Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-04-26
No P[U|OCRA1C
AND No MOB RULE
from First Page.)

1t behooves US to remember that men
can never escape being governed.
Either they must govern themselves or
they must submit to being governed
by others. If from lawlessness or
fickleness, from folly or self-indulgence,
they refuse to govern themselves, then
most assuredly in the end they Will
have to be governed from the outside.
They can prevent the need of govern
ment from without only by showing
that they possess the power of govern
ment from within. A sovereign can not
make excuses for his failures; SOW
ereign must accept the responsibility
for the exercise of the power that in
heres in him; and where, as Is true In
our Republic, the people are sovereign,
then the people must show sober I'M
Outstanding and a sane and steadfast
purpose if they are to preserve that
orderly liberty upon which as a foun-
dation every republic must rest
industrial Evils.
In Industrial matters our enormous
prosperity has brought with 1t certain
grave evils. 1t is our duty to try to
cut out these evils without at the
same time destroying our well-being
itself. This is an era of combination
alike in the world of capital and in the
world of labor. Each kind of combipa--
ton can do good, and yet each, how
ever powerful, must be opposed when
it does ILL., At the moment the greatest
problem before us is how to exercise
such control over the business use of
vast wealth, individual, but especially
corporate, as will insure its not being
used against the interest of the public
while vet permitting such ample legiti-
mate profits as will encourage individ-
ual initiative. It 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. In John Morley's
brilliant sketch of Burke he lays espe-
cial stress upon the fact that Burke
more than almost any other thinker or
politician of his time realized the pro-
found lesson that In politics we are
concerned not with barren rights but
with duties; not with abstract truth,
but with practical morality. He espe-
cially eulogizes the way in which his
efforts for economic reform, Burke
combined unsuitable resolution in
pressing the reform with profound
temperatures of spirit which made
him, while bent on the extirpation of
the evil system, refuse to cherish an
unreasoning and vindictive i'll will to-
ward the men who had benefited by
it. Said Burke, "if I can not reform
with equity, will not reform at ALL
- There is state to preserve
as we'll as a state to reform"
Vengeance on the Guilty.
This is the exact spirit in which this
country should move to the reform of
abuses of corporate wealth. The
wrongdoer the man who swindles and
cheats, whether on a big scale or lit
tie 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 an
indiscriminate vengeance for wrongs
done in the past as would confound the
innocent with the guilty. Our purpose
is to build up rather than to tear down.
We show ourselves the truest friends
Of property when we make it evident
that we will not tolerate the abuses of
property. We are steadily bent on pre-
serving the institution of private pro-
perty; we combat every tendency to-
ward reducing the people to economic
serv;tude; and we care not whether the
tendency is due to sinister agitation
directed against all property, or wheth-
er it is due to the actions Of those
members Of the. predatory classes
whose anti-social power is irnmeasur-
ably increased because of the very fact
that they possess wealth.
Spirit Of Our Forefathers.
Above all, we insist that while facing
changed conditions and new problems,
we must face them in the spirit which
our forefathers showed when they
founded and preserved this republic. The
cornerstone of the republic lies in our
treating each man on his worth as a
man, paying no heed to his creed, his
birthplace, or his occupation. asking not
whether he is rich or poor, whether he
labors with head or hand; asking only
whether he acts decently and honorably
in the various relations of his life,
whether he behaves we'll to his family,
to his neighbors, to the state. We base
our regard for each man on the essen
tials and not the accidents. We judge
him not by his profession, but by his