Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-22
PRESIDENTS DANGER
TRYING TO DO TOO MUCH, SAYS
JUDGE aRosscUP.
Suits, Federal License and Clipping
Wealth Will Not Equalize
Prosperity.

Judge Peter S. Grosscup OF Chicago,
member of the United States circuit court.
addressed an audience of 1000 at the
Grand Opera House last night on THE
, Control Of Corporations" The address was
given under the auspices of the CONNER
cial Club and the faculty of Wfttenberg Col
| lege. of which institution Judge Grosscup
is graduate. He said In part:
Il have a friend up the state who. the
| morning of every election day, votes his
party ticket. and votes 1t with as much
publicity as the laws permit but in the
evening waits for the returns his heart full
of the wish that the other party has won.
There are many men in public life today
who have just that kind Of fealty to Presi-
dent Roosevelt and his policies My respect
for him is not of that kind. No other in
dividual career in recent years has so con-
spicuously broken into a public atmosphere
that had become stagnant, clearing 1t up
as an electrical storm clears up suitry
summer day.
I'm the character of great moral force
look upon Mr.. Roosevelt as one of the
great figures of the times in which we live.
To no other individual has been given so
great an opportunity to lay anew the foun-
dation on which our country's future peace
and prosperity must rest. To the extent
that he is effectively using that opportu-
nity-getting results out Of the popular
awakening-I follow him as my leader.
But like every great man In the crisis
of a great career the President stands now
at point where It will be speedily deter
mined whether foundations that go deep
enough to sustain the new great 1ndustrlal
life on which America has entered are to
be laid by him. leaving 1t to his successors
to carry up the superstructure, or whether
he is to go off the stage the great evangel
!! but an evangel only. of the future that
awaits US.
Too Many Irons in the Fire.
"The danger that threatens him is the
old, old danger that turks in every at
tempt to do too many things at one and
the same time The American people DO
but one thing at time. And the one great
thing that is upon this generation OF Amer
leans to settle-to so settle that 1t Will stay
settled-is the ways and means through
which the property and prosperity Oh tne
country, indisputably great, and growing
greater every day. shall be put ON their way
to becoming the property and the pros
perity of the entire people of the country
.'When that great work is accomplished.
or fairly on it's way toward accomplish
ment the obligation of this generation or
Americans will have been discharged. But
that great work will never be put on It's
way to accomplishment by anything less
than an earnest organized popular move
ment that, denying to itself everything
else. concentrates itself upon corporation
REFORM that. like the great German cor cor,
pora ton reform of thirty years ago, will
go to the bottom of the wrong.
NO mere so-called federal license plan
will fulfil that end: the reform to br1ng
back the people of the country INTO the
ownership and control of the property of
the country must not rest upon corpora
ton policy. as it exists today, changed in
no particular except that the corporations
are to be subjected to a little additional
scrutiny at Washington
The mere prosecution of corporations
that are disobeyng the law, as the law eX-
ISIS today will not fulfil that end: some
~ wit hn
ton than to put it on the docket of the
criminal courts.
Many Little Fortunes.
mo mere policy of curtaling great for
tunes by a system Of income or inheri-
lance taxes, will. standing alone, fulfil that
end To restore to the people of the coun-
try the ownership and control of the prop
erty of the country requires that we should
be concerned much more for state of
things that will create many little property
fortunes than for a state of things that ad-
mit, of no great fortunes
THE mere academic advocacy of greater
national powers will not fulfil that end.
A program based On the general extension
of the nations powers Will do nothing
but raise up enemies among those who
ought to be the friends of genuine cor
poratiOn reform.
1.-The deepest instinct of the American
is the instinct of individual freedom. Be
ginning with himself and those who depend
upon him. and the obligations he owes to
himself and those who depend upon him.
the American will willingly surrender moth
ing to the community that he feels bound
in conscience to perform himself: nothing
to the larger community. called the state,
that he feels should be performed by the
smaller community of which he Is proper
tionately a larger part: nothing to the
ton that he feels should be performed by
the state
And when you ask him in the interest
ALf- tI,or tn 70 i'm
self further and further from individual
control Of those duties that are dearest to
him-the education of his children. their
religious training, the whole circle Of what
he has always looked upon a personal
responsiblity-ycu ask him to surrender a
thing that rather than surrender he will
abandon the couse.