Arizona republican., 1907-05-22
'PESSIMISM
IS CRIMINAL
Says Secretary of State
Root II q Yale Letter
The Prosecution OF COrpo-
rations Only Proves That
We are Growing Better.

New Haven. May 21.-Secretary OF
State Root. speaking on The Out
look" delivered the fourth and last of
a series of lectures at Yale tonight on
/ The Responsibilities of Citizenship"
He said: In the field of popular
government / am convinced that one
of the plainest duties of citizenship is
hopefulness and that pessimism is a
criminal weakness.
The Objectionable railroad practices
which are now 50 widely and Justly
condemned. which furnish so fertile a
source of political discussion are not
new practices: they are old practices
Railroad rebates, which are forbidden
by law and for which great corpora
tions are indicted and convicted are
merely form Of discriminatory rates
which once prevailed without objec-
ton. That was the way they built
their business.
I'm recent years. however, the peo-
pie Of the country have come to an
appreciation of the idea that great
public agencies cannot give special
rates to some men without doing in
justice to others. that the common
right of the people demands equality
of facility, and of cost in transporta-
ton which the railroads are bound to
furnish, and condemns special privil-
eyes to one as against the other. The
lesson of all this is that We are not
growing worse, but better: that our
government is applying a higher stan
dard OF justice in the control OF public
utilities.
The same is true of the management
of corporations and the manipulation
Of securities to which attention has
been called sharply by testimony be-
fore the interstate commerce commits
sion regarding the organization of the
Chicago and Alton. Forty years ago
when the management Of the Erie and
Union Pacific attracted much atten-
ton. the things done by the corpora
ton managers were so much worse
that the Chicago and Alton affair
would not have received any notice at
all. Since then higher standard is
asserting itself 1t Is perfectly safe
TO assert that the standard Of probity
and fidelity among the corporation
managers of the country is higher now
than ever before.
THE prosecutions against the land
thieves i'm the west have awakened in
tense Indignation among the defend
ants and their friends because the
wrong is so inveterate that they had
come to look upon it as right. When
the officers of the law presented the
novel idea that IL was as dishonest to
deprive the government OF land lille
gally as to deprive the individual il
seemed a cruel injustice. There was
simply little advance in the moral
standard which gave life to the laws
that had been dead before.
Facilities OF transportation which
enable business to spread over a great
expanse of territory made II possible
for the so-called trusts and combina-
tions to be made for the purpose of
driving out competitors. restricting
production and increasing prices on
the other hand labor organizations de-
signed for the just purpose of secur-
ing fair treatment. in wages hours and
conditions. are on their part endcav-
oring to put MP prices. restrict pro-
duction and drive out competition by
stringent rules which prohibit "a menu
Der from doing NOR" than specified
amount Of work each day under pen
atty Of expulsion. and which prohibit
the employment of any one not
member OF the union under the PEN
atty Of strike
"All these things are but incidents
of the process of adjustment in the
division of new wealth. Our popular
government is dealing with them as
siduously b. awakening popular opin-
ion. which gradually IS crystalliZing
into laws TO meet the new conditions.
''There is occasionally undue excite
ment but IL is temporary. When it
is seen to approach the verge of de-
structive action It is promptly Gained
and restrained b. the sober judgment
of the people"