The Twin Falls times. [volume] (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1905-1916, 1912-01-23

| 6ioVNA Gnu AANuoNI AoA PiO6lCSS. las
is the best plea and the only plea
which twentieth century business car
furnish-all that could be said by those
SO rarely gifted and richly endowed
with both this worlds goods and in
tellectual power and of whom the gov
eminent and humanity have right t.
expect so much.
If these court proceedings stood
alone, were exceptional or isolated in
stances of their kind, we might wei
accept the judgments of the court!
without further comment and pass or
in confident security. But they are
one at one side of the continent ant
the others at the other, the strong ant
uncontroverted evidence of what i!
fast becoming national disease. l dc
not eXaggerate and / do not misstate
or overstate the unwelcOme and &C.
cusing data at hand when | declare
to you tonight that we are even now ir
our youth the most lawless of any OF
the great civilized nations. There is
no country of first Importance where
there is so little respect for the law
because it is the law-the last express
sion of the sovereign power--as here
in our own republic. There is no place
where life is SO insecure against the
bomb or the bullet, where criminal
laws are SO Intellectually enforced,
where corruption is so little con-
demned by public opinion, where de-
fiance of law in the highest walks of
business so generally prevails. We
have come to carry with us the mental
| reservation in our professed loyalty to
the government that we will obey only
such laws as in our individual judg-
ment seem wise-which, of course, is
the essence of anarchy-the fearful
disease of republics. Some arraign
this class and some that. Some ar
raign the courts and some would do
away with juries, but the fact is that
1t is our national sin, pervading all
classes and fastening it's demoralizing
hold upon all our institutions. To
leave the 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.
In speaking of lawnessness among
business men / do not refer to those
who may unwittingly err as to the
terms OF the law l have no sympathy
with their disturbance or their prose-
cution. l refer alone to that class who
sit down in their offices with trained
lawyers and plan how they may violate
the law and still evade it's penal pro-
visions. 1t is not the doing the things
which are debatable about which good
citizens complain. 1t is the doing the
things which are clearly prohibited
and which every intelligent man knows
are prohibited, of which the public
complains and of which it has a right
to complain. If man lies in wait and
falls upon his unwarned adversary
and Stays him, will it be any defense
for his lawyer to say to the court that
his client has always had difficulty in
distinguishing between voluntary and
involuntary manslaughter? If a cor
poration lowers the price of an article
in order to destroy it's competitor; if
1t by express agreement limits the out
put OF product; if it foments strikes
in competing mills; if it seeks favors
in rebates or divides territory; if it
puts millions into competing plants.
covers the investment with stock and
then dismantles them, if it does these
and similar things will it be heard to
say that the boundary line between
restraint and open competition in
trade is sometimes difficult to define?
1t is not alone the things which are
condemned by the rule of reason, but
also by the dictates of conscience and
common honesty of which the public |
justly complains. l do not tonight en-
ter upon defense of our antitrust
law; / am frank to say l doubt both |
its efficiency and completeness. But |
1t is the law, and if half the energy
and ingenuity of our business men had |
been put forth to perfect it that has
been expended in an effort to success
fully violate it and render it worthless
we would long ago have had law
which would protect Legitimate bust
ness and would have made all bust
ness legitimate"
They say to enforce the law will dis
turb business. What business? Whose
business? The supreme court of the
United States, not chargeable certain
~ with inconsiderate statements, said
in noted case in reply to similar ar
1T is the history of mono
poly in this country and England that
predictions of ruin are habitually to
restrain their operations and to pro-
tect the public against their exac-
tons" There is nothing so depress-
ing to healthy business, the business
which disseminates it's beneficence to
all, as the fear of men of limited
means to enter the field of industry.
to venture into development and pro-
duction because it is occupied with
powerful combinations ready to des-
troy them when they give evidence of
success. What retards investment and
the outlay of small sums now in idle
ness more than the condition of our
stocks and bonds, manipulated and
so that only those on the in
side or who can afford to lose dare to
invest? When this supposed business
necessity carries us to the point where
4 few will fix the price of everything
which goes to the consumers table,
what will be the condition of business
rs matter of fact in this country?
That healthy, wholesome business
which, will bring prosperity to all must
nave as its basis an equal opportunity
o all. You will never have good times
which reach down to the masses and
o the people generally unless the in
lustrial field invites and stands ready