Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1908-08-19
SOCIALIST TALK
BY CANDIDATE
Gubernatorial Candidate Speaks
at the Salvation Army Hall
Tuesday of Last Week.

Tuesday OF Last Week.
The following report of the
Beecher Moore meeting was written
for the Tribune by A. N. Gilbert
son, a leading member of the So
cialist party in this city:
Beecher Moore, Socialist candi-
date for governor of Minnesota,
spoke to crowded house at the
Salvation Army Hall Tuedsay even
ing of last week. The audience
was representative body of bust
ness men, farmers and laborers.
He spoke for two hours. and kept
the attention and interest of his
hearers to the very last. Mr..
Moore is an able and forceful speak
er, with a big store of native wit
and dramatic power which added
greatly to the interest of his ad-
dress. He has been on a tour of
the state since the middle of March,
and this was his last date before
returning to the big cities, where
he will conduct the campaign until
election.
In opening his speech he disposed
of the Oft-refuted but cat-lived
ideas that socialism is anarchy, F."
dividing up" government owner
ship of everything anti-reli-
gion," etc. His remarks were en-
tirely free from bitterness and per-
sonal attacks. He INDUCED in no
abuse Of the great captains of in
dustry.' He showed that monopo-
ly is the ultimate and inevitable re-
suit of competition-the monopolist
is simply the most successful COM
petitor, and the small capitalist
who bowls about trusts and monop-
GILES has mo kick coming.'
Rockefeller and the other plutocrats
are no more dishonest than thous-
ands of small business men who are
shouting for "trust-busting' be-
cause they lost out in their own
game. In speaking of the present
political situation he devoted his
remarks chiefly to the Republican
party, as the party in power. He
reminded his Republican friends
of the fact that the G. q. P. has
been the dominant party for the
last forty-five or more years and
have had absolute control of every
branch of the government continu-
ously for eleven years. So, if there
is anything wrong, they know who
to blame. Roosevelt, he said, is
the greatest trust-buster" of them
a Id ur ing his administration
trusts have doubled in number and
power and wealth. He propounded
the following problem to the mathe-
NAUTICAL heads among his Republican
hearers: IF the trusts have
doubled in seven years, and assum-
ing the Roosevelt policy will be
continued, as Taft says it will, how
long will it take before all the
trusts are busted?" An eastern
publishing house has offered Ronse-
welt two dollars a word for his re-
port of his coming African hunt;
the socialist journal appeal to
Reason" has offered him three dol
lars word for a list Of the trusts
he has busted. The speaker refer
red to the recent remission of the
Standard Oil fine. He says no man
who knows anything about condi-
tions expected that fine to be ever
paid. And if it had, the dear pub
lie would have paid every cent of it
thru higher prices. The speaker
concluded that the great combina-
tions of capital are the natural out
come Of industrial evolution; it is
criminal folly to talk about Destroy
ing them and throwing the wheels
of progress back century, even if
such a thing were possible. The
much-abused ''trusts'' are the
greatest machines of efficiency and
economy the human mind and in
dustrial development have pro-
uced-tremendous engines of hu-
man progress and betterment, when
the people quit their bowling and
"trust-busting" and begin to carry:
out sanely and seriously the slogan.
LET the Nation own the Trusts
Mr.. Moore says recent events and
developments in the industrial
world are making more Socialists
in a month than all the Socialists
by eloquence and logic could make
in century. A big vote for Debs
is expected this fall, altho the
party's vote will not express the
extent Of Socialist sentiments and
sympathies. The Socialist party.
here known as the Public Owner
ship party, has among other refol m
measures. prohibition plank in
it's state platform, and the national
convention passed a strong resolu-