The San Francisco call., 1910-09-28

Corruption in every form is the
arch enemy of this republic, the
arch enemy of free institutions and
of government by the people. an
even more dangerous enemy than
the open lawlessness of violence,
because 1t works in hidden and fur
tive fashion. We are against cor
ruption in business, and above and
with all our strength we are
against the degrading alliance of
crooked business and crooked poll
tics, the alliance which adds
strength to the already powerful
corrupt boss and to the already
powerful corrupt head of big bust
ness, and which makes them in
their dual capacity enemies against
whom every patriotic man Should
stand with unwavering firmness.
Let no man say that this is an
assault upon the honest business
man.
In short, our attitude is merely
that we stand for honesty as well
as for progresSiyeneS and for eff
ficiency; that we believe both bust
nessmen and politicians should be
just and upright and honest as well
as wise, courageous and far sighted
We are against crookedness in the
small men, but we are against it
just as strongly in the big men. We
judge each man by his conduct and
not by his wealth or his social sta
tion, and we hold it to be our
bounden duty to strive steadily to
make and to keep this great Ameri-
can commonwealth as a true de-
mocracy and steadily to endeavor to
shape our legislation and our social
conditions so that there shall be a
far nearer approach than at pres
ent toward equality of opportunity
among men.
The corporation must be protected.
must be given it's rights, but 1t must
be prevented from doing wrong.
and its managers must be held in
strict accountability when it does
wrong and it must be deprived of all
We must strive to do away with the
social and economic injustices that
have come from failing to meet by
proper legislation the changed con-
ditions brought about by the gigan-
tic growth of our gigantic Indus
trialism.
We must. see that. by far reach
ing legislation. the workman who
workman who is killed in industry
are compensated. so that the losses
necessarily incident to certain in
dustries shall be equitably and
fairly distributed instead of being
on the shoulders of those not able
d
matter of obligation by the state
to see that the conditions finder
which working men and women do
their work shall be safe and health
full So far as by legislation iS
possible we must strive to give to
the workingman the power to
achieve and maintain a high stand
ard of living.
We who come together to set the
standard of our party have a grave
: responsibility to that party and to
the public. Democracy means moth
ing unless the people rule The
rule Of the boss is the negation Of
democracy.
We should at once INTRODUCES in
this state the system of direct nom
nations in the primaries so that
the people shall be able to them
selves decide who the candidates
shall be, instead of being limited
merely to choosing between candi-
dates with whose nomination thew
have had nothing to do,
Our country offers the most won
derful example of democratic gov
ernment on giant scale that the
world has ever seen and the peoples
or the world are watching to see
whether we succeed or fail We be-
l1eve with all our hearts in dem
ocracy, in the capacity of the neo-
PIE to govern themselves; and we
are bound to succeed, for our s,,ce
cess means not only our own fri
umph. but the triumph of the cause
OF the rights of the people throurI1e
out the world and the uplifting Of
the banner of hope for all the ma :
tfonS of mankind