Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-12-11

or the SOL
It IN to the interest OF all of US that there
should be a premium put upon individual
initiative and individual capacity, and an
ample reward for the great directing intel
LICENCES alone competent to manage the
great business operations Of today. 1t is
we'll to keep in mind that exactly as the
anarchist Is the worst e,-emy or nDerV
and the reactionary the W 'rst enemy OF or
der, SO the men who defend the rights OF
property have most to fear from the wrong
doors of great wealth, and the men VINO
are championing popular rights have most
to fear from the demagogues who III the
name of popular rights would do wrong TO
and Cypress honest business men e3 no tHne
of wrongdoer necessarily invites a violent
reaction against the cause the wrongdoer
nominally upholds; In point of danger to
tween on the one hand the corruption1st,
the bribe-giver, the bribe-t aker the man
who employs his great talent to sw1ndle
his fellow-citizens on a large scale, and,
on the other hand, the preacher of class
hatred, the man who, whether from ig-
norance or from willingness to sacrifice his
country TO his ambition, perSuadeS we'll
meaning but wrong headed men to try to
destroy the instruments upon which our
prosperity mainly rests. Let each group OF
men beware of and guard against. the
most liable. Too often we see the business
community in a spirit of unhealthy class
consciousness deplore the effort to hold to
account under the law the wealthy men
who in their management of great corpor-
atoms, whether railroads, street railways,
or other industrial enterprises, have be-
hayed in a way that revoltS the conscience
of the plain, decent people. Such an atti-
tude cannot 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 eff
fort to do away with the abuses of wealth.
On the other hand, those who advocate
proper control on behalf of the public,
through the state, of these great corpora
lions. and of the wealth engaged on
giant scale in business operations, must
ever keep in mind that unless they do
scrupuous justice to the corporation, I'M
less they permit ample profit, and cordial
" encourage capable men of business so
long as they act with honesty, they are
striking at the root of our national we'll
being; for in the long run, under the mere
pressure of material distress, the people as
whole would probably go back to the
rather than submit to a control by the
state so drastic and so foolish, conceived
in spirit of such unreasonable and mar
row hostility to wealth, as to prevent bust
therefore to bring ruin upon the entire
business community, and ultimately upon
| the entire body of citizens.
The opposition to government control of
these great corporations makes it's most
! effective effort in the shape of an appeal
| to the old doctrine of states rights. Of
| now believe in unrestricted individualism
| in business just as there were formerly
many sincere men who believed In slavery
| that is, in the unrestricted right Of IN in
dividual to own another individual. These
| men do not by themselves have great
weight, however. The effective fight
supervision of Individual, and espe s.
cially of corporate, wealth engaged
in interstate business is chiefly done under
cover; and especially under cover of an ap-
frequent to read in the same speech a de-
nunciation of predatory, wealth fostered by
f, special privilege and defiant of both the
I public welfare and law of the land, and a
denunciation of Capitalization in the cen
! tral government of the power to deal with
this centralized and organized wealth. OF
| denunciations amounts to absolutely moth
ing, for the first half is nullifed by the
second half; The chief reason, among the
| many sound ana compelling reasons, that
led to the formation Of the national gov
eminent, was the absolute need that the
Union, and not the several states, should
deal with interstate and foreign commerce;
and the power to deal with interstate COM
merce was granted absolutely and plenar1ly
| to the central government and was exer-
ctsed completely as regards the only instru-
ments of interstate commerce known In
those days-the waterways, the highroads,
as well as the partnerships of individuals
there was. Interstate commerce is now
chiefly conducted by railroads; and the
great corporation has supplanted the mass
/ proposal to make the national government
supreme over, and therefore to give it
complete control over. the railroads and
| is merely a proposal to carry out to the
letter one of the prime purposes, if not the
prime purpose, for which the constitution
! was founded. 1t does not represent CEN
| tralization It represents merely the ac
acknowledgement Of the patent fact that
Capitalization has already come in business.
| If this irresponsible outside business pow
er is to be controlled in the interest of the
| general public 1t can only be controlled in
one way; by giving adequate power of con-
| troll of the one sovereignty capable of ex-
| ercising such power-the national govern
| ment. Forty or fifty separate state govern
| ments can not exercise that power over
of them; first because they absolutely lack
the authority to deal with interstate bust
| ness in any form; and second, because Of
! the inevitable conflict of authority sure to
| arise in the effort to enforce different kinds
! of state regulation often inconsistent with
one another and sometimes oppressive in
| themselves. Such divided authority can
not regulate commerce with wisdom ana
! effect. The central government is the only
power which, without oppression, can new
ertheless thoroughly and adequately con-
| troll and supervise the large corporations.
| To abandon the effort for national control
means to abandon the effort for all ade
| quate control and yet to render likely con-
tinual bursts Of action by state Legisla-
| lures which can not achieve the purpose
sought for, but which can do a great deal
| ferring any real benefit on the public
1 believe that the more farslghted cor
| porations are themselves coming to recog-
nize the unwisdom Of the violent hostility
they have displayed during the last few
years to regulation and control by the ma
tional government of combinations en-
| gagged in interstate business. The truth is
that we who believe in this movement Of
| asserting and exercising a genuine control,
in the public interest, over these great cor
I porations have to contend against two sets
of enemies, who, though nominally opposed
to one another, are really allies in prevent
ing proper solution of the problem. There
are, first, the big corporation men, and the
extreme indiyidualists among business
men, who genuinely believe In utterly I'm.
plutocracy; and, second, the men who, be-
! Ing blind to the economic movements Of
the day, believe in a movement Of repres-
sion rather than of regulation of corpora
lions, and who denounce both the power
! of the railroads and the exercise of the
| federal power which alone can really COLI
/ troll the railroads. Those who believe in
| efficient national control, on the other