Amador ledger., 1906-06-22

AhS-
CORPORATIONS SUBJECT TO
PUBLIC CONTROL.
When you go beyond this field of
cooperation, you reach field which
is now largely occupied by large cor
porations, which are exercising a pub
lie use and for that reason subject to
public control.
l believe that eventually the public
ownership Of all public utilities is in
evitable in this country; but l am
not believer in the theory that we
are ready to-day for municipal owner
ship in all our cities or for the govern
ment ownership of all our railroads.
Municipal ownership without muni-
cipal integrity may be a greater evil
than corporate ownership, "and the
last condition of that man be worse
than the first"
believe that political honesty must
come before public ownership, and
that the only way we will ever get
political ahonesty is to restore the
great majority of our people to the
land, where they will live close to
nature, and learn the obligations of
man to his fellow men, and the i'm
perative need of public integrity, by
learning to unite together to do things
for themselves.
HONESTY THE CORNERSTONE
OF COOPERATION.
Man is the product of his environ
ment. Man will be what he is trained
to be. And cooperation will train
men to be honest with each other and
with the public, because honesty and
integrity in the discharge of obliga-
tions to ones fellow men is the
corner stone of cooperation.
Without it cooperation is a house
built upon the sands.
With such integrity, cooperation is
a house built upon the eternal rocks
as a foundation.
And so it is that your movement for
the formation of farmers associations,
in order that you may transact for
yourself the business of selling your
own soil products, is but single
thread in the great cable of co-opera-
ton which will finally warp our ship
of state off the rocks, and draw it to
safe anchorage.
The profits that you will make for
yourself in the formation of these CO.
operative associations, and their man.
agement, is the least of the reasons
which should impel you onward in the
movement.
A CRISIS IN OUR HISTORY.
We have reached a crisis in our
country's history.
1t is a crisis threatening greater
danger than when the cloud of dis
union swept up from the south and the
nation was drenched in the blood of a
civil war.
The cancer of corruption following
in the wake of great wealth is eating
out the vitals Of our country.
1 have shown you that there is but
one cure, and it is to men of your class
that we must look for this cure.
In training yourselves to cooperate
together to do things for yourselves
that one man cannot do for himself,
you are engaged in carrying out Il
patriotic purpose just as noble as
though you had enlisted as a soldier
to shoulder your arms and march to
the front and lay down your life, if
need be, in repelling the army of a
foreign invader.
We are spending millions for forts
and navies and to maintain an army to
protect ourselves against the other
nations of the earth.
Our greatest danger is not from
foreign nations. 1t is in our midst.
1t is at the very heart of our political
and social life.
And you who are here to-day are
pioneers in the great campaign which
will result in overthrowing the cohorts
of corruption which will otherwise
destroy us.
OPPOSITION A STIMULANT.
L have been told that your move
ment meets with opposition. Those
who oppose it are most unwise. 1t is
the lesson of all periods of the history
Of our race that reform movements,
movements for the betterment of man.
kind, even movements which merely
purport to be for human betterment,
and are of questionable character, have
been strengthened and built up and
perpetuated by opposition and per-
secution.
No greater stimulus to the growth of
your movement could exist than to
have it Systematically opposed. Such
opposition rouscs the combativeneSs
and aggressiveness which is in every
mans being, stimulates him to greater
effort, and encourages him to perSevere
until obstacles have been overcome
which would otherwise have caused
failure.
STRENGTH COMES FROM
STRUGGLE.
1t is another law of nature that
strength comes from strenuous strug-
gle. The strong arm is the arm that
is used. The strong mind is the mind
that thinks. The strong man is the
man who has developed every fibre of
his physical vigor by use. The strong
races of the earth are those which
have survived oppression and over
come great obstacles in their develop
ment.
Be not DISCOURAGED hV anY condition