains of industry and the powerful finan-
ciers. little regard being paid. in making up
the Judgment to the fundamental virtues in
private individual life.
Now whose fault is this? 1t is ours. 1t
is the fault of public opinion, and public
opinion is our opinion, yours and mine
yours Of me- mine of you, ours of all the
rest. We have to learn to recognize graft
and the grafters however respectable their
disguise, and to punish them, not alone by
Imprisonment and fine, but with all the
might of the terrible Scorn of society. We
have to recognize that the seeds of social
ism, revolution and anarchy are sown by
the man of our own class and kind who
pretends to be what he is not; these seeds
are cultivated by the grating bank officer.
insurance officer, man in power in financial
organza tion-in short, by every CRATER who
in his dealings with the public departs
openly or secretly from old-fashioned Ten
Commandment honesty.
This indictment of our business life IS
not based upon an inherent. incurable de-
feet in our American character, but, on the
contrary, these evils are an outgrowth Of
our American strenuosty in the riotous
race for the easy dollar and the many dol
lars. In the hearts of the genuine men and
women of our country there is an apprecia-
ton of the Importance of character; the
rank and file of the American people not
only believe in, but also stand for right Iiv-
ing and a conscience undimmed and unfet-
tered by business environments.
Wherefore, right and honesty will tri-
umph, a saturnalia of graft and an era of
grab will find itself short lived. speedily to
be ended by the uplifting influences of edu-
Gated men and women of character"