Los Angeles herald., 1908-10-22
"WHOLE-HOG

H. saying, with the increased
Ae business of the railroads in the
next ten years, one man out of every
six of our adult population will be
railroad employe, or a total of 100000
employees" Mr.. Hartman might have
added that at the present rate of ac-
QUESTION before ten years will have ex-
pired he will be the owner of the rail-
roads which have these employees. and
not only will control the entire steam
railways system, but will have large
interest In street railways. In other
words, many students believe Mr.. Har-
riman will ultimately own the entire
machinery OF transportation of pas
sengers and distribution of the necessi-
ties of life.
Hartman contemplates the most gil
gantic and tyrannical monopoly ever
ruled by one single despot. Modern So
ciety is not yet alive to the fact that
commercial tyranny in republic is as
evil as political tyranny. Indeed.
tyrannous control of the necessities
of life is a more savage and far reach
ing attack on liberty han any legisla-
ton governing conduct or attempting
to direct it into channels providing the
greatest good for special interests and
not for the greatest number of cfti-
zens.
Harrimanism is the bane of Amer
icanism, and a tyranny like that con-
tenplated by the ambitious Hartman
program is a menace to this repuo-
lie.
With the present gigantic steel trust
merged into a metal trust controlling
the entire output Of the mines, the lum-
Der trust owning the forests, and
completely organized food trust, the
most malevolent octopus of all, with
tentacles in all directions, social con-
ditions should give pause to any citi-
zen who uses his powers of observa-
tion and reflection. The fact that all
kinds of trusts are not merely possible.
but actual or probable in a Republican
regime is the most alarming with
which students of economics are con-
fronted.
A political oligarchy is impossible in
the United States. Fortunately for
themselves the people are resenting
even the suggestion that small clique
has taken possession of the executive
mansion. And yet the nation groans
under an oligarchical commercial sys-
tenn substituted for that free and un-
restricted American plan by which the
greatest good was assured to the
greatest number. It has been we'll said
Republicanism has attempted to make
of the United States an inverted pyra-
mid, and has put the smaller or apex
interests where the basic interests
should be, instead of realizing that II
the basis of society is firm and strong
and sound the superstructure will be
solid and enduring.
The election of Mr.. Taft would per-
petuate the commercial oligarchy and
the results that might be anticipated
can be gathered from the fact the So
cialists say they are in favor of his
election. They see the oligarchic trend
of the Republican party and hold that
the sooner all the oligarchies can be
combined into one inevitable final oli-
garchy the better it will be for the
cause they advocate. They say the
sooner an oligarchy controls the pro-
duction and distribution of all the
necessities of life, that much sooner
will society in search of relief and
remedy resort to what they term not
confiscation, but restoration to the peo-
pie Of the wealth they have created.
Many Socialists have declared they will
do everything to bring about the cleo
ton of the Republican candidate ex-
cept vote for him.
With Democracy successful there
will be no reason to fear the destruc-
ton of American institutions and the
substitution of an untried system into
which the nation would be plunged by
experimentalists and theorists who by
the Republican failure to make good"
would have won a chance to assert
themselves and obtrude their plans on
the vexed and distraught public. The
Socialists call their proposed substitute
for the present United States the "co-
operative commonwealth" but the pro-
posals of the commonwealth agitators
are in the nature of iridescent dreams,
while the members Of the Democratic