Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1905-12-13
Page Three


 occupations; yet there is an almost complete dearth of data upon which to base any trustworthy conclusions as regards a subject as important as it is vast and complicated. There is need of full knowledge on which to bass action looking toward state and munl- cipal legislation for the protection of working women. The introduction or women into industry is working change and disturbance in the domestic and social life of the nation. The de- crease in marriage, and especially in the birth rate, has been coineident with it. We must face accomplished facts, and the adjustment to factory eondi- tions must be made; but surely it can be made with less friction and less harmful effects on family life than isr now the case.
 The question of securing a healthy, self-respeeting, and mutually sympa- thetic attitude as between employer and employee, capitalist and wage worker, is a difficult one. All phases of the labor problem prove difficult when approached. But the underlying principle, the root principles, in ae- cordanee with which the problem must be solved are entirely simple. We can get justice and right dealing only if we put as of paramount importance the principle of treating man on his worth as a man rather than with ref erenee to his social position, his 0ecu- patton or the class 10 which he be- longs.
 T.1:-;I,ol aon;+ol;o+ op1 ind;xidnol wage-worker, corporation and union, are alike entitled to the protection or the law, and must alike obey the law. Moreover, in addition to mere obedi- enee to the law, each man, if he be really good citizen, must show broad sympathy for his neighbor and genuine desire to look at any question arising between them from the standpoint of that neighbor no less than from his own.
 In the past the most direful among the influences which have brought about the downfall of republics has ever been the growth of class spirit, the growth of spirit which tends to make a man subordinate the welfare of the public as a whole to the welfare or loyalty to a class for loyalty to the nation. This inevitably brings about tendency to treat each man not on his merits as an individual, but on his position as belonging to a certain class in the community. If such a spirit grows up in this republic it will ulti- mately prove fatal to us, as in the past it has proved fatal to every com munity in which it has become domi- nant. Unless we continue to keep a quick and lively sense of the great fundamental truth that our concern is with the individual worth of the indi- vidual man, this government can not permanently hold the place which it has achieved among the nations. In other words, the standard we should establish is the standard of conduct, not the standard of occupation, of means, or of social position. It is the mans moral quality, his attitude toward the great questions which con eern all humanity, his cleanliness of life, his power to do his duty toward himself and toward others, which really count; and if we substitute for the standard of personal judgment which treats each man according to his mer- it's, another standard in accordance with which all men of one class are fa- vored and all men of another class dis criminated against, we shall do ire parable damage to the body polite.
 This government is not and never shall be government by a plutoeraey. This government is not and never shall be government by mob. It shall continue to be in the future what 1t has been in the past, a government based on the theory that each man, rich or poor, is to be treated simply and solely on his worth as a man, that all his personal and property rights are to be safeguarded, and that he IS neither to wrong others nor to suffer wrong from others.
 Insurance.
 The great insurance companies af- ford striking examples of corporations whose business has extended so far be- yond the jurisdiction of the states which created them as to preclude strict enforcement of supervision and regulation by the parent states. In my last annual message l recommend ed "that congress carefully consider whether the power of the bureau of cor porations can not eonstitutionally be extended to cover interstate transac- tions in insurance" Recent events have emphasized the importance of an early and exhaustive consideration of this question, to see whether it is not possible to furnish better safeguards than the several states have been able to furnish against corruption of the fragrant kind which has been exposed It has heen only too clearly shown that certain of the men at the head of these large corporations take put small note of the ethical distinction be- tween honesty and dishonesty; they draw the line only this side of what may be called law-honesty, the kind of honesty necessary in order to avoid falling into the clutches of the law. Of course the only complete -emedy for this condition must be found in an aroused public conscience, a higher sense of ethical conduct in the com
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