The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-09

1 by executive action, to prevent or put
 stop to every form of improper favorit-
 ism or other wrongdoing
 The railways of the country should be | put completely under the interstate com
 meree commission and removed from the domain of the antitrust law The power of the commission should be made thor l oughgoing, so that it could exercise eoni- | plete supervision and control over the is- | sues of securities as well as over the rais- | ing and lowering of rates. As regards
 rates, at least, this power should be sum | mary. The power to investigate the | financial operations and accounts of the | railways has been one of the most valu- | able features in recent legislation. Power
 to make combinations and traffic agree1. ments should be explicitly conferred upon | the railroads, the permission of the com mission being first gained and the combin-
 ation or agreement being published in all | it's details. In the interest of the public the representatives of the public should have complete power to see that the rail
 roads do their duty by the public, and as a matter of cohrse this power should also
 be exercised so as to see that no injus- ] tice is done to the railroads. The share l holders, the employees and the shippers all , have interests that must be guarded. It is
 to the interest of all of them that no | swindling stock speculation should be all l lowed, and that there should be no i'm ! proper issuance of securities. The guiding 1 intelligences necessary for the successful
 building and successful management of
 railroads should receive ample remuner 1 aton; but no man should be allowed to make money in connection with railroads | out of fraudulent over-capitalization and | kindred stock gambling performances; | there must be no defrauding of investors,
 oppression of the farmers and business
 men who ship freight, or callous disregard
 of the rights and needs of the employees. | In addition to this the interests of all
 shareholders, of the employees and of the | shippers should all be guarded as against ! one another. To give any one of them
 undue and improper consideration is to do | injustice to the others. Rates must be
 made as tow as is compatible with giving
 proper returns to all the employees of the
 railroad, 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 a
 cut in the wages of the employees or the
 abolition of the proper and legitimate | profits of honest shareholders.
 Telegraph and telephone companies en- 1 gagged in interstate business should be put
 under the jurisdiction of the interstate 1 commerce commission.
 ] It is very earnestly to be wished that l | should act in this matter. It is hard to l say whether most damage to the country | at large would come from entire failure | on the part of the public to supervise and
 control the actions of the great corpora | tions, or from the exercise of the neces-
 sary governmental power in way which
 would do injustice and wrong to the cor l porations. Both the preachers of an un-
 restricted individualism, and the preach 1 xxyl1io iof
 able men of business the just reward of | their initiative and business sagacity, are 1 advocating policies that would be fraught | with the gravest harm to the whole coun- | try. To permit every lawless capitalist | every law-defying corporation, to take | any action, no matter how iniqutous, in ! the effort to secure an improper profit | and to build up privilege, would be ruin l ous to the republic and would mark the
 abandonment of the effort to secure in 1 the industrial world the spirit of demo- | cratic fair dealing. On the other hand,
 to attack these wrongs in that spirit of | demagogy 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 wrong
 doing of men of wealth The war we 1 wage must be waged against misconduct, l against wrongdoing wherever 1t Is found; ! and we must stand heartily for the rights I of every decent man, whether he be a | man of great wealth or man who earns
 his livelihood as wageworker or tiller l of the soil.
 | 1t is to the interest of all of us that 1 there should be premium put upon in diyidual initiative and individual ca | pacity, and an ample reward for the great
 directing intelligences alone competent to | manage the great business operations Of
 today It is well to keep in mind that 1 exactly as the anarchist is the worst en- | emy of liberty and the reactionary the
 worst enemy of order, so the men who ! defend the rights of property have most | to fear from the wrongdoers Of great I wealth. and the men who are champion
 ing popular rights have most to fear from the demagogues who in the name l of popular rights would do wrong to and | oppress honest business men, honest men l of wealth; for the success of either type
 of wrongdoers necessarily invites ylo-
 lent reaction against the cause the wrong
 doer nominally upholds. In point of dan-
 ger to the nation there is nothing to l choose between on the one hand the cor ruptionst, the bribe-giver, the bribe- taler. the man who employs his great tal- l ent to swindle his fellow citizens on large scale, and. on the other hand, the 1 preacher of class hatred, the man who, | whether from ignorance or from willing ness to sacrifice his country to his ambi- tion, persuades well-meaning but wrong headed men to try to destroy the instru- ments upon which our prosperity mainly rests Let each group of men beware of and guard against the shortcomings to which that group is itseff most liable. | Too often we see the business community in a spirit of unhealthy class conscious
 ness deplore the effort to hold to account under the law the wealthy men who in their management of great corporations, whether railroads, street railways or other | industrial enterprises, have behaved in a
 way that revolts the conscience of the | plain, decent people. Such an attitude
 cannot be condemned too severely, for men of property should recognize that ] they jeopardize the rights of property l when they fail heartily to join in the ef- fort to do away with the abuses of
 wealth. On the other hand, those who ad- l yocate proper control on behalf of the | public, through the state, of these great l corporatlons and of the wealth engaged | on a giant scale in business operations, must ever keep in mind that unless they | do scrupulous justice to the corporation, | unless they permit ample profit. and cor dially 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 reign of an unrestricted individ- ualism rather than submit to a.control by the state so drastic and so foolish, con-
 ceived in spirit of such unreasonable