Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-04-28
"class Consciousness" Evil.

test nrSt or all against the grOWIn III this country of that evil thing which is called "class consciousness" The demagogpe, the sinister or foolish So- ciallst visionary who strives to arouse this feeling of class consciousness in our working people does foul and evil thing, for he is no true American, he is no self respecting citizen of this republic. He forfeits his right to stand with manly self reliance on footing of entire equality with all other citi- zens, who bows to envy and greed, who erects the doctrine of class hatred into a shibboleth, who substitutes loy- alty to men of particular status, whether rich or poor, for loyalty to those eternal and immutable princi- pies of righteousness which bid us treat each man on his worth as man without regard to his wealth or his poverty.
 But evil though the influence of these demagognes and visionaries is, it is no worse in its consequences than the An- fuence exercised by the man of great wealth or the man of power and posi- tion in the industrial world who by his lack of sympathy with and lack of un- derstanding of, still more by any ex- hibition of uncompromising hostility to, the millions of our working people, tends to unite them against their fel- low Americans who are better off in ic dc ic to teach our working people that men of means, that men who have the lar gest proportion of the substantial con- forts of life, are necessarily greedy, grasping and cold hearted and that they unjustly demand and appropriate more than their share of the substance of the many. Stern condemnation should be visited upon demagogue and visionary who teach this untruth, and even sterner upon those capitalists who are in truth grasping and greedy and brutally disregardful of the rights of others and who by their actions teach the dreadful lesson far more ef- fectively than any mere preacher of unrest A 'class grievance" left too long without remedy breeds ''class consciousness and therefore class re sentiment
 Strengthening of Antitrust Law.
 The strengthening of the antitrust law is demanded upon both moral and economic grounds. Our purpose in strengthening it is to secure more ef- fective control by the national govern ment over the business use of the vast masses of individual, and especially of corporate wealth, which at the present time monopolize most of the interstate business of the country, and we be- lieve the control can best be exercised by preventing the growth of abuses rather than merely by trying to de stroy them when they have already grown. In the highest sense of the word this movement for thorough con- trol of the business use of this great wealth is conservative. We are trying to steer a safe middle course, which alone can save us from a plutocratic class government on the one hand or socialistic class government on the other, either of which would be fraught with disaster to our free insti- tutions, state and national We are trying to avoid alike the evils which would flow from government owner ship of the public utilities, by which interstate commerce is chiefly carried on, and the evils which flow from the riot and chaos of unrestricted individ- ualism There is grave danger to our free institutions In the corrupting in- fuence exercised by great wealth sud denly concentrated in the hands of the few. We should in sane manner try to remedy this danger in spite of the sullen opposition of these few very powerful men and with the full pur- pose to protect them in all their rights at the very time that we require them to deal rightfully with others. When with steam and electricity modern business conditions went through the astounding revolution which in this country began over half century ago. there was at first much hesitation as to what particular governmental agen- cy should be used to grapple with the new conditions. At almost the same time, about twenty years since, the effort was made to control combina- tions by regulating them through the interstate commerce commission and to abolish them by means of the anti f'Ist act. the two remedies therefore being in part mutually incompatible. The interstate commerce law has pro- duced admirable results, especially since it was strengthened by the Hep burn law two years ago. The anti trust law, though 1t worked some good. because anything is better than an- archy and complete absence of regula- ton. nevertheless has proved in many respects not merely inadequate, but mischievous. Twenty years ago the misuse of corporate power had pro duced almost every conceivable form of abuse and had worked the grayest injury to business morality and the public conscience. For a long time federal regulation of interstate com merce had been purely negative, the national judiciary merely acting in iso- lated cases to restrain the state from exercising power which it was clear ly unconstitutional as well as unwise for them to exercise, but which never theless the national government itself failed to exercise. Thus the corpora tions monopolizing commerce made the law for themselves. state power and common Ia r- I.,irr inndonrnfn fo af-