Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1907-04-26

troll over the business use of vast
wealth individual, but especially cor
porate. as will insure its not being used
against the interest of the public, while
yet permitting such ample legitimate
profits as will encourage individual in
itiative Ii is our business to put a
stop to abuses and to prevent their
recurrence, without showing a spirit of
mere vindictiveness for what has been
done in the past
Duty Only Concerns.
"m John Morley's brilliant sketch of
Burke he lays especial stress upon the
fact that Burke more than almost
any other thinker or politician of his
time realized the profound lesson that
in politics we are concerned not with
barren rights, but with duties; not with
abstract truth, but with practical NOR
ality. He especially eulOgizes the way
in which his efforts for economic re-
form, Burke combined unshakable res
olution in pressing the reform with n
profound temperatures of spirit which
made him. while bent on the eXtirpa-
ion of the evil system, refuse TO cher
ish an unreasoning and vindictive i'll
will toward the men who had benefited
by IT, Said Burke, If can not reform
with equity. | will not reform at all.
: tThere isl a state TO preserve
as well as a state to reform
This is the exact spirit in which
. u; CHI 70
of abuses of corporate wealth. The
wrOng-dOer. the man who swindles ami
cheats, whether on a big scale or i
little one. shall receive at our hands
mercy as scant as if he committed
crimes of violence or brutality. We
are unalterably determined TO prevent
wrOngdoing in the future; we have no
intention of trying TO wreak such az
indiscriminate vengeance for wrong
done in the past as would cOnfound tn
innocent with the guilty. Our purpose
| is 70 build up rather than 10 tea,
down. We show ourselves the trues'
| friends of property when We make Il
evident that we will not tolerate the
abuses OF property.
Uphold Private Property.
| I'VE are steadily bent on preservina
| the institution of private property; W.
combat every tendency toward reduc
| ing the people to economic servitude
and we care not whether the tendency
| is due to a sinister agitation directed
| against all property. or whether it is
| due to the actions of those member,
of the predatory classes whose anti
social power is UNNECESSARILY increas
| ed because of the very fact that they
possess wealth.
| above all. we insist that while fac
| ing changed conditions and new proc
| lens. we must face them in the spiri
which our forefathers showed wheI
they founded and preserved this re
public. The cornerstone of the re
public lies in our treating each man u
his worth as a man, paying no heed Il
his creed. his birthplace, or his Occl
patton. asking not whether he is ricl
or poor. whether he labOrs with heai
or hand: asking only whether he ac,!
decently and honorably in the variou.
relations of his life, whether he be
HAYES we'll to his family. to his neig'
bors. to the state.
| Based ON Essentials.
eve base our regard for each MAJ
on the essentials and not the accidents
We Judge him not by his profession
lbut by his deeds; by his conduct. no
by what he has acquired of thi
worlds goods. Other republics hav
fallen, because the citizens gradual:
grew to consider the interests OF
class before the interests of the whole
for when such was the case it matte
ed little whether it was the poor WIN
= plundered the rich or the rich VIII