The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-12-08

ing profitable and therefore to bring
ruin upon the entire business com
munity and ultimately upon the en-
tire body of citizens
The opposition to government con-
troll of these great corporations makes
its most effective effort in the shape
of an appeal to the old doctrine of
states rights. OF course there are
many sincere men who now believe in
unrestricted individualism in business,
just as there were formerly many sim
cere men who believed in slavery
that is. in the unrestricted right of an
individual to own another individual.
These men do not by themselves have
great weight, however. The effective
fight against adequate government
control and supervision of individual,
and especially of corporate, wealth en-
gagged in interstate business is chiefly
done under cover and especially I'M
der cover of an appeal TO states
rights. 1t is not at all infrequent to
read in the same speech denuncia-
ton of predatory wealth fostered by
special privilege and defiant of both
the public welfare and law of the
land and a denunciation of centraliZa-
ton in the central government of the
power TO deal with this centralized
and organized wealth. OF course the
policy set forth in such twin denuncia-
tons amounts to absolutely nothing,
| for the first half is nullified by the
second half. The chief reason among
the many sound and compelling rea-
! sons that led to the formation of the
national government was the absolute
need that the Union and not the sew
eral states should deal with interstate
and foreign commerce, and the power
! to deal with interstate commerce was
| granted absolutely and plenarly to
| the central government and was eNer
cised completely as regards the only
instruments of interstate commerce
known in those days-the waterways,
the highroads-as well as the partner
| ships of individuals who then conduct
ed all of what business there was.
Interstate commerce is now chiefly
conducted by railroads, and the great
corporation has supplanted the mass
/ of small partnerships or individuals
The proposal to make the national
government supreme over, and there
fore to give it complete control over,
the railroads and other instruments of
interstate commerce is merely pro-
posal to carry out to the letter one of
the prime purposes, if not the prime
| purpose, for which the constitution
was founded. 1t does not represent
Capitalization. 1t represents merely
the acknowledgment of the patent fact
that Capitalization has already come
in business. If this irresponsible out
side business power is to be controlled
in the interest of the general public
it can only be controlled in one way.
by giving adequate power of control to
the one sovereignty capable of eXer-
cising such poWer-the national gov
eminent. Forty or fifty separate state
| governments cannot exercise that
| power over corporations doing bust
ness in most or all of them. first. be-
| cause they absolutely lack the author
| ity to deal with interstate business i'll
any form and. second, because of the
inevitable conflict of authority sure to
| arise in the effort to enforce different
| kinds of state regulation. often incon-
| SiStent with one another and some
| times oppressive in themselves. Such
divided authority cannot regulate COM
merce with wisdom and effect. The
central government is the only power
which without oppression can never
theless thoroughly and adequately
control and supervise the large cor
porations. To abandon the effort for
national control means to abandon the
effort for all adequate control and
| Vpt i1-a1 ,,f
action by state legislatures. which
cannot achieve the purpose sought for
but which can do great deal of dam
age to the corporation without confer
ring any real benefit on the public
l believe that the more farsighted
corporations are themselves coming to
| recognize the unwisdom of the violent
hostility they have displayed during
the last few years to regulation and
control by the national government of
| combinations engaged in interstate
| business. The truth is that we who
| believe in this movement of asserting
and exercising Il genuine control i'll the
| pubic interest over these great corpo-
| rationS have to contend against two
sets of enemies, who, though nominal
ly opposed to one another, are really
allies in preventing Il proper solution
of the problem. There are, first, the
big corporation men and the extreme
individualists among business men
who genuinely believe in utterly I'M
| regulated buSineSS-that is, in the reign
of plutocracy-and, second, the men
who, being blind to the economic
| movements of the day, believe in A
movement of repression rather than of
regulation of corporations and who de-
nounce both the power of the railroads
and the e>>~cise of the federal power
| which alone can Ncally control the rail-
| roads. Those who believe in efficient
national control, on the other hand, do
| not in the least object to combina tons;
do not in the least object to concentra-
ton in business administration. On
the contrary, they favor both. with the
all important proyiso that there shall be
such publicity about their workings
and such thoroughgoing control over
them as to insure their being in the
interest and not against the interest of
the general public We do not object
to the concentration of wealth and add
| ministration. but We do believe in the
4 CT ri h1ti nf ha N RI