Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-04-28
other Judge. AS regards injunetions. some
such legislation as that have previously

such Legislation ms that have previously
recommended should be enacted.
| They are blind who. tail to realize the
extreme bitterness caused among large
has been repeatedly made of the power
| of Injunction in labor disputes. Those Tin
| whose Judgment I'VE have most right to
trust are of the opinion that while much
OF the complaint. against the! use OF the
inJunctionS Is unwarranted. yet that 1t is
| unQuestiohably true that in a number of
cases this power has -been.-used- to the
grave INJURY .,of the rights OF laborins
men,. ask 4that 1t be limited IN some
such way as that I have already pointed
out in my previous MESA ges. for, the very
| reason. that Il dO%net wish to see al en-
FILTERED effort made to destroy it. 1t is
unwise stubbornly to refuse to provide
against a t repetition of the abuses which
have caused the present unrest.
The Will of the People.
In "a democracy, like ours it is idle to
expect fpermanentlytt thwart the deter
minatfon OF the great body of our eiti-
zens. 1t may, be and often is the highest
dutyi Of a court. a~legislature an ex-
ecutive, to resist and defy gust of popu-
| lar passion: and most certainly no public
servant. whatever may be the conse-
| Quences to himself. should yie'd to what
he thinks wrong. But in question
which Is emphatically one of public pol
| icy the policy which the public demands
is sure In the end to be adopted: and a
| persistent refusal to grant to large
| portion of our people what is right is only
| too apt in the end to result in causing
such irritation that when the right is
obtained 1t is obtained in the course Of a
movement so Ill considered and violent
| as to be accompanied by much that is
| wrong.
| The process of injunction in labor dis
| putes. as we'll as where state laws are
| involved. should be used sparingy, and
| only when there Is the clearest necessity
efficient performance of duty by the court
on behalf Of the nation that it is In the
highest degree to be regretted that it
should be liable to reckless use: Tor this
| reckless use tends to make honest men
desire so to hamper its execution as to
destroy its usefulness.
Evil Of "Class consciousness"
Every far-sighted patriot should protest
| first of all against the growth in this
country of that evil thing which is called
"class consciousness" The demagogue.
the sinister or foolish socialist visionary
| who strives to arouse this feeling of class
consciousness in our working people, does
a foul land evil thing. for he is no true
american. he is no self-respecting citi
zen of this republic, he forfeits his right
to stand with manly self-reliance on a
footing of entire equality with all other
citizens. who bows to envy and greed.
VINO erects the doctrine of class hatred
into shibboleth who substitutes loyalty
to men of a particular status. whether
rich or poor. for loyalty to those eternal
and fmmutable principles of righteous
ness which bid us treat each man on his
worth as man without regard to his
wealth or his poverty. But evil though
the influence of these demagogues and
Missionaries is. it is no worse in it's con-
sequences than the influence exercised by
the man of great wealth or the man of
power and position in the industrial
world. who by his lack of sympathy with,
and lack of understanding Of still more
by any exhibition of uncOmpromising hos
tility to. the millions of our working peo-
pie tends to unite them against their
fellow-Americans who are better off in
this worlds goods ~ =,
1t is a bad thing to teach our working
people that men of means, that men who,
have the largest proportion Of the sub
stantial comforts of life. are necessarily
that they unjustly demand and appropri-
ate more than their share Of the sub
stance Of the many. Stern condemnation
should be visited upon the demagogue and
visionary who teach this untrnth. and
even sterner upon those capitalists who.
are in truth grasping and greedy and
brutally disregardful of the rights of
others. and who by their actions teach
the dreadful lesson far tmore effectively
than any mere preacher of unrest. A
"cfass gievance" left too long without
demedy breeds "ciass resentment" and
therefore class resentment.
The strengthening Of the antitrust law
is demanded upon both moral and eco
nomic grounds. Our purpose in strength
ening It is.to secure more effective con-
troll by the M tional government over the
business use Of the vast masses of In
dividual and especially Of corporate
wealth. which at the present time monop-
Ollie most of the interstate business of
the country; and We believe the control
can best be exercised by preventing the
growth Of abuses. rather than merely by
trying to destroy them , When they have We
the word this movement for thorough con-
troll of the business use of this great
wealth Is conservative.
A Safe Middle Course.
We are trying to steer a safe middle
course, which alone can save us from a
plutocratic class government on the one
hand, or a socialistic class government
on the other. either of which would be
fraught with disaster to our free insti-
tutions. state and national. We are try
ing to avoid alike the evils which would
flow from government ownership of the
public utilities by which interstate COM
merce is chiefly carried on and the evils
unrestricted individualism. There is
grave danger to our free institutions in
the corrupting influence exercised by
great wealth suddenly concentrated in
the hands of the few. We should In sane
manner try to remedy this danger, in
| spite of the sullen opposition of these few
very powerful men, and with the full
purpose to protect them in all their rights
at the very time that we require them
| to deal rightfully with others.
When with steam and electricity mod
ern business conditions went through the
| astounding revolution. which in this coun-
try began over half century ago there
| was at first much hesitation as to what
| particular governmental agency should
be used to grapple with the new condi-
twenty years since. the effort was made
| to control combinations by regulating
them through the interstate commerce
commission and to abolish them by means
| of the antitrust act, the two remedies
therefore being in part mutually incom-
| patible.
The interstate commerce law has pro-
| duced admirable results, especially since
| 1t was strengthened by the Hepburn law
| two years ago. The antitrust law, though
| it worked some good, because anything is
better than anarchy and complete absence
| of regulation. nevertheless has proved in
| many respects not merely inadequate but
mischievous. Twenty years ago the mis-
most every conceivable form of abuse.
and had worked the gravest injury to
| business morality and the public con-
science. For a long time federal regula-
ton of interstate commerce had been
| purely negative the national ind; ciary