Omaha daily bee., 1911-12-22
Senator Borah Compares Methods of
Dynamiters and Monopolists.
BIG BUSINESS IS ARRAIGNED
sherman Law Would re Good ~
same Effort Were Made 20 Per-
feet ~ ~ Is NIade TO
Evadc IL.

dynamiters. and the old standard OH and
tobacco Companies.
ITO save their worthless lives" he said,
referring to the dynamiters. they en-
tered pleas of guilty insisting that they
did It all for principle and expected an
astonished world TO accept their whining
apologies.
There is another court record which
we will in passing notice also. Bound up
in many volumes you will find the fun
record Of two of the late noted decisions.
1t is a tale twice told Of selfishness and
greed. extortion and lawlessness. The
plea Of justification is not unlike the
plea OF the planters of dynamite for
although the acts are clearly in viola
uon, Of law and the rights of the public,
it is claimed nevertheless, that 1t was all
done in the interest of business growth
and industrial gropress.
This is the best plea and the only plea
that twentieth century business can fur
nish-all that could be said by those so
rarely gifted and richfy endowed with
this worlds goods and intellectual power,
and Of whom the government and hu-
manity have a right to expect much"
Enforcement of Law.
Respect and enforcement of the law was
one of the keynotes of Senator Borah's
address. Obedience to the law, he said.
was the bedrock on which powerful gov
ernments are built, and he believed this
a time when a political party could afford
to make II a cardinal tenet of it's faith.
In no other first rate nation, he said. is
law so disregarded as in the United
States.
There is no place where life is SO in
secure against bomb or bullet, where
criminal laws are so Intellectually en-
forced, where corruption is so little con-
demned in public opinion and where de-
fiance of law in the highest walks of
life so generally prevails. To leave law
unenforced, to cultivate disregard for
it's obligations is but to fallow the ground
so that in after years there may be one
law for the poor and another for the
rich" said Mr.. Borah.
He added that the Mcnamara cases and
the trust cases were strong and uncon-
troverted evidence of what is fast becom-
ing a, national disease. He said he had no
sympathy with the prosecution of bust
ness men who erred unknowingly.
Il refer alone" he said, Ito that class
who sit in their offices with trained
lawyers and plan how they may evade
the law and it's penalties. II a man lies
in wait for his adversary and Stays him,
unwarned, viii II be q defense for his
lawyer to say to the court that his client
has always had difficulty in distinguish
ing between voluntary and involuntary
manslaughter2
Big Men EvRde Law.
1T is not only of the things condemned
by the rule of reason, but by the dictates
of conscience and common honesty that
the public complains. l do not enter a
defense of our antitrust law; / am
frank to say 1 doubt both its efficiency
and completeness. But It is the law and
II half the energy and ingenuity of our
business men had been put forth to per-
feet it, that has been expended to sue
cessfully violate it and make 1t worth
less, we would long ago have had law
which would protect all legitimate bust
ness and make all business legitimate.
Il sympathlze sincerely with the man
who in his hunger or his disappointment,
in Encouragement or despair, thinks he
can better conditions by taking the law
into his own hands. In the hour in which
order shall be driven from its high place
in the temple of liberty and in which
lawlessness and might shall come in it's
stead, in the fearful struggle to follow,
the first man to go TO the bottom to re-
main there will be the man who tolls.
But how shall we excuse or long
sympathize with the man OF influence
and position, OF wealth and prestige who
still by word and deed teaches disrespect
for OF defiance of the law? Does he not
know that 1t is useless to long expect law
and order in the common walks of life
when lawlessness reigns supreme in the
upper air?
The danger lies in procrastinatlon.
We learned once at tremendous cost of
life ana blood that you may have your
fugitive slave law, your Missouri com
promise, your bred Scott decision, your
fiat OF government, your compromise
with wrong. your barter with justice but
the hour of reckoning and reimbursement
comes-tardy but memorable. It is pos
sible, my friends. to go on until men of
great fortunes, whether Justly or I'M
justly earned, will stand stripped like
the slave master of the south not alone
of his slaves, but stripped of his wealth
earned through two centuries Of 'un-
requited toll
Warning Against Delay,
Let us not trffie too long with that
widespread passionate sense OF wrong
even among the more conservative, arts
ing out of the belief that large fortunes
have been built up at the expense of tho
poor, and that men, women and children
go hungry while others reveI in waste
and luxury II is possible to go on until
the soldier called into the street 10 nro-
tect property win fraternize with the
mob.
You will hear often in these DAYS that
certain men are engaged IN experiment
ing with new plans OF government and
dangerous expedients.
I'VE do not need new faith: we need
the simplicity, the directness and. SELF
surrender Of the old. We do not need
a new gospel we need rather TO preach
the creed Of Washington and Jefferson
and Jackson and Lincoln with a tongue
Of fire throughout the land. We need 10
have constitutional morality declared as
was the gospel OF old TO the rich and the
poor.
Choose We this day whom YOU will
serve, the few. the selfish. the lawless.
and see our party continue broken in
faction and deserted by thousands OF
the rank and file. or the interests OF the
countless thousands. whose hopes and