The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1910-09-02

lead to a war upon the owners Of prop
erty. Property is the fruit of labor; prop
erty is desirable is positive good in
the world Let not him who is houseless
I pull down the house of another, but let
him work diligently and build one for
himself. thus by example showing that
| his own shall be safe from violence when
| built" 1t seems to me that in these
words Lincoln took substantially the atti-
| tude that we ought to take; he showed
the proper sense of proportion in his rela-
| tive estimates of capital and labor, of
human rights and property rights. Above
| all, in this speech as in many others, he
taught lesson in wise kindness and
| charity; an indispensable lesson to us of
| today. But this wise kindness and char
| lty never weakened his arm or numbed
his heart. We cannot afford weakly to
blind ourselves to the actual conflict
which faces us today. The issue is join
ed, and we must fight or fail.
Equality of Opportunity.
In every wise struggle for human bet
terment one Of the main objects, and
often the only object, has been to achieve
In larger measure equality of opportunity.
In the struggle for this great end. ma
tons rise from barbarism to civilization,
and through it peoples press forward from
one stage or enlightenment to the next.
| One of the chief factors in progress is
the destruction of special privilege. The
essence OF any struggle for healthy lib
De TO take from some one man or class
| OF men the right to enjoy power, or
wealth, or position. or immunity which
has not been learned by service to his
or their fellows.
| At many stages in the advance Of HUI
mainly this conflict between the men who
| possess more than they have earned and
| the men who have earned more than they
possess is the central condition of prog
ress. In our day 1t appears as the strug
| gle OF free men to gain and hold the
right OF self-governnent as against the
I special interests, who twist the methods
OF free government into machinery for
defeating the popular will. AT every
| stage and under all circumstances the
essence of the struggle is to equalize OPP
portunity, destroy privilege, and give to
| the lie and citizenship Of every individ-
ual the highest possible value both to
himself and to the commonwealth.
Practical equality of opportunity for all
citizens. when We achieve it, will have
two great results. First, every man will
nave fair chance to make of himself all
that In him lies. to reach the highest point
| TO which his capacities, unassisted by
| special privilege Of his own and unham-
| pered by the special privileges Of Others
can carry him, and to get for himself
and his family substantially what he has
earned. Second, equality Of opportunity
from every citizen the highest service Of
| which he Is capable. No man who car
ries the burden of the special privileges
or another. can give to the commonwealth
that service to which 1t is fairly en-
titled
| 1 stand for the square deal. But when
L say that I am for the square deal
mean not merely that I stand for fair
play under the 'present rules of the game
but that I stand for having those rules
changed so as to work for a more sub
stantial equality of opportunity, and Of
reward for equally good service.
This means that our governments, Ma
| uonal and State, must be freed from the
sinister influence or control of special
| interests Exactly as the special interests
OF cotton and slavery threatened our po-
htical integrity before the Civil war; so
now the great special business interests
too often control and corrupt the men and
! methods of government for their own
| profit. We must drive the special inter-
| ests out of politics. That Is one of our
tasks today. Every special interest is
entitled to justice-full. fair. and COM
| plete-but not one is entitled to a vote in
congress. voice on the bench, or to rep
resentation in any public office. The Con-
| stitution guarantees protection to proper
ty, and we must make that promise good.
But 1t does not give the right of suffrage
| to any corporation.
Property Should Be the Servant.
| The true friend OF property, the true
| conservative, is he who insists that prop
| erty shall be the servant and not the
| master of the commonwealth; who insists
| that the creature of mans making shall
| be the servant and not the master of the
| man who made it. The citizen Of the
United States must effectively control the
mighty commercial forces which they
have themselves called into being.
There can be no effective control of
/ corporations while their political activity
| remains. To put AN end to 1t will be
neither a short nor an easy task, but it
can be done.
We must have. complete and effective
| publicity of corporate affairs, so that the
people may know beyond peradventure
whether the corporations obey the law
| and whether their management entities
them to the confidence of the public. It
| is necessary that laws should be passed
to prohibit the use of corporate funds
directly or Indirectly 5or political pur-
] poses; it Is still more necessary that
such laws should be thoroughly enforced
| Corporate expenditures for political pur-
L
by public service corporations have sup
| piled one Of the principal sources Of cor
| ruption in our political affairs.
1t has become entirely clear that we
| must have government supervision of the
| capitalization not only of public service
corporations, including particularly rail-
| ways, but of all corporations doing an
Interstate business. I do not wish to
| see the Nation forced into ownership of
the railways if it can possibly be avoided,
| and the only alternative is thoroughgoing
| and effective regulation, which shall be
| based on full knowledge of all the facts
| including a physical valuation Of the
| property. This physical valuation Is not
| needed. or at least p very rarely needed,
for fixing rates; but it is needed as the
| basis of honest capitalization.
We have come to recognize that fran
| chises should never be granted except
| for a limited time and never without
| proper provision for compensation to the
public. 1t is my personal belief that the
| same kind and degree of control and
| supervision which should be exercised
| over public service corporations should
| be extended also to combinations which
| control necessaries of life, such as meat
| oil, and coal, or which deal in them on
an important scale.
I believe that the officers, and espe-
cially the directors, of corporations
should be held personally responsible
when any corporation breaks the law.
Dealing With Combinations.
Combinations in industry are the result
| Of an imperative economic law which can
| not be repealed by political legislation.
The effort at prohibiting all combination
has substantially failed. The way out
lies not in attempting to prevent such
combinations, but in completely controll-
ing them in the interest Of the public well
Hor Eor fo< th0 n
reau of Corporations is an agency Of the
first importhNcA. Its power and there