The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1906-04-20

lated into action anu the actiOri snail
be marked by honesty. sanity and self
restraint. There is mighty little good
In mere spasm of reform. The re-
form that counts Is that which comes
through steady. continuous growth.
Violent emotionalism leads TO exhaus-
ton.
Taxation of Vast Fortunes.
1t il important To this people 10
grapple with the problems connected
with the amassing of enormous for
tunes and the use of those fortunes.
both corporate and individual. in bust
ness. We should discriminate in the
sharpest way between fortunes well
won and fortunes i'll won; between
those gained as an incident 10 per-
forming great services TO the commu-
nifty as a whole and those gained in
evil fashion by keeping just within the
limits of mere law honesty. or course
no amount of charity in spending such
fortunes In any way compensates for
| misconduct In making them. AS a
matter Of personal conviction and
tails or formulate the system l feel
that we shall ultimately have TO con-
slider the adoption of some such scheme
as that Of progressive tax on all for
tunes beyond certain amount, either
given in life or devised or beQueathed
upon death to any individual-a tax so
framed as to put ii out Of the power
~ 90 80
nous fortunes TO hand on more than
certain amount to any one individual.
the tax Of course to be imposed by the
national and not the state government
Such taxation should of course be
aimed merely at the inheritance or
transmission in their entirety of those
fortunes swollen beyond all healthy
limits.
Again, the national government must
| In some form exercise supervision over
| corporations engaged In interstate
business-and all large corporations
are engaged in interstate business
whether by license or otherwise, SO as
to permit us to deal with the far
reaching evils of overcapitaliZation
| This year we are making a beginning
| in the direction of serious effort to set
| tie some Of these economic problems
! by the railway rate legislation. Such
| legislation. IL SO framed, as | am sure
| il will be, as 10 secure definite and
| tangible results, will amount to some
thing of itself, and it will amount TO a
| great deal more i'm SO far as il is taken
as a first step in the direction of pol
| icy of superintendent and control
over corporate wealth engaged in in
| terstate commerce, this superintend-
ence and control not 10 be exercised
in a spirit of malevolence toward the
! men who have created the wealth, but
( with the firm purpose both TO do JUS
| tice TO them and to see that they in
their turn do justice to the public.
The first requisite in the public serv-
ants who are to deal i'm this shape with
! corporations. whether as Legislators or
as executives, is honesty. This honesty
can be no reSpecter of persons. There
! can be no such thing as unilateral hon
| esty. The danger is not really from
corrupt corporations. 1t springs from
|
for or against corporations.
But in addition TO honesty we need
sanity. No honesty will make a.public
man useful if that man is tinid or
foolish. If he is hot headed Zealot or
an impracticable visionary. AS we
strive for reform we find that il is not
at all merely the case of a long uphill
pull. On the contrary, there is almost
as much of preceding work as of col
lar work. TO depend only on traces
means that there will soon be a run
away and an upset. The men OF
wealth who today are trying TO pre-
vent the regulation and control of their
business i'm the interest Of the public
| by the proper government authorities
will not succeed. in my judgment, in
| checking the progress of the move
nent But if they did succeed they
would find that they had sown the
wind and would surely reap the whirl-
wind. for they would ultimately pro-
woke the violent excuses which ac-
company a reform coming by convul-
sion instead OF by steady and natural
growth
Dangerous Opponents of Real Reform.
On the other hand. the wild preachers
of unrest aud discomfort, the wild agi-
/