Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-12-09


 must be made as low as compatibl,
 with giving proper returns to all tht employees of the railroad, from tn, highest to the lowest, and proper re turns to the shareholders, but they mus not, for instance, be reduced in sucf fashion as to necessitate cut in tn, wages of the employees or the abolition
 of the proper and legitimate profits oi honest shareholders
 in interstate business should be put
 under the jurisdiction of the Interstate
 Commerce Commission.
 It is very earnestly to be wished tbai
 our people, through their representa-
 tives, should act in this matter. It i;
 hard to say whether most damage tC
 the country at large would come iron
 entire failure on the part of the pub
 lie to supervise and control the actionr
 of the great corporations, or from tho
 exercise of the necessary governmental
 power in way which would do injus
 tice and wrong to the corporations
 Both the preachers of the unrestricted
 individualism, and the preachers of ar oppression which would deny to abl,
 men of business the just reward oi
 their initiatives and business sagaeity
 are advocating policies that would b,
 fraugbt with the gravest harm to tho
 whole country. To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-defying corpora
 ton, to take any action, no matter how
 iniquitous, in the effort to secure an i'm
 proper profit and to build up privilege
 would be ruinous to the republic. and would mark the abandonment of the effort to secure in the industrial world
 the spirit of democratic fair-dealing On the other hand, to attack these
 wrongs in that spirit of demagogy
 which can see wrong only when com
 mitted by the man of wealth, and is dumb and blind in the presence of wrong committed against men of prop erty or by" men of no property, is ex actly as evil as corruptly to defend the wrongdoing of men of wealth. The wal we wage must be waged against mis- conduct, against wrongdoing whereve, it is found; and we must stand heartily for the rights of every decent man
 whether he be man of great wealth or man who earns bis livelihood as a wage worker or a tiller of the soil
 It is to the interest of all of us thu. there should be a premium put upon individual initiative and individual ca pacity, and an ample reward for the great directing intelligences alone com potent to manage the great business op- erations of today. It is well to keep in mind that exactly as the anarchist is the worst enemy of liberty ani the reactionary the worst enemy of order so the men who defend he rights of property have most to fear from the wrongdoers of great wealth, ard the men who are championing popular rights have most to fear from the dem agogues who in the name of popuiar rights would do wrong to and oppress honest businens men. honest men of wealth; for the success of either tyne of wrongdoer necessarily invites violent reaction against the cause the wrong doer nominally upholds. In point of danger to the nation there is nothing to choose between on the one hand the eorruptionist, 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 clash hatred. the man who, whether from ignorance or from to sacrifice his country to his ambition, persuades well-meanlng but wrong headed men to try to destroy the instruments upon which OCT pros. perIty mainly rests. Let each group of men beware of and guard agains the to which that group s itself most liable. Too often We see the bunincss community in a spirit of class consciousness deplore the effort to hold to account under the law the wealthy men who in thelr man agement of great corporations, whether railroads, street railways. or other in dustrial enterprises, have behaved in way that revolts the conscience or 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 prop erty when they fail heartily to join in the effort to do away with the abuse of wealth. On the other hand, those who advocate proper control on behalf 'i thc pubil', tHIouSH tlic Httle. OI these great corporations, and of the wealth engaged on giant scale in hus. mess operations, must ever keep in mind that unless they do scrupulous justice to the corporation. unless they permit ample profit, and cordially en- courage capable men of business so ong as they act with honesty, they are striking at the root of our national xellbeing; for in the long run. under he mere pressure of material distress, he people as a whole would probably % back to the reign of an unrestricted rather than submit to control by a state so drastic and so 'oolish, conceived in a spirit of such and narrow a hostility to wealth, as to prevent business opera ions from being profitable, and there ore, to bring ruin upon the entire bus- 1 less community, and ultimately upon he entire body of citizens.
 The opposition to government con rol of these great corporations makes ts most effective effort in the shape f an appeal to the old doctrine of 1 tates rights. Of course there are many | incere men who now believe in unre tricted individualism in business. just 8 there were formerly many sincere nen who believed in slavery-that is. | C A..s X- =