The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-11-11

precedent in the last hundred years.
The country has more stored-up
wealth than ever before in its history.
The money savings of the people are
larger. They are more widely diffrsed.
Not only the fixed capital of business.
but the fluid capital that should be
available for enterprise is more album
dant than at any previous time in the
nations history.
The farmers, on whose broad founda-
ton the prosperity of the nation is sup
posed to rest, have fewer debts and
larger bank deposits than are registered
in the books of any past years. More
over, even with their smaller crops,
they will receive greater sums from
sales in Europe than any that hereto
fore have come to their hands.
Yet for year or moce the country
has seemed under blgh.. Enterprise
has paused; confidence has wavcreti !;
the money once placed in the bank has
been left to lie instead OF being put
forth to fructify.
Those securities which constitute the
umbiiical cord between money and I:-
dustry have withered till they no
longer serve their purpose. Not only
or the large exchange in New York, but
on the little exchanges from Rochester
TO Denver. values have shrurk until 8
and 10 per cent investments have he
come plentiful, ~ and per cent in
Vestments common, and and Per
cent investments absolutely multitu-
dinousS regardless of who promoted Or
operated the business in question or
where it's securities wera listed.
Securities that represent no trust,
that are not listed in Wall street. that
never felt the hand of Rockefeller or
Hartman, have plunged down, down,
pie at large would not draw their
money from the banks 20 buy them at
any price.
In a word, with all material circuln-
stances for prosperity, enterprise, and
hope, this country has ceased to be a
or even per cen. country, and has
gone back to the 9 ard per cent con-
ditions of thirty years ago.
And today. with garden of opportu-
nifty around them and with the whole
paraphernalia of prosperity at hand,
the American people read from day TO
day the telegraphed reports of n finan-
cial stress and struggle. which seems
as homogeneous in the surroundings as
the moon at midday.
Why is this? Why does enterprise
sicken in the midst of plenty? Why do
we halt on the way, though the sun of
prosperity still lights us? Why are we
faint-hearted, with all the material
means of Industrial and commercial
achievement in our hands?
Why do We pause in the fight as If
victory were not for US? Why do we
let ourselves be pushed back into condi-
tions that seemed for ever passed q
quarter of a century age?
The answer is plain. All these things
have come to pass because the pres,-
dent of the United States has seen fit
to bring them to pass for purposes
which he has declared to be adequate
and to be worth, in his opinion, the
price which the rest of US are being
called on to pay.
For a year or more before last Jan. l
the president saw fit, for his own pur-
pose, to assail and denounce certain
American citizens who were possessed
of large properties. Since the begin
ming of this year he has gone further.
His assaults and demonstrations have
been far more vehement. Their scope
has been widened until they cover the
continent.
Beginning with Messrs. Hartman and
Rockefeller and five or six other men
of great wealth in New York, he has
gradually included within the radius of
his denunciations practically all men of
large property in the United States,
X
erty themselves.
At first content with the program
which would bring the regulation and
control of the railroads of the United
States into the hands of the United
States government, he has gone on un-
til in his st. Louis speech he has de-
manded that the regulation and control
of practically three fourths of the in
dustrial concerns in the United States
be assumed by a bureau at Washing
ton.
With the progress of this astonishing
program, moreover, the president has
become ever more violent in his Ian
guage. Andrew Johnson, on his ceIe-
brated swing around the circle, was
really a model of moderation, If judged
by his speeches, in comparison with
President Roosevelt on his recent tours
''Malefactors," predatory classes, {"
predatory wealth." "wreckers," gam
biers." "bribers," "corruptionists." "un-
desirable citizens" swollen fortunes. I"
''oppressore of wage workers." are a
few among a hundred similar denunci-
atoms that have come from him like
torrent.
Threats OF "the penitentiary" have
been flung right and left, not only by
the president, but by his department of
contempt and denunciation has been
practically exhausted by him-and for
what? To set forth his purpose of
Furnishing rich and poor criminals
alike, as they were brought before the
bar of justice. This is the statement
made for him, we believe, by those of
his friends who have approved the
presidents speeches in the last, twelve
months.
AS IL the orderly processes of law
could be enforced only by inflamma-
tory and denunciatory appeals to the
multitudei
AS if the wheels of justice could not
be started by the United States attor-
ney general except the president first
appealed to the popuiace to condemn
in advance the men against whom the
evidence had not been even collected
for the prosecution,
AS If ii were necessary to stir the
deadliest passions of the human heart
before the president of the United
States and his department of justice
could proceed under the statutes of the
United States to try in the federal
courts those men whom they believed
to be violating the federal laws.
But the president has denounced only
dishonest men. has been argued for
him by his friends. No honest man,
no honest business, need fear him. No
man need lose confidence in a we'll con-
Quoted enterprise on account of his de-
nunciations