The Ely miner., 1908-02-07

curing. by speech. editorial, book. or
pamphlet, the defense by misstate-
ments me , OF what what, they have done; and
misstatements by telling the truth they
declaim against them for breaking
silence, lest values be deprecated"
They have hurt honest business men,
honest working men, honest farmers;
ana now they clamor against the truth
being told.
The Keynote of all these attacks
upon the effort to secure honesty in
business and in politics is we'll ex-
pressed in brazen protests against any
effort for the moral regeneration of the
business world, on the ground that it is
unnatural, unwarrantetd and injurious,
and that business panic is the neces-
business honesty. The morality Of
such 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 any
thing they mean that those whose SEN
timents they represent stand against
the effort to bring about a moral re-
generation of business, which will pre-
vent a repetition Of the insurance,
banking and street railroad scandals in
& Alton deal; repetition of the com,
bination between certain professional
politicians, certain professional labor
from the disgrace of which San Fran,
cisco has just been rescued; a repeti-
ton of the successful effort by the
competitor, to overawe the common
carriers. and to establish monopoly
which treats the public with a con-
tempt which the public deserves so
long as 1T permits men of such prin-
ciples and sentiments to avow and act
on them with impunity. The outcry
against stopping dishonest practices
among wrongdoers who happen to be
wealthy is precisely similar to the out
cry raised against every effort for
cleanliness and decency in city gov
The sa@e optcry IT w Is
made against the department of JUS
tice for prosecuting the heads of colos-
sal corporations that has been made
against the men who in San Francisco
have prosecuted with impartial seyer-
ity the wrongdoerS among business
men. public officials and labor leaders
alike. The principle is the same in
the two cases. Just as the blackmail-
er and bribe giver stand on the same
evil eminence of infamy, so the man
corrupting legislatures and municipal
tiles and fleeing his stockholders and
the public, stands on the same moral
level with the creature who fattens on
and the saloon. Moreover. in the last
analysis, both kinds of corruption are
far more intimately connected than
would at first sight appear; the wrong
doing is at bottom the same. Corrupt
business and corrupt politics act and
react with ever increasing debase-
head of corporation and the corrupt
labor leader are both in the same de-
gree the enemies of honest corpora
tons and honest labor unions; the re-
the manipulation of securities. the pur-
veyor and protector of vice, the black
mailing ward boss. the ballot-box stuff
er. the demagogue, the mob leader, the
hired bully, and man -killer-all alike
work at the same web of corruption.
and all alike should be abhorred by
honest men.
The business" which is hurt by the
movement for honesty is the kind Of
business which. in the long run. 1t
pays the country to have hurt. 1t is
to make the very name high finance" a
term of scandal to which all honest
American men of business should join
ers for business dishonesty. in denounc-
ing the present administration for en-
forcing the law against the huge and
corrupt corporations which have defied
the law. also denounce it for endeavor-
ing to secure sadly needed labor legis-
lation, such as a far-reaching law max
ing employers liable for injuries to
their employees.
"Business" Hurt by Movement
for Honesty Should Be Crushed
1t is meet and fit that the apologists
for corrupt wealth should oppose every
effort to relieve weak and helpless peo-
upon them by injury in the business
from which they gain bare livelihood.
The burden should be distributed. It
is hypocritical baseness to speak of a
girl who works in factory where the
dangerous machinery is unprotected as
having the right" freely to contract
to expose herself to dangers to life and
limb. She has no alternative but to
suffer want or else to expose herself to
such dangers. and when she loses a
hand or is otherwise MANNED or disfig-
the whole burden of the risk necessarily
incidental to the business should be
placed with crushing weight upon her
weak shoulders, and all who profit by
her work escape scot-free. This is
what opponents of a just employers
liability law advocate; and it is con-
sistent that they should usually also
advocate immunity for those most dan
gerous members of the criminal class
the criminals of great wealth.
Our opponents have recently been
bitterly. criticising the two judges re-
ferred to in the accompanying commu-
nications from the Standard Oil Com
pany and the Stata Fe railroad for hav-
ing imposed heavy fines on these two
les of these two judges exhaust them
selves in denouncing the most re-
spectful and cautious discussion of
the official action of a judge which re-
suits in immunity to wealth and power
full wrongdoers. or which renders nuga-
tory a temperate effort to better the
conditions of life and work among
those of our fellow countrymen whose
need is greatest. Most certainly it be-
hooves us all to treat with the utmost
respect the high Office of Judge; and
our judges, as whole, are brave and
upright men; Respect for the law
must go hand in hand with respect for
the judges; and, as whole. it is true
now as in the past. that the judges
stand in character and service above
all other men among their fellow
servants of the public. There is all
the greater need that the few who fail
in this great Office who fall below this
high standard Of integrity, of wisdom.
of sympathetic understanding and of
courage, should have their eyes opened
to the needs of their countrymen. A
judge who on the bench either truckles
to the mob and Shrinks from sternly
repressing violence and disorder, or
bows down before a corporations: who
fails to stand up valiantly for the
rights of property on the one hand, or
on the other by misuse of the process
of injunction or by his attitude toward
all measures for the betterment of the
conditions of labor, makes the wage
worker feel with bitterness that the
courts are hostile to him; or who fails
to realize that all public servants in
their several stations must strive to
stop the abuses of the criminal rich
such a man performs an even worse
service to the body polite than the
Legislation or execufive xuho oooC