The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1905-07-01
oberlm College Com
81 mencement Address
Continued hesn Daee one.

secretly from old-fashioned Ten-com-
mandment honesty.
The Consequences to the Crater.
say again that the fault Is not
with the corporate form, the aEgrega-
ton. the association, but with the in
dividual
Il repeat that tho reformer who only
| attacks corporations invelghs against
form rather than substance. ell Is
missing, perhaps he IL avoiding, the is
sue.
It is easier for tho preacher to dis
cuss sin the abstract rather than from
the pulpit to indicate the members Of
his congregation who are SINNERS. So
1t Is easier to condemn theories, asso-
Citations, platforms and organisations
rather than point the finger at the man
or mon and specify the wrong. But
this is too easy. and 1t 10 too harmless.
Our national evils are personal evils
and reform must begin with educated
mon and women.
We need, we must have character.
Many mon Of education. of power,
financial and political, seem to develop
a double-barrelled conscience, ono for
business use and another for the in
dividual life. This is fraud.
say that the man who attempts to
business upon one basis Of morals and
live as an individual upon another
basis 10 4 fraud.
The man who would not cheat in a
$3.50 transaction but would do so in
Z million-d dollar deal is living on a
false basis.
IT any man attempts to pluck his
heart out of his living body, hoping to
replace it without becoming a corpse
and staying corpse, he makes a ply
steal mistake. The man who attempts
to take his conscience out Of his body
al he enters his banking house, or his
business house, or who. when he at
tends directors meetings, or a syndi-
cate conference. attempts to leave his
conscience on the door step, like a
half-burned citgar. while he attends to
business. will find nothing but a cold
remnant when he returns-a dead con-
sciece.
The practice Of doing things, or per-
hitting things to be done by men in
syndicates. or AZ members Of a corpor-
ate aggregation which tho individual
would not do in his private life. upon
tho theory that syndicate and corporate
morality is one thine, and individual
morality is another, results In the total
suppression Of individual honesty and
morality.
In short, the man who inserts the
plank in his theological belief that his
corporate acts will be judged by one
standard and his individual acts by
another, here or hereafter, makes a
mistake.
No man can have two Standards Of
morals, one for his individual life, and
the other for his business life without
the inevitable result, that the baser
standard will prevail. AS man is in
his business life, so will he become In
his private life.
The man who attempts to play Dr.
Jekyl1 and Mr.. Hyde Invariably suffers
the doctors fate mentally and NOR
ally.
The Consequence to Us.
The direct result, the inevitable re-
suit, the logical conclusion Of q false
standard Of morality In business IL the
corruption Of our Jaws and their in
depreciation.
The man who in his business life
shields himself under the fact that he
is but one of an aggregation, a men,
Der Of a syndicate. an officer Of a cor
poration, a director Of a trust, the
man, who takes as his code Of morals
that which has been publicly an
nounced by many men. VIZ. that Ger
tain things were done because they
were not forbidden by the statutes
that man il sowing the seeds of So
cialism, anarchy and despotism.
The man who makes the only metes
and bounds Of right and wrong the
enactments Of the legislature and tho
Interpretation thereof by the courts,
has for his God, his religion, his con-
science and his guide, a movable stand
ard and tho tendency Of the movement
is downward.
That man in reality asserts might is
right 50 long as 1t is not forbidden by
statute; that the exercise of merciless
power Is justified so long as it has not
been expressly prohibited by human
law.
Man is always keen to invent a new
way Of perpetuating a profitable wrong,
and II the wrong to him is a wrong
only when, If and after it has been so
orse to deal with the legislature.
The impairment of our legislature
follows.
II might is right. so long as it is
not forbidden by statute, then If the
| statute is in the way the next step is
to get it out of the way.
Statutes are man-made Foundations,
and men are human: the majority Of
them are Influenced by their environ
| ment and their concomitants, hence
power and capital supply the concim-
itants which result in the removal by
| legislatures and municipal bodies Of
the offensive restrictions.
will not pass by the responsibility
| Of the lawyer In these matters.
1t is said that when a man retains
a lawyer he retains the lawyers con-
science as we'll.
| Many 4 lawyer has sunk his individ-
ualism under his retainer. Loss fire.
quently we hear Of the lawyer who
| IN hts c1fAnf. sssIshaf hA 1A0a1