River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1908-02-06

curing. by speech, editorial, book, or
| pamphlet the defense by misstate-
| ments of what they have done: and
yet when en- public servants correct their
declaim against them for breaking
silence, lest values be deprecated"
! They have hurt honest business men,
| honest working men, honest farmers
| and now they clamor against the truth
| being told.
| upon the effort to secure honesty in
| buslp ess and in politics is well ex-
pressed in brazen protests against any
eHort Tor the moral regeneration of the
business world. on the ground that 1T is
unnatural, unwarrantetd and injurious,
and that business panic is the neces-
sary penalty for such effort to secure
such plea is precisely as great as if
made on behalf of the men caught in
| a gambling establishment when that
gambling establishment is raided by
the police. If such words mean any
thing they mean that those whose SEN
timents they represent stand against
| the effort to bring about moral re-
generation of business, which will pre-
| vent a repetition of the insurance,
banking and street railroad scandals in
New YORK; repetition of the Chicago
q Alton deal; repetition of the COM
binatlon between certain professional
politicians, certain professional labor
from the disgrace of which San Fran
cisco has just been rescued: a repeti-
ton or the successful effort by the
Standard Oil people to crush out every
competitor. to overawe the common
| carriers and to establish a monopoly
which treats the public with a con-
tempt which the public deserves SO
long as it permits men of such prin-
| clpleS and sentiments to aYow and act
on them with impunity. The cutlery
among wrongdoers who happen to be
wealthy is precisely similar to the out
cry raised against every effort for
cleanliness and decency in city gov
eminent. because, forsooth, it will
hurt business" The same cutlery is
made against the department of jus
| tlce for prosecuting the heads of coloS-
| sal corporations that has been made
| against the men who in San Francisco
| have prosecuted with impartial sever
| ity the wrongdoers among business
| men, public officials and labor leaders
alike. The principle is the same in
| the two cases. Just as the blackmail-
er and bride giver stand on the same
| evil eminence of infamy. so the man
who makes an enormous fortune by
corrupting legislatures and municipal
| tiles and fleeing his stockholders and
| the public, stands on the same moral
| level with the creature who fattens on
| the blood money of the gambling house
and the saloon. Moreover, in the last
analysis, both kinds of corruption are
! far more intimately connected than
would at first sight appear; the wrong
| doing is at bottom the same. Corrupt
react with ever increasing debase-
ment, one on the other; the corrupt
| head of a corporation and the corrupt
| labor leader are both in the same de-
| gree the enemies of honest corpora
| lions and honest labor unions; the re-
| bate taker. the franchise trafficker,
| the manipulation of securities, the pur-
veyor and protector of vice, the black
| mailing ward boss, the ballot-box stuff
er, the demagogue, the mob leader the
| hired bully, and man-killer-all alike
and all alike should be abhorred by
| honest men.
The business" which is hurt by the
movement for honesty is the kind of
business which. in the long run, it
| pays the country to have hurt. 1t is
the kind of business which has tended
| term of scandal to which. all honest
| American men of business should join
| in putting an end The special plead
ers for business dishonesty, in denounc-
| ing the present administra ton for en-
| forcing the law against the huge and
corrupt corporations which have defied
| ing to secure sadly needed labor legis-
| lation. such as a far-reaching law MAX
| ing employers liable for injuries to
| their employees.
Business" Hurt by Movement
for Honesty Should Be Crushed
1t is meet and fit that the apologists
| for corrupt wealth should oppose every
| effort to relieve weak and helpless peo-
pie from crushing misfortune brought
| from which they gain bare livelihood
| The burden should be distributed. II
is hypocritical baseness to speak of a
| girl who works in a factory where the
| dangerous machinery is unprotected as
| having the right" freely to contract
to expose herself to dangers to life and
| limb. She has no alternative but tC
suffer want or else to expose herself tC
| such dangers and when she loses a
hand or is otherwise manned or disfig-
ured for life, it is moral wrong that
| the whole burden of the risk necessarily
| incidental to the business should be
| placed with crushing weight upoA her
| weak shoulders, and all who profit by
| her work escape Scot-free. This is
| what opponents of just employers
liability law advocate; and it is con
| SiStent that they should usually also
advocate immunity for those most dan
| gerous members of the criminal class
I the criminals of great wealth.
Our opponents have recently been
| bitterly criticising the two judges re-
| ferred to in the accompanying commu-
nications from the Standard Oil Com
pany and the Stata Fe railroad for hav-
| ing imposed heavy fines on these two
| corporations; and yet these same crit
| les of these two judges exhaust them
selves in denouncing the most re
spectful and cautious discussion of
| the official action of a Judge which re-
suits in immunity to wealth and power
| full wrongdoers, or which renders nuga-
tory a temperate effort to better the
| conditions of life and work among
| those of our fellow countrymen whose
need is greatest. Most certainly it be-
| hoOveS us all to treat with the utmost
respect the high office of judge; and
our judges, as a whole. are brave and
| upright men. Respect for the law
must go hand in hand with respect for
| the judges; and, as a whole. it is true
now as in the past. that the judges
stand in character and service above
all other men among their fellow
servants of the public. There is all
| the greater need that the few who fail
| in this great Office. who fall below this
high standard of integrity. of wisdom.
courage, should have their eyes opened
to the needs of their countrymen. A
| judge who on the bench either truckles
to the mob and shrinks from sternly
| REFRESHING violence and disorder, or
bows down before corporation; who
fails to stand up valiantly for the
rights of property on the one hand. or
on the other by misuse of the process
of injunction or by his attitude toward
all measures for the betterment of the
conditions of labor, makes the wage
worker feel with bitterness that the
courts are hostile to him; or who fails
to realize that all public servants in
their several stations must strive to
stop the abuses of the criminal rich
such a man performs an even worse
service to the body polite than the
legislator or executive who goes wrong.
The judge who does his full duty well
stands higher, and renders a better
service to the people, than any other
public servant; he is entitled to great
err respect; and if he is a true servant
of the people, if he is upright wise and
fearless, he. will unhesitatingly disre-
gard even the wishes of the people if
they conflict with the eternal princi-
pies of right as against wrong. He
must serve the people; but he must