The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1911-10-28
COMSTOCK TALKED
TO STUDENTS
THEORY THAT PRES
EMIT DAY THINGS ARE RUNNING
INTO HYsTERIA--uRGED YOUNG
PEOPLE TO CONSIDER WELL
BEFORE PASSING JUDGMENT.

The speaker during the chapel hour
at the state normal school, this morn
ing was s. G. Comstock, known as the
father of the Moorhead normal. He
won the institution for the city after
hard fight In the state senate, also
he donated the ground on which the
handsome pile Of school structures
stand.
After acknowledging songs and
cheers the sincerity of which evidently
moved him deeply, Mr.. Comstock adj
dressed the students and teachers for
fully thirty minutes, using an easy but
honest and confidential tone, an in
terspersing his talk with pointed pests
and ripples OF humor. He was listened
to with undivided attention.
Il want your sympathy" ne said
"for / have a theory that things in our
day are running into a kind of hys-
terra. Our people are going mad In an
indiscriminate attack on institutions.
Let me give you an illustration of the
rapacity of the 'heartless corporation.
Lately had occasion to send small
piece of freight for some distance.
paid a drayman rs cents to take the
package to the depot a distance Of less
than mile / paid the railroad %
cents to take 1t from there to it's des-
tination, a distance Of 135 miles. The
drayman earned his quarter, and
paddy it gladly; but did the railroad
not earn its quarter? The railroads
carry ton Of freight three miles for
a postage stamp, 2 cents. This is at
the rate of ITO Of a mill per ton per
mile. The corporations are earning
but 4 per cent on their capital, and yet
railroad commissions in forty eight
states and frenzidly trying to reduce
rates. The corporations represent
one third of the entire valuation of
the property of the nation and their
stockholders - teachers, preachers,
business men, laborers-are numbered
by millions. Attack the corporation,
and you attack the millions of honest
people who comprise the corporation.
What Is Corporation?
What is a corporation? 1t is body
of people cooperating with one an
other. 1t represents the spirit of help
one another. The church is corpora
ton, so Is the school, the town, the
county The corporation, In short, is
the greatest device civilization has yet
produced for promoting great and good
purposes.
81 am not here to defend particular
corporations. l simply want to eau
ton you against the popular yawp
of the demagogue who has no other
gospel than down with the corpora
TONS l want to encourage in you
q nj nf
want you to be- free from prejudice.
l want you to think for yourselves.
This is fast becoming an age of
culture. The cultured man is open
| minded. He Is free from cant and
cavil. He is not swayed by prejudice.
In the company OF cultured minds the
man of prejudice is ridiculous. He is
laughing stock. He simply doesn't
know, and covers his ignorance with
abuse and rancor.
Consider for a moment: Who are
the men at the heads of the corpora
| tons, the railroads, for instance. They
are the men who have succeeded. They
are the men who can be trusted. They
have been elected to their positions OF
trust by the people whose money of
are handling, who know them to be
men of competence and integrity. In
tegrity, my dear young friends, is the
thing that has built UP big industries.
Those men have succeeded who have
been industrious. self-denying, truth
full. They have succeeded because
other people have recognized these
traits in them and have put faith in
them. And there Is no other way to
succeed"