The Boise citizen. (Boise, Idaho) 1906-1910, 1907-03-01
PROBLEMS
OF THE DhY
An 0IiOdrChU Rules at
Washington
WARNING BY ERNEST CROSBY
La, t Message of Well KOWn Public
Economist
WARNING BY ERNEST CROSBY

Ernest Crosby, the public economist
whose death has just been recorded,
wrote for the March Cosmopolitan, a
short article entitled "Our American
Oligarchy" which may be considered
the last message of a humanitarian 1t
will be noticed that in the closing para
graph he suggests remedies for the evils
pointed out The article is as follows:
Our republican institutions are in
danger That is a moderate statement
of fact, and to make light of it is to
offer certain proof of lack of insight
into things as they are. We are rap
idly drifting into the hands of that most
odious of all forms of government, the
oligarchy. The self-interest of real
democracy tends to make it just. The
centralization of power in king is apt
to produce a sense of responsibility, free
from petty ambitions and rivalries, and
this makes for impartiality and fairness.
But there is nothing which can keep an
oligarchy straight 1t has all the faults
of all other forms of government, and
none of their virtues. 1t has the abso-
lutte power of a monarchy without any
sense of responsibility. 1t has all the ri
valries and envies of democracy in ag-
gravated form, and its self-interest, in
stead OF neutralizing this defect by a
broad appeal to equality, is on the con-
trary, the sure creator of special priv
ilege, inequality and monopoly.
Venice was a conspicuous example of
the baneful effects of commercial oil
garchy, such as we are building up at
present. With all the advantages of
her position on the highway between
east and west with all her wealth and
enterprise, with her mastery of the seas,
she yet fell the victim of that internal
corruption which inheres in every oil
garchy by the very nature of its consti-
tution-the prey of Unsuitable, unscru-
pulous, unrestrained, self-conficting
greed. And it is an ominous fact that
in Venice the seat of this disease was
the senate
There is a difference between the We
netian and the American senate. The
grand seigniors who ruled and ruined
Venice sat in the senate hall themselves
and passed daily from the counting room
to the legislative chamber. We have
specialized things to a higher point than
they ever did, and we are more eco
nomical of our time. Our lords OF
finance for the most part send their !
stool-pigeons to the senate. 1t would be
an unexpected act of condescension for
any one of the half dozen biggest men
of Wall street to accept senatorial
chair. They are not in that class. If
by chance one or two of them have
bought legislature and seat, it is
as a foible, or as a conces-
sion to the ladies of the family, afford
ing a good excuse for passing the winter
at a pleasant watering place like Wash
ngton. Nobody takes such a legislative
career seriously, and the great man of
dollars is rarely found in his place. 1t
S the clerks and employees of the first
rank that must attend to such vulgar
business.
And what is the chief business of our
,ficial senate at Washington, controlled
" the unofficial oligarchy of Wall
treet? 1t is 10 prevent any change in
he present status of the business world,
which, as experience has fully proved, is
peculiarly adapted to the needs of fnan-
,ial graft-a system which produced
he oligarchy, and which the oligarchy
naturally intends to perpetuate. The
ountain of wealth which gushes out
rom the natural resources of our
ountry in response to the labor of man {