Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1907-05-07

| to develop on behalf of the people CO..
herent and powerful movement a genuine
and representative nationality.
Two generations passed before the sec
| ond great crisis in our history had TO be
| faced Then came the Civil War; terrible
| and bitter in itself and in its aftermath,
| but a struggle from which the nation
| finally emerged, united in fact as well as
name, united forever. Oh, my hearers, my
| fellow countrymen, great indeed has been
| our good fortune, for as time clears away
| the mist that once shrouded brother from
| brother and made each look ''aS through
| glass darkly'' at the other, we can all feel
| the same pride in the valor. the devotion
| and the fealty, toward the right as it was
| given to each to see the right, shown alike
| by the men who wore the blue and by the
men who wore the gray
"Prepare to Meet War"
We cannot afford to forget the maxim
| that Washington insisted upon, that the
| surest way to avert war is TO be prepared
| to meet it. Nevertheless the duties that
| most concern us of this generation are not
| military but social and industrial. Each
| community must always dread the evils
| which spring up as attendant upon the
| very qualities which give it success. We
| OF this mighty western Republic have to
| grapple with the dangers that spring from
| popular self-government tried on a scale
| incomparably vaster than ever before in the
| history of mankind. and from Astounding
| material prosperity greater also than any
| thing which the world has hitherto seen.
| At the moment. the greatest problem
| before us is how to exercise such control
| over the business use Of vast wealth, in
| dividual, but especially corporate, as will
| insure 1t not being used against the inter-
| est of the public, while yet permitting
| such ample legitimate profits as will en-
courage individual initiative. 1t is our bust
ness TO put stop to abuses and to pre-
vent their recurrence. without showing a
| spirit of mere vindictiveness for what has
/ been done in the
| This is tie exact spirit in which this
| country should move TO the reform OF cor
| porate wealth. The wrong-doer, the man
| who swindles and cheats, whether on a big
| scale a little one, shall receive at our
| hands mercy as scant as If he committed
| crimes Of violence or brutality. We are
acalterably determined to prevent wrong
| doing in the future, but We have no inten-
! tion o. trying to wreak such an indiscrimi-
| nate 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 preserving the
| institution of private property, we combat
| every tendency towards reducing the peo-
| pie to economic servitude, and we care
not whether the tendency is due to a sinis-
| ter agitation directed against all property,
| or whether 1t is due to the actions of those
members OF the predatory classes whose
| antisocial power is UNNECESSARILY increased
| because of the very fact that they possess
| wealth.
''Deeds Not Professions"
We base our regard for each man on the
| essentials, not the accident. We judge him
not by his professions, but by his deeds. by
his conduct. not by what he has acquired
of this worlds goods. Other republics have
| fallen because the citizens gradually grew
| to consider the interests of a class before
| the interests of the whole, for when such
| was the case it mattered little whether 1t
| was the poor who pundered the rich or the
! rich who exploited the poor in either event
| the end of the republic was at hand.
We are resoute in our purpose not to
| fall into such pit. This great republic
of ours shall never become the government
| of mob.