Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1908-12-10


the great corporations which are the
most important factors in modern bust
ness. believe that it is worse than
folly to attempt to prohibit all COM
binations as is done by the Sherman
antitrust law, because such law can
be enforced only imperfectly and un-5
equally, and its enforcement works al
most as much hardship as good.
strongly advocate that instead Of an un-5
wise effort to prohibit all combinations,
there shall be substituted law which
shall expressly permit combinations
which are In the interest of the public,
but shall at the same time give to some
agency in the national government full
power Of control and supervision over
them. One Of the chief features OF this
control should be securing entire pup
licity in all matters which the public
has a right to know, and furthermore,
the power, not by judicial but by execu-5
tive action, to prevent or put a stop to
every form of improper favoritism or
other wrongdoing.
The railways Of the country should be
put completely under the interstate COM
merce commission and removed from
the domain of the antitrust law The
power of the commission should be made
thoroughgoing, so that it could exercise
complete supervision and control over.
the issue of securities as we'll as over
the raising and lowering of rates. AS
regards rates, at least, this power should
be summary The power to investigate
the financial operations and accounts of
the railways has been one of the most
valuable features in recent legislation.
Power to make combinations and traffic
agreements should be explicitly conferred
upon the railroads, the permission of the
commission being first gained and the
n,,+ 1~@Sp y,
hshed in all it's details. In the interest
of the public the representatives of the
public should have complete power to
see that, the railroads do their duty by
the pubic, and as matter of course
this power should also be exercised so as
to see that no injustice is done to the
railroads. The shareholders, the en-
ployes and the shippers all have interests
that must be guarded It is to the in
terest of all of them that no swindling
stock. speculation should be allowed, and
that there should be no improper issu-
ance of securities. The guiding intelli-
gences necessary for the successful build
ing and successful management of rail-
roads should receive ample remunera-
ton; but no man should be allowed to
make money in connection with railroads
out OF fraudulent over-capitalization and
kindred Safeguarding performances;
ors, oppression Of the farmers and bust
ness men who ship freight or callous
diregard Of the rights and needs of the
employees. In addition to this the inter-
ests Of the shareholders, of the employees
and Of the shippers should all be
guarded as against one another. To
give any one Of them undue and i'm
proper consideration is to do injustice to
the others. Rates must be made as low
as is compatible with giving proper re-
turns to all the employees of the rail
road, from the highest to the lowest,
and proper returns to the shareholders,
but they must not, for instance, be re-
duced in such fashion as to necessitate
cut in the wages of the employees or
the abolition Of the proper and legitimate
profits of honest shareholders.
Telegraph and telephone companies en-
gagged in interstate business should be
put under the jurisdiction of the inter-
state commerce commission.
People Urged to Act.
It is very earnestly to be wished that
our people, through their representatives,
should act in this matter. It is hard to
say whether most damage to the coun-
try at large would come from entire
failure on the part of the public to SUI
pervise and control the actions of the
great corporations, or from the exercise
Of the necessary governmental power in
way which would do injustice and
wrong to the corporations. Both the
preachers of unrestricted tndividualism
and the preachers of an oppression
which would deny to able men of bust
ness the just reward of their initiative
and business sagacity, are advocating
policies that would be fraught with the
gravest harm to the whole country. To
permit every lawless capitalist, every
law-defying corporation, to take any. ac-
ton, no matter how iniquitous, in the
effort to secure an improper profit and
to build UP privilege, would be ruinous
to the republic and would mark the aban-
donment of the effort to secure in the in
dustrial world the spirit of democratic
fair-dealing. On the other hand, to at
tack these wrongs in that spirit Of dem
agogy which can see wrong only when
committed by the man of wealth, and is
dumb and blind in the presence of wrong
committed against men of property or by
men of no property, is exactly as evil
as corruptly to defend the wrongdoing
must be waged against misconduct,
against wrongdoing wherever it is found;
and we must stand heartily for the
rights of every decent man, whether he
be a man of great wealth or a man who
earns his livelihood as wageworker or
tiller of the soil.
1t is to the interest Of all of us that
there should be premium put upon in
1vidual initiative and individual ca
pacity, ana an ample reward for the
great directing intelligences alone COM
petent to manage the great business OPP
erations of to-day. It is well to keep in
mind that exactly as the anarchist is the
worst enemy of liberty and the reaction
airy the worst enemy Of order, so the
men who defend the rights Of property
have most to fear from the wrongdoers
Of great wealth, and the men who are
championing popular rights have most
to fear from the demagogues who in the
name of popular rights would do wrong
to and Cypress honest business men,
honest men Of wealth; for the success OF
either type of wrongdoer necessarily in
vites a violent reaction against the cause
the wrongdoer noninally upholds. In
point Of danger to the nation there is
nothing to choose between on the one
hand the corruptionist, the BRIDE giver,
the bribe-taker, the man who employs
his great talent to swindle his fellow
citizens on large scale, and, on the
other hand, the preacher of class hatred,
the man who, whether from ignorance
or from willingness to sacrifice his coun-
II %So,,