The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1906-04-20
THE aMUCK RAKEn SPEECH.


pressive ceremony. The Pres
dents speech, part of whicl
follows, was the feature of tn
day.
The Speech.
SIN Pilgrims Progress the MAJ
with the muckrake is set forth as til,
example of whom whose vision il
fixed on carnal things instead of OF
spiritual things Yet he also typifie'
the man who in this life consistently
refuses to see aught that is lofty, anC
fixes his eyes with solemn intentness
only on that which is vile and debas
ing. Now, it is very necessary thai
we should not finch from seeing
what is vile and debasing There is
| filth on the floor, and it must be
scraped up with the muck-rake; and
there are times and places where
this service is the most needed of all
the services that can be performed
But the man who never does any
thing else, who never thinks or speaks
or writes, save of his feats with the
muck-rake, speedily becomes, not a
help to society, not an Indictment to
good but one of the most potent forces
for evil.
''It is a 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 a mere spasm of reform
The reform that counts is that which
comes through steady, continuous
growth; violent emotionalism leads to
exhaustion.
at 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 bust
ness We should discriminate in the
sharpest way between fortunes we'll
won and fortunes ill-wOn; between
those gained as an incident to per-
forming great services to the commu-
nifty as a whole, and those gained in
evil fashion by keeping just within
the limits of merelaw- honesty. Of
course no amount of charity in spend
ing such fortunes in any way compen-
safes for misconduct in making them
AS a matter of personal conviction,
and without pretending to discuss the
details or formulate the system, |
feel that we shall ultimately have to
the adoption of some such
scheme as that of progressive tax
on all fortunes, beyond a certain
either given in life or de-
We'd or bequeathed upon death to any
Individual tax so framed as to put
t out of the power of the owner of
me of these enormous fortunes to
land on more than a certain amount
o any one individual; the tax, of
curse. TO be imposed by the national
md not the state government. Such
axation should, of course, be aimed
merely the inheritance or transmits
ion in their entirety of those for
limits.
again the national government |
must in some form exercise supervi- |
ion over corporations engaged in in
erstate business-and all large cor
orators are engaged in interstate
by license or other
wise, so as to permit us to deal with
he far reaching evils of Over-capital-
zation. This year we are making
eginning in the direction of serious
fort to settle some of these economic
roblems by the railway-rate legisla-
ion Such legislation, if so framed,
s l am sure it will be, as to secure
efinite and tangible results, will
mount to something of itself; and it
I'LL amount to a great deal more in
0 far as it is taken as first step in
he direction of a policy of superin-
andence and control over corporate
'ealth engaged in interstate COM
lerce, this superintendent and con-
rol not to be exercised in a spirit of
lalevolence toward the men who
ave created the wealth, but with the
rm purpose both to do justice to
hem and to see that they in their
Urn do justice to the public at large.
"The first requisite in the public
ervants who are to deal in this
lape with corporations, whether as
.gislatOrs or as executives, is homes ,
:. This honesty can be no respecter
f persons There can be no such
hing as unilateral honesty The dan
er is not really from corrupt corpor-
tons; it springs from the corrup-
on itself, whether exercised for or
gainst corporations
'"Fhe eighth commandment reads, I
'hou shalt not steal 1t does not (
lad, Thou shalt not steal from the
ch man. 1t does not read Thou
lalt not steal from the poor man.
. reads simply and plainly, Thou
lalt not steal No good whatever I
ill come from that warped and T
Oclz morality which denounces the
isdeeds of men of wealth and for
Its the misdeeds practiced at their {
lpense; which denounces bribery,
ut blinds itself to blackmail; which
,am with rage if corporation Sc L
Tres favors by improper methods, +,
nd merely leers with hideous mirth
the corporation is itself wronged
L. a..I-- ,,,hIIn Sor...nrt thnt cn1, no