The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-11-27
THE REAL STARTING POINT.

If the country is to get the full ben
esefit from the present conditions which
surround l.. there should be a COM
plete readjustment all along the line.
Most of the self-interestei tnmh". S who
eocurrency reform is the greatest of all
questions Immediately before the
p country Caught by this chaff, the ad-
ministration for the first time got into
panicky feeling with the result that
? cit has issued bonds and certificates of
Indebtedness amounting to $150,000,-
coo. all interest bearing, to relieve the
financial stringency in face of the fact
o that it now has on deposit with the
blanks. $4,000, OO0 for which it has no
ceiving no interest.
But the cause of all our trouble gets
down 20 the very root of our methods
of doing business Our leading expo
nents of finance and commerce have
not been on the square. The trust
=, funds placed in their hands have been
used for self exploitation and to rob
fhe very people whose money was
.trustingly confiGed to their care. Our
managers Of great manufacturing en-
terprses, used them as sock -jobbing
adjuncts, manufacturing watered stock
with a recklessness never before
dreamed of in sane business proceed
hn e
only watered and jobbed their stocks
= but, with the proceeds realized in one
section of the country, they bought into
other railroads, thus neglecting the le-
% ultimate work of development whilst
they tried to carry out Napoleonic
schemes of railroad mergers that would
baye throttled the industries of the
whole country and put them in sheer
: power On a par with the government
itself. The heads of the great banks of
New York used the money which the
epeople of the country placed with them
to manipulate the stock markets. to
ruin in one direction whilst they fav-
Srei in another, tying up the publics
Plnd to work their deadly purposes
when they felt a great money robbing
chance was at hand. letting not a dol
lar go but at the most usurious inter-
est. except to those in the inner cliques
who were working the schemes for
their own ACKNOWLEDGMENT
And so there. has grown up in this
country body of citizens who believed
themselves to be a law unto them
selves. They did practically as they
pleased, looted trust funds robbed es-
tates. skinned and fleecei the smaller
fry by methods which reminded one of
ethe Middle Ages. pillaged trusting
stockholders only TO be held I'D in the
yellow, as well as the Intensely re-
spectacle press as model men and citi-
Gems. There were yards of stuff show
ing how their wealth was increasing
at most amazing rate. Dazzled by
% this aspect of the case many were
blinded TO the crooked wavs in which
the money had been acquired. Many of
those who read the stories were led to
follow the same methods in the hope of
landing in the same class All that
seemed to be required was to get rich;
that covered every sin. Once a man
ewas acknowledged rich there was n
going behind the returns. He was rich
and that settled everything. How he
got rich was an important question
which even the veriest boor would not
ask
But all of this was fundamentally
wrong. After all in the ultimate ad-
1ustment of things. the riches them
se-ves were simply an incident in the
trsLsaetion, the real feature of which
was how they were acquired. There
were. happily for the country. some
people who never lost sight of this
feature of the case In the end, truth
Is beginning 10 prevail. A majority of
s the people, constantly growing larger,
are beginning to see things in this
same light They want to know how