The Prescott daily news., 1912-08-05

| " Hat, luSu, IS tue progressive an- swer to these questions? We are able to give it specifically and concretely. The first work before us is the revival Of hcnest business, For business Is nothing but the industrial and trade activities of all the people. Men grow the products of the field, cut ripe tim Ter from the forest. dig metal from the mine, fashion all for human use, carry them to the market place and exchange them according to their mu- tual needs-and this Is business. With our vast advantages, contrast ed with the vast disadvantages of oth- CT nations, American business all the time should be the best and steadiest in the world But it is not. Germany, with shallow soil, no mines, only a window on the seas and a population more than ten times as dense as ours, yet has a sounder business, steadier prosperity, a more contented because better cared for people
 What, then, must we do to make American business better? We must do what poorer nations have done We must end the abuses of business by striking down those abuses instead of striking down business itself
 Present Business Evils.
 With the growth of big business came business evils just as great. It is these evils of big business that hurt the people and injure all other busi- ness One of these wrongs Is over capitalization which taxes the peoples | very living. Another Is the manipula- tion of prices to the unsettlement of all normal business and to the peoples damage. Another is interference in the making of the peoples laws and the running of the peoples govern ment in the unjust interest of evil bus mess. Getting laws that enable parti- cular interests to rob the people, and even to gather criminal riches from human health and life is still another.
 An example of such laws is the in- famous tobacco legislation of 1902, which authorized the tobacco trust to continue to collect from the people the Spanish war tax, amounting to a score of millions of dollars, but to | keep that tax instead of turning it over to the government, as it had been | doing. Another example is the shame full meat legislation, by which the beef | trust had the meat it sent abroad in- spected by the government so that for eign countries would take its product, and yet was permitted to sell diseased meat to our own people It is in credible that laws like these could ever get on the nations statute books. The invisible government put them there; and only the universal wrath of an enraged people corrected them when, after years, the people discov- cred the outrages.
 Trust Question Vital.
 The people are tired of mock bat tie with criminal capital. They do not want to hurt business; but they do want to get something done about the trust question that amounts to some thing. What good does 1t do any man to read in his morning paper that the courts have dissolved" the oil trust. and then read in his evening paper that he must thereafter pay higher price for his oil than ever before? What good does 1t do the laborer who smokes his pipe to be told that the courts have dissolved" the tobacco trust and yet find that he must pay the same or a higher price for the same short-weight package of tobac- co? Yet all this Is the practical result of the suits against these two great est trusts in the world.
 Rival nations tell their business men that if they do any evil that our business men do, prison bars await them. These rival nations tell their business men that if they issue wa tered stock, or cheat the people in any way, prison cells will be their homes.
 Just this is what all honest Ameri- can business wants; just this is what dishonest American business does not want; just this is what the American people propose to have; just this the platform. repudiated as 1t repudiated pledged the people that we would give them; and just this important pledge the administration, elected on that platform. repjudiated as 1t repudiated the more immediate tariff pledge.
 Both these reforms. so vital to hon est American business, the Progress sive party will accomplish. Neither evil interests nor reckless demagogues can swerve us from our purpose; for we are free from both and fear neith- er