Arizona republican., 1908-12-09
THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
(Continued from Page One)

Qlar rights WOULD uO wrong to ana toppress honest business men, honest
 men of wealth; for the success ot
 either type of wrongdoer necessarily
 invites a reaction against the cause
 the wrongdoer nominally upholds. In
 point of danger to the nation there is
 nothing to choose between on the one
 hand the corruptionist, the bribe-
 giver. the bribe- taker.> the man who
 employs his great talent to swindle
 his fellow citizens on a large scale
 and, on the other hand, the preacher
 of class hatred, the man who, wheth-
 CT from ignorance or from willing
 ness to sacrifice his country to his
 ambition, persuades well meaning but
 wrong headed men to try to destroy
 the instruments upon which our pros
 perity mainly rests. Let each group
 of men beware of and guard against
 the shortcomings to which that group
 is itself most liable. Too often we
 see the business community in a
 spirit of unhealthy class conscious
 ness deplore the effort to hold to ac-
 count under the law the wealthy men
 who in their management of great corporations, whether railroads, street IduNdNS. UT bllltE ltiAuSti lctt tultt-
 prises, have behaved in a way that
 revolts the conscience of the plain,
 decent people. Such an attitude can
 not be condemned too severely, for
 men of property should recognize
 that they jeopardize the rights of
 property when they fail heartily to
 join in the effort to do away with
 the abuses of wealth. On the other
 hand. those who advocate proper con-
 trol on behalf of the public through
 the state of these great corporations
 and of the wealth engaged on a giant
 scale in business operations, must
 ever keep in mind that unless they do scrupulous justice to the corpora
 ton, unless they permit ample profit, and cordially encourage capable men of business so long as they act with honesty, they are striking at the root of our national wellbeing; for in the long run, under the mere pressure of material distress. the people as whole would probably go back to the reign of unrestricted individualism rather than submit to a control by the state so drastic and so foolish. conceived in a spirit of such unreas- onable and narrow Hostility to wealth as to prevent business operations from being profitable. and therefore to bring ruin upon the entire busi- ness community, and ultimately upon the entire body of citizens
 Old Doctrine Of States Rights.
 The opposition to government con- trol of these great corporations makes it's most effective effort in the shape of an appeal to the old doc Urine of states rights. Of course there are many sincere men who now believe in unrestricted individu- alism in business. just as there were formerly many sincere men who be- lieved in slavery-that is, in the un- restricted right of an individual to own another individual. The effect
 i've fight against adequate govern ment control and supervision of in dividual, and especially of corporate, wealth engaged in interstate business is chiefly done under cover; and eS< pecially under cover of an appeal to states rights. It is not at all infre- quent to read in the same speech a denunciation of predatory wealth fos tered by special privilege and defiant of both the public welfare and law of the land, and a denunciation of centralization in the central govern ment of the power to deal with this centralized and organized wealth. Of course the policy set forth in such twin denunciatiOns amounts to absO- lutely nothing, for the first half is nullified by the second half. The chief reason, among the many sound and compelling reasons, that led to the formation of the national gov ernment. was the absolute need that the union, not the several states, should deal with interstate and for eign commerce; and the power to deal with interstate commerce was granted absolutely and plenarily to the central government and was ex- ercised completely as regards the only instruments of interstate com merec known in those days-the waterways, the highroads, as well as the partnerships of individuals who then conducted all of what business there was. Interstate commerce is now chiefly conducted by railroads; and the great corporation has sup planted the mass of small partner ships or individuals. The proposal to make the national government su- preme over, and therefore to give it complete control over. the railroads and other instruments of interstate commerce is merely a proposal to carry out to the letter one of the prime purposes. if not the prime pur- pose, for which the constitution was founded. It does not represent cen- traliZation. It represents merely the acknowledgment of the patent fact that centraliZation has already come in business. If this irresponsible out
 side business power is to be con trolled in the interest of the general public it can only be controlled in one way; by giving adequate power of control of the one sovereignty cap able of exercising such power-the national government. Forty or fifty separate governments can not eXer- else that power over corporations doing buisness in most all of them; first, because they absolutely lack the authority to deal with interstate business in any form: and second, because of the inevitable conflict of sure to arise in the effort to enforce different kinds of state often inconsistent with one another and sometimes oppres- sive in themselves. Such divided au-