The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-05
Business Men Taking Interest

.'It seems that business men are taking more interest in national political af- fairs today than ever before,' said a man who has commercial interests and who is also something of a politician. "The business situation in this country has been anything but satisfactory since 1907. Basic conditions are sound, but capital is still timd. But for demagogic politics I believe prosperity would abound throughout the land today. Any one who reads the northern papers sees indications of business awakening. The Railway World of December 1 says:
 Perhaps the most significant devel- opment of the week has been the ac- cumulating evidence from all quarters of thoroughly aroused interest In the eff feet of politics upon industrial enter prise, and the strong indication of the determination of business men to take more active part in such matters in the future.
 "A canvass just completed by the National Association of Manufacturers, which we report at greater length in an- other section of this issue, and which has resulted in the expression of opinion by 10000 business men in all sections of the country shows, as a practically unani- nous opinion of these men, that politics played for personal motives is the direct and meanacing cause of our present un- satisfactory business conditions.
 This expression of opinion finds its re- Election in many other similar statements which have been made by leading econo- mists, financiers and railroad officials. A recent notable example of this is found
 in an address delivered by Chancellor Day of Syracuse university, at the dinner of the Economic club of New York, held on the evening of November P. sChancel- Tor Day spoke largely on the, sherman antitrust law which he freely critics ed .
 MT. Day is trenchent writer, and his speech referred to is as snappy as any thing 1 have read of late. He said in part: :
 Everybody who knows the history of the Sherman law knows that it's father was political expediency and it's mother was that flirtatious dame. demagogy. She is 8 frsky old dame, prolific beyond the years of the Sarah of Bible story.
 Probably no important law ever went upon the statute books of this country in more crude form, more incomplete and obscure, unless it was to be interpreted literally as an interdiction and destruction of all forms of corporate business. It made no provision for any discrimination. And we hear a president when a general effort was made to enforce 1t, saying that it did not mean good corporations, but bad ones. But the law does not say so. The men who made it did not know l enough about trusts and corporations to give them a definition.
 "It is fine law for the politician. It is mighty efficient instrument of torture for the demagogue to use. It a wonder | fully efficient menace for the unsuccess- | full competitor. It is an easy law for prosecuting attorneys, for it is so sweep ing and general and indefinite that it is sure to catch the accused in some of it's meshes, however honestly he may have | tried to avoid conflict with it.
 "'The enforcement of the law is bound
 to make trouble, for which ever way you work it, it is against you if somebody chooses to use the underlined 'unreason-
 ableness' against you.
 DO you ina zine that a law that goes | hunting to prosecute men of business
 representing such wide and varied in terests, will have no harmful effect upon
 the business of the country?
 '"The sherman law should be repealed
 because it restraints trade and destroys | traders