The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-02-01


the rights of innocent stockholders.
That stockholder is not innocent who vol
UNFAIRLY purchases stock in a corporation
whose methods and management he knows
to be corrupt: and stockholders are bound
to try to secure honest management or
else are estopped from complaining about
the proceedings the government finds nee
essary in order TO compel the corporation
10 obey the law There has been in the
past grave wrong done innocent stock
holders by overcapitalization stock water
Ing, stock jobbing. stock manipulation.
This we have sought to prevent, first, by
exposing the thing done and furnishing the
offender when any existing law had been
Violated second, by recommending the
passage of laws which would make un-
lawful similar practices for the future.
The public men, lawyers and editors who
loudly proclaim their sympathy for the
innocent stockholders" when a great
law-defying corporation is punished, are
the first to protest with frantic vehem-
ence against all efforts by law to put a
stop to the practices which are the renl
and ultimate sources of the damage alike
to the stockholders and the public. The
apologists of successful dishonesty always
declalm against any effort to punish or
prevent it, on the ground that any such
effort will "unsettle business" 1t is they
who by their acts have unsettled busi-
ness; and the very men raising this cry
spend hundreds of thousands of dollars In
securing, by speech, editorial, book or
pamphlet, the defense by misstatements
of what they have done; and yet when
public servants correct their misstate-
ments by telling the truth they disclam
against them for breaking silence. lest
''values be deprecated" They have hurt
honest business men. honest workingmen,
honest farmers; and now they clamor
against the truth being told.
Brazen Protests.
The keynote of all these attacks upon
the effort to secure honesty in business
and in politics is well expressed in brazen
protests against any effort for the moral
regeneration of the business world, on
the ground that It is unnatural unwar-
ranted and injurious, and that business
panic is the necessary penalty for such
effort to secure business honesty. The
morality of such a 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 anything
they mean that those whose sentiments
they represent stand against the effort
to bring about a moral regeneration of
business which will prevent a repetition
of the insurance, banking and street rail-
road scandals in New York; repetition
of the Chicago and Alton deal; a repet-
ton of the combination between certain
professional politicians, certain profess
sional labor leaders, and certain big finan-
ciers, from the disgrace of which San
Francisco has just been rescued; repeti-
tion of the successful effort by the Stand
ard Oil paoDle IN cl1l oh out every pOInDet-
itor, to overawe the common carriers, and
to establish a monopoly which treats the
public with a contempt which the public
deserves so long as 1t permits men of such
principles and such sentiments to aVow
and act on them with impunity. The out
cry against stopping dishonest practices
among wrongdoers who happen to be
wealthy is precisely similar to the outcry
raised against every effort for cleanliness
and decency in city government, because,
forsooth it will ~hurt business" The
same cutlery is made against the depart
ment of justice for prosecuting the heads
of colossal corporations that has been
made against the men who in San Fran
cisco have prosecuted with impartial
severity the wrongdoers among business
men, public officials and labor leaders
alike. The principle is the same in the
two cases. Just as the blackmailer and
DTlDSBlNeo TIC odiic evil Siil-
hence of infamy, so the MAN. who makes
an enormous fortune by corrupting legis-
latures and municipalities and fleeing his
stockholders and the public, stands on the
same moral level with the creature who
fattens on the blood money of the gam
bling house and the saloon Moreover, in
the last analysis, both kinds of corrur-
ton are far more intimately connected
than would at first sight appear; the
- Nv,
rupt business and corrupt politics ACT and
react with ever increasing debasement,
one on the other; the corrupt head of a
corporation and the corrupt labor Leader
are both in the same degree the enemies
of honest corporations and honest labor
unions: the rebate taker, the franchise
trafficker, the manipulation of securities,
the purveyor and protector of vice, the
Matchmaking ward boss, the ballot box
suffer, the demagogue, the mob leader
the hired bully, the manlkiller-all alike
work at the same web of corruption, and
all alike should be abhorred by honest
men.
Kind of Business To Hurt.
The business" which is hurt by the
movement for honesty is the kind of bust
ness which, in the long run, it pays the
country to have hurt 1t is the kind OF
business which has tended to make the
very name high finance a term of scan.
dial to which all honest American men OF
business should join in putting an end
The special pleaders for business dishon-
esty, in denouncing the present admins
tration for enforcing the law against the
huge and corrupt corporations which have
defied the law, also denounce it for en-.
deavoring to secure sadly needed labor
legislation, such as a far-reaching law
making employers liable for injuries tc
their employees. 1t IS meet and fit thai
| the apologists for corrupt wealth shoulc
oppose every effort to relieve weak and
| helpless people from crushing misfortune
brought upon them by injury in the bust
ness from which they gain a bare liveli
hood The burden should be distributed
| IL is hypocritical baseness to speak of >
girl who works in a factory where thu
dangerous machinery is unprotected al
| having the right freely to contract Il
| expose herself to dangers to life and limb
| She has no alternative but to suffer wan
or else to expose herself to such dangers