Devils Lake inter-ocean and Devils Lake free press. (Devils Lake, Ramsey County, N.D.) 1905-1909, 1906-04-20

as this movement of agitation through
out the country takes the form of a
fierce discomfort with evil, of a de-
termination to punish the authors of
evil, whether in industry or politics,
the feeling is to be heartily well
coined as a sign of healthy life.
If, on the other hand, it turns into
a mere crusade of appetite against
appetite, of contest between the
brutal greed of the have nots" and
the brutal greed of the "haves," then it
has no significance for good, but only
for evil. If it seeks to establish line
of cleavage, not along the line which
divides good men from bad, but along
that other line, running at right an
giles thereto, which divides those who
are we'll off from those who are less
we'll off, then it will be fraught with
Unreasonable harm to the body poll
tic.
We can no more and no less afford
to condone evil in the man of capital
than evil in the man of no capital. The
wealthy man who eXults because
there is a failure of justice in the
effort to bring some trust magnate to
an account for his misdeeds is as bad
as, and no worse than, the so-called
labor leader who DANGEROUSLY strives
to excite a foul class feeling on be-
half of some other labor leader who
is implicated in murder. One attitude
is as bad as the other, and no worse;
IN each case the accused is entitled
to exact justice; and in neither case
is there need of action by others which
can be construed into an expression
of sympathy for crime
1t is prime necessity that if the
present unrest is to result in perman-
ent good the emotion shall be trans
lated into action, and that the action
shall be marked by honesty, sanity,
and self-restraint. There is mighty
little good in mere spasm of reform.
The reform that counts is that which
! comes through steady, continuous
! growth; violent emotionalism leads to
| exhaustion.
1t is important to this people to
grapple with the problems connected
| with the amassing of enormous for
tunes, and the use of those fortunes,
both corporate and Individual, in
business. We should discriminate in
the sharpest way between fortunes
4 well-won and fortunes ill-won; be-
l tween those gained as an incident to
performing great services to the COM
munity as whole, and those gained
in eveli in some form; exercise super
vision over corporations engaged in
interstate business-and all large cor
porations are engaged in interstate
business whether by license or 9TH
erwise, SO as to permit us to deal with
! the far-reaching evils of over-capitali-
zation. This year we are making d
beginning In the direction of serious
effort to settle some of these econo-
mic problems by the railway rate leg
| islation. Such legislation, il SO fran
ed, as I am sure it will be, as to SCI
4 cure definite and tangible results, will
amount to something Of itself; and /,
1 will amount to a great deal more il
j SO far as 1T Is taken as a first ster
lin the direction of a policy OF superin.
Itendence and control over corporate
wealth engaged In interstate com.
merce, this superintendent and con.
Etrol not to be exercised in spirit oj
bmaleyo lence toward the men who have
created the wealth, but with the flrn