The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1910-08-31

healthy liberty 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 posi-
ton, or immunity, which has not
been earned by service to his or their
fellows.
''At many stages in the advance of
humanity 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 progress. In
our day it appears as the struggle OF
free men to gain and hold the right
of self-government as against the
special interests, who twist the meth
DDS of free government into machin-
cry for defeating the popular will.
At every stage and under all circum-
stances the essence of the struggle is
to equaIize opportunity, destroy privi-
Iege, and give to the life and citi-
zenship of every individual the high
est 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, unassisted by
special privilege of his own and I'M
by the special privileges
of others, can carry him, and to get
for himself and his family substan
TALLY what he has earned. Second,
equality of opportunity means that
the commonwealth will get from
every citizen the highest service of
which he is capable. No man wRe-
carries the burden of special privi-
leges of another can give to the COM
that service to which it is
fairly entitled.
~ stand pat for the square deal.
But when l say that l am for the
square deal mean not merely that
stand for fair play under the present
rules of the game, but that 1 stand for
having those rules changed SO as to
work for a more substantial equality
of opportunity, and of reward for
good service.
, Special Interests Out of Politics.
This means that our governments,
national and state, must be freed
from the sinister influence or control
of special interests. Exactly as the
special interests of cotton and slavery
our political integrity be-
fore 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 in
terests out of politics. That is one of
our tasks today. Every special in
terest is entitled to justice-full, fair,
and complete-but not one is entitled
to vote i'm congress, a voice on the
bench, or to representation in any
public office. The constitution guar
antees protection of property, and we
must make that promise good. But
it does not give the right of suffrage
TO any corporation.
There can be no effective control of
while their political &C
tivity remains. To put an end to 1t
will be neither a short nor an easy
ask, but it can be done.
1--WE must have complete and ef-
fective publicity of corporate affairs,
so that the people may know beyond
whether the corpora
lions obey the law and whether their
entities them to the con-
fidence of the public. 1t is necessary
that laws should be passed to prompt
the use of corporate funds directly or
indirectly for political purposes; 1t is
still more necessary that such laws
should be thoroughly enforced. Cor
porate expenditures for political pur-
poses, and especially such expendi-
lures by public service corporations,
have supplied one of the principal
sources of corruption in our political
affairs.
Supervision OF Capital
iZatiOn.
'It has become entirely clear that
we must have government supervision
of the capitalization not only of pub