Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-05
Railway Rate Legislation Declared
to Be Absolutely Necessary.
HE LEAVES THE MATTER TO THE WISDOM OF THE
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH-THE LABOR PROB
LEM TREATED AS WELL AS THE
TRUST PROSECUTIONS

The President today transmitted
the following message to Congress ::
TO the Senate and House of Representa-
tives:
The people of this country continue to en-
joy great prosperity Undoubtedly there
will be ebb and flow in such prosperity. and
this ebb and flow will be felt more or less
by all members of the community, both by
the deserving and the undeserving. Against
the wrath of the Lord the wisdom of man
cannot avail; in times of food or drought
human ingenuity can but partially repair
the disaster. A general failure of crops
would hurt all Of us. Again, If the folly OF
man mars the general well being, then
those who innocent of the folly will
have to pay part of the penalty incurred
by those who are guilty of the folly. A panic
,, brought on by the speculative folly of part
of the business community would hurt the
whole business community. But such stop
page of welfare, though it might be severe,
would not be lasting. In the long run the
one vital factor in the permanent prosperity
of the country is the high individual charac
ter of the average American worker, the
average American citizen, no matter wheth-
er his work be mental or manual, whether
he be farmer or wage-worker, business man
or professional man.
In our industrial and social system the
interests of all men are so closely inter-
twned that in the immense majority OF
cases a STRENGTHENING man who by his
efficiency,\ by his ingenuity and industry,
benefits h&nself must also benefit others.
Normally me man of great productive ca
pacity who becomes rich by guiding the
labor of many other men does so by en-
aiding them to produce more than they
could produce without his guidance; and
both he and they share in the nenefit, which
comes also to the public at large. The SD
perticial fact that the sharing may be I'M
equal must never blind US to the underlying
fact that there is this sharing, and that the
benefit comes in some degree to each man
concerned. Normally the wage-worker, the
man of small means, and the average con-
sumner, as well as the average producer, are
all ankle helped by making conditions such
that the man of exceptional business AFFINITY
receives an exceptional reward Tor MS apli-
ity. Something can be done by legislation
to help the general prosperity, Dut no such
help of a permanently beneficial character
can be given to the less able and less fortu-
nate save as the results of policy which
shall inure to the advantage of all indus
trious and. efficient people who act decentIy;
and this is only another way of saying that
any benefit which comes to the less able
and less fortunate must of necessity come
even more to the more able and more fortu-
nate. If, therefore, the less fortunate man
is moved by envy of his more fortunate
brother to strike at the conditions under
which they have both, though unequally,
prosrered the result will assuredly be that
while damage may come 10 the one struck
at, it will visit with an even heavier load
the one who strikes the blow. Taken as
whole we must all go up or go down to-
gether.
Corporations.
Yet, while not merely admitting, but In
sisting upon this, it is also true that where
there is no governmental restraint or SUI
peryision some of the exceptional men use
their energies not in ways that are Tor the
common good, but in ways when tel against
this common good. The fortunes ahasseo
through corporate organization are ROW SO
large, and vest such power In those that
weld them. as to make it a matter of ne
cessity to give to the sovereign-that Is, TO
the government which represents the peo-
Mo as wholesome effective power of SUI
narvsion over their corporate use. In or
5ar ~ insure a healthy social and indus
trial life every big corporation should be
held responsible by, and be accountable to,
some sovereign strong enough to control
its conduct / am in no sense hostile to
( oornoratious. This is an age Of combina-
tion. and any effort to prevent all combina-
tion will be not only useless. but in the end
vicious, because of the contempt for law
which the failure to enforce law inevitably
produces We should, moreover. recognize
In cordial and ample fashion the immense
good effected by corporate agencies in
country such as ours, and the wealth of In
tellect. energy and fidelity devoted to their
service, and therefore normally to the serv-
ice of the public. by their officers and di-
rectors The corporation has come to stay,
just as the trade union has come to stay.
Each can do and has done great good.
Each should be favored so long as It does
good. But each should be sharply checked
where It acts against law and justice.
So Ions 81 the nnances q IL na<ion -