Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1908-06-25
He will be Whom the De-
mOCraCy NOminates.
The Keynote of the Coming Campaign
was Sounded in the Republican
Matt .,ai Convention YeSter-
day by cohems. of
Wisconsin.
Special to the ARGUS.

Special to the ARGUS.
No truer analysis of the economic
conditions of the time; no bolder dag
nosis of the case from a political
standpoint of responsibility; no more
effective slogan for Democracy in the
coming campaign could be presented
to the country than the speech of Henry
F. Cochems, of Wisconsin, yesterday
before the Repu blican National con-
vention, in Chicago, nominating Rob't.
M. La Follettee for the presidency.
We make the following pertinent ex-
tracts from that speech:
The paramount problem pressing for
solution today has no parallel in the
economic or industrial history of man.
1t is an issue, not of the creation Of
new wealth, it is an issue of the as
similation and distribution of wealth
now being normally created; the ship
ping and consuming classes are awake
and they demand relief.
sat the close of the Civil War the
business of the nation was conducted
essentially by private individuals. In
the commercial expansion caused by
the telegraph, the telephone, the rail-
road, and the extension of banking
credits, the necessity for larger aggre-
gate units of capital arose and the cor
porate idea grew. Added to this the
established policy of the country in
order to urge the strenuous advance OF
Railroad building and other public
service utilities, granted away with
out compensation to the State, not only
puslic franchise rights of measureless
value, but with them offered huge bon
uses to drive them yet more rapidly
forward. With characteristic impa-
thence we sought to develop the full re-
sources of the natien in a single gener-
alton.
The evolution wrought by the these
new forces alone changed the whole
face of national economics and indus
try. Then came the merger, the trust,
the Capitalization OF competitive forces,
until today a comparatively few in
dividuals dominate the field OF trans
portation and franchise corporations,
and in the field of industrial corpo-
rations nearly every commodity, in
mark ct and i'm price, is controlled by
single unit of capital. Individualism
is dead. Competition has ceased to be
a vital force. The orbit of a single
business often now reaches to the ut
termost limits of the civilized world.
Iii
public is in tho hands of the few. A
close community ofinterest, an alliance
for offense and defense, has been es-
tablished which recognizes spheres of
special territory and influence. This
alliance is made real and living thing
by means of bank control and the
stock market. The necessity for a
market for corporate securities finds
its expression in the stock exchange
where the ignorant and the innocent
are washed back and fourth through
the market by these few kings of in
dustry, who govern the price of Sc
curities at will.
''Our failure to revise the tariff has
contri ibuted to these conditions. Seven
years ago Mckinley appealed to the
party to revise. For seven years we
have marched through the waters of
the Red Sea and the waters have been
withheld by the hands of the patient
suffrage. In the wonderful change thus
wrought we have leaped from the field
of individualism and competition into
the new era of corporate monopoly and
government regulation. The epoch and
the problem are new. The response
bility is overwhelming. Today the
kings of industry and finance stand
like sentinels upon every highway of
the nations commerce, industry, and
wealth distribution. appropriating to
themselves what they will and yield
ing to the ninety nine per cent what
they want. In a time of profound
peace and prosperity we find ourselves
in the throes of panic, an army of the
idle still march with the empty dinner
pals. Whether a man or a set of men
precipitated that panic, I do not know,
but whether they did orsdid not, I de-
clare that no sane Rman will rise to
challenge the statement that at their
whim or caprice they could precipitate