Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1909-12-28
REAL POWER OF GOVERNMENT.

REAL POWER OF GOVERNMENT.
So it is now, so it will be. What
ever Business wants it will have, not
through the superior or malign wit
of man or any set of men, and not
through conscious planning, but be-
cause. in the present condition of So
ciety, the very first necessity over
topping all else, the first of all con-
siderations and purposes, is that
Business shall go on, says Charles
Edward Russell in Success Maya
zine' in his series entitled "The
Power Behind the Republic 1t
must go on; a great, primal, blind,
resistless, universal necessity keeps
driving it on. 1t must not be inter-
fered with, stopped, hindered or ques-
toned. It will trample over what
ever is in its way as a great herd OF
buffalo on the plains used to trample
over a wayfarer-without the least
ill-will, unconsciously, unintentional-
ly and merely because it must go on,
Nothing must stop it; it is the ma
TONS heart.
The story of the attempts in the
face of Business to reduce the tariff
is but an example of all attempts to
do anything whatsoever, great or
small, in opposition to the will of
Business. Exactly the same fate has
attended every such attempt, no mat
ter where made or by whom or when
or how or for what purpose. See if
I am not right. Who, for example,
can, without laughter, contemplate
the attempts of the last thirty years
to regulate railroad rates and to re-
strain the corporations? I mean
when we come to regard these at
tempts as they really are, freed from
subterfuge and hypocrisy. The Reg
an bill is succeeded by the Cullum
bill, the Cullum bill by the Elkins
bill, the Elkins bill by the Hepburn
bill, and how futile, absurd and COM
ic looks the whole procession. Not
one of them achieving one result be-
yond negligible oratory and jobs for
the deserving. After it all American
railroad rates remain unregulated
and also remain the most arbitrary,
unreasonable, Illogical rates in the
world. Business is opposed to rate
re-; dlation; hence there is none.
No one can lay finger on one case
where the reform movement, how
ever augustly engineered, has sue
ceeded in regulating, checking or re-
straining the corporation end of Bus
mess. Try it and see. Run over the
long list Of regulative activities and
if you mention one that has effected
any essential change or been other
than fat failure I will award you a
prize. Do you select the fines lately
roads for rebating and the like?
Dear unsophisticated soul, those fines
were never paid by the railroad COM
panies; they were paid by you and
me. AS for rebating, that goes on
its sweet simple way as of yore. Or
do you think of meat inspection?
That is a jest. Or of the pure food
law? I know man who is writing
a comic opera about that.
The fact Is, the reformers cannot
induce government to control Bust
ness because government is not gov
eminent but only business. Gov
ernrent is business and business is
the government and government
cannot very well proceed against it.
self. We hate to acknowledge the
truth about the situation; the con-
trary pretense Is so pleasing and IT,
tiiIating, but consider impartially the
facts here set forth, and If one flaw
can be discovered in the conclusion
that business is the real government.
please kindly call attention thereto.
Business is the sole power, national I,
state and local. Whatever attempts
may be made to proceed indepen-
IDENTITY Of or adversely to business is
merely illusion for effect upon the
s ~. -.