Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1906-04-23

( lated into action and the action shall
be marked by honesty, sanity and self
restraint. There is mighty little good
In mere spasm of reform. The ra
form that counts is that which comes
through steady, continuous growth
Violent emotionalism leads to exbaus.
ton.
Taxation of Vast Fortunes.
grapple with the problems connected
with the amassing of enormous for.
tunes and the use of those fortunes
both corporate and individual. in bus,-
hess. We should discriminate in the
sharpest way between fortunes we'll
won and fortunes i'll won: between
those gained as an incident to ner-
forming great services to the eommu-
nifty as a whole and those gained in
evil fashion by keeping just within the
limits of mere law honesty. OF course
no amount OF charity in spending such
fortunes in any way compensates for
misconduct in making them. Az
matter of personal conviction and
without pretending to discuss tha do
tails or formulate the system 7 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 a certain amount. either
given in life or devised or beoueathed
upon death to any individual-a tax SO
framed as to put it out of the power
of the owner of one of these enor-
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, if so framed, as I am sure
1t will be, as to secure definite and
tangible results, will amount to some
thing of itself, and it will amount to
great deal more in so far as it is taken
as a first step in the direction of a pol
! icy of superintendent and control
over corporate wealth engaged in in
| terstate commerce. this superintend-
ence and control not to be exercised
in 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 in 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 public
man useful if that man is timid or
foolish, if he is hot headed zealot or
an impracticable visionary AS we
strive for reform we find that it is not
at all merely the case Of long uphill
! pull On the contrary, there is almost
as much Of breeding work as of col
lar work. To depend only on traces
means that there will soon be rum
away and an upset The men of
wealth who today are trying to pre-
. vent the regulation and control of their
business in the interest of the public
by the proper government authorities
will not succeed, in my judgment, in.
checking the progress of the move
ment. 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 &C
company 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 and discomfort, the wild agi-
tatOrs against the entire existing order,
the men who act crookedly, whether
because of sinister design or from
mere puzzle headedness, the men who
preach destruction without proposing
anV substitute for what they intend tO
destroy or who propose a substitute
which would be far worse than the ex-
listing evils-all these men are the most
dangerous opponents of real reform.
If they get their way they will lead the
people into a deeper pit than any into
which they could fall under the present
system. If they fail to get their wav
they will still do incalculable harm nv
provoking the kind of reaction which
in its revolt against the senseless evil