Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-12-10

Lie power Oh lnG COMMISSION should
be made thoroughgoing, so that it
could exercise complete supervision
and control over the issue of securities
as well as over the raising and lower
ing OF rates. AS regards rates, at least
this power should be summary. The
power to investigate the financial op-
erations and accounts of the railways
has been one of the most valuable fea-
lures in recent legislation. Power to
make combinations and traffic agree
ments should be explicitly conferred
upon the railroads, the permission of
the commission being first gained and
the combination or agreement being
published in all its details In the in
terest of the public the representatives
of the public should have complete
power to see that the railroads do their
duty by the public, and as matter Of
course this power should also be exer-
cised so as to see that no injustice is
done to the railroads. The share
holders the employees and the ship
pers all have interests that must be
guarded. 1t is to the interest of all of
them that no swindling stock specula-.
ton should be allowed and that there
should be no improper issuance of Sc
curities. The guiding intelligences nee
essary for the successful building and
successful management of railroads
should receive ample remuneration,
but no man should be allowed to make
money in connection with railroads
out of fraudulent overcapitalizntion
and kindred stock gambling perform
ances. 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
ers, of the employees and of the ship
pers 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 low as is compatible
with giving proper returns to all the
employees of the railroad, from the
highest to the lowest, and proper re-
turns to the shareholders. but they
must not, for instance. be reduced in
such fashion as to necessitate Il cut
in the wages of the employees. or the
abolition of the proper and legitimate
profits of honest shareholders.
Telegraph and telephone companies
engaged in interstate business should
be put under the jurisdiction of the in
terstate commerce commission.
1t is very earnestly to be wished that
our people, through their representa-
tives, should act in this matter 1t is
hard to 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 corporations or from the ex-
ercise of the necessary governmental
power in a way which would do injus-
tice and wrong to the corporations
Both the preachers of an unrestricted
individualism and the preachers of an
oppression which would deny to able
men of business 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 law
less capitalist, every law defying cor
poration, to take any action, no mat
ter how ubiquitous, in the effort to Sc
cure an improper profit and to build
up privilege would be ruinous to the
republic and would mark the abandon
ment of the effort to secure III the in
dustrial world the spirit of democratic.
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 wrongdoing of men of wealth.
The war we wage must be waged
against misconduct. against wrongdo-
ing, 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 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
individual initiative and individual ca
pacity and an ample reward for the
great directing intelligences alone COM
petent to manage the great business
operations of today. 1t is well to keep
in mind that exactly as the anarchist
is the worst enemy of liberty and the
reactionary the worst enemy of order
sc. the men who defend the rights Of
property have most to fear from tue
of great wealth, and the
men who are championing popular
rights have most TO fear from the
who in the name of popu-
lar rights would do wrong to and OPP
press honest business men, honest men !
of wealth, for the success of either
type of wrongdoer necessarily invites
Il violent reaction against the cause the |
Wron2doer nominally upholds. In
point of danger to the nation there is
nothing to choose between, on the one
hand, the corruptionist. the bride giver,
n fol St,n