Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1908-02-22
BUSINESS MEN
OF BOSTON
ORGANIZE
TO PROMOTE COMMERCIAL
AND CIVIC WELFARE
Oscar L, StrauSr Head of De-
partment of. Commerce ard
Labor Addresses Gathering
on Equal Opportunity
GBy Morning Journal Special Leased wlrel

lhN Morning journal SpeClal Leased NlFei
Boston, Feb. 21,-Oscar 5. Straus'
secretary of commerce and labor, was
the principal speaker at a dinner Civ
en- at the American House tonight by
! Boston business men and merchants
! who have formed an association of
/ general commercial mad civic welfare.
/ Merchants and Business Men of Bos-
ton:
When your forefathers threw the
! British CargOes of tea into the Boston
/ Iharbor, they gave to the world an eX-
|ample Of a new spirit in commerce
a spirit that placed patriotism above
profit and public veal above personal
gain. They gave concrete expression
/ to that cardinal American principle
/ Taxation without representation is
! tyranny"
The forms Of tyranny change from
iage to age--from the militarism OF
| Rome to the ecclesiastical tyranny
/ that brought about the reformation,
then followed political tyranny, which
produced our revolution, then came
economic tyranny-the oppression OF
! the masses-whiCh brought about the
French revolution.
/ can not take a better text for the
necessarily brief remarks that this oc-
ICasiOu permits than the pregnant SEN
tence from Governor Guilds recent
!
Equal rights were won by the gen
Ierations that have gone before us;
equal opportunities are to be our gift
to pOsterity' Yes, equal opportuui-
Itios politically economically, ana iudi-
IVidually whether those equal oppor-
tunities are abridged by the autocratic
power of government, or by corporate
power in the greedy hands Of private
individuals, or by lawiess bands of la
Dor agitatOrs--it is but a different
form Of the same tyranny, alike inim-
Iical to the power of the state and the
rights and privileges of the indiyiduah
Ibe he employer or laborer, and tO the
.eXtent that this power is permitted to
exist it closes the highways of oppor-
.tunity to the individual man, be he a
graduate from Harvard or the son of
la motorman on your street cars.
Now, my friends. | have not come
here TO talk politics. but to talk bust
ness: but the FIRST requisite of rood
permanent businses conditions is good
morals-nOt one Kind of morals for
the farmer who drives his cart of pro-
duce to market, and another kind of
morals for the railroad which brings
the products Of the farms and facto-
ries from distant points. Equality of
opportunity and rights is as necessary
on the one highway as on the other
No unreasonable conditions or re-
straints must be placed upOn either
There are combinations which uro-
mote trade and combinations which
restrain trade: to check both is harm
full, to permit both is more harmful
To adjust our laws TO preserve cor
porate industrial and Individual rights
and bV all means individual rigbte
and to curb wrongs. whether cornnr-
ate or individual. is of the highest CON
Germ. not only to commerce but to the |
stability of the commonwealth
| understand that thp purnoso that |
you, who are the foremost merchants I
and business men of Bosom. have in |
view is to form more effective work +,
ing body, to the end of Dromofino thn
and civic welfare Of his |
ancient and h0nored municipalitv As
the executive head of that deDartmeni /
of our government charged with the
of affairs pertaining tn
commerce and labor, | have come |
here. not only to signify nv deem in