The Prescott daily news., 1910-08-31

which in other crises enabled the men N that day to meet those crises. It Is h;'t melancholy and half amusing to see tSs way In which well-mean,ny people gather to do honor to the men who. In company with Irhn Brown. and under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved the great problems of the nine 'eenth cen tury. while at the same time these same good people nervously shrink from or fraHtically deuounce those who are try ing to meet the problems of the twentieth in the spirit which was accountable for the successful solution of the problems ot Tincon's time.
 Of that generation of men to whom we owe so much, the man to whom we owe the most is. of course, Lincoln. Part of our debt to him Is because he forecast our present struggle and saw the way out. He said:
 'I hold that while man exists 1t is hls duty to improve not only his own condition but to assist h ameliorating mankind" And again. Labor is prior tn and independent of capital; capital is cnly the fruit of labor. and could never lave existed but for labor. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration Capital has its rights which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of prop erty Property Is the fruit of labor prop erty is desirable; is a positive good in the world. Let not him who is houseless 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" It 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 a lesson in wise kindliness and charity; an indispensable lesson to us of today. But this wise kindliness and char
 ty 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, na- tons rise from barbarism to civilization. and through 1t peoples press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress Is tle utstruCllOn or special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy lib- erty has always been and must always be 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 earned by service to his or their fellows
 At many stages in the advance of hu- manity this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and | ha ,l,, ha,. possess is the central condition of prog ress. In our day 1t appears as the strug- gle of free men 10 gain and hold the right of elf-governInent as against the special interests, who twist the methods or free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage and under all circumstances the essence of the struggle is to equalize op- portunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life 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 have fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies, to reach the highest point to which his capacities. unsssisted 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 means that the commonwealth will get rom 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
 l stand for the square deal But when I 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 more sub stantial equality of opportunity, and of reward for equally good service
 This means that our governments, Ma tonal and State, must be freed from the sinister Influence or control of special interests Exactly as the special interests or cotton and slavery threatened our po- lltlcal 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 fin congress, voice on the bench. or 10 rep resentaton In any public office The Con stituton guarantees protection to proper. ty' and we must make that promise good But it 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 inc man who made it The citizen of the U nited States must effectively control the hnghty 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 neith q short nor an aarr tnrl, h.. i4