Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1912-08-14

by law against the drift of a world
wide economic tendency; neither am
| one of those who believe that bust
ness done upon great scale by a
single organization-caH it corpora
ton, or what you willis necessarily
dangerous to the liberties, even the
economic liberties, of a great people
like our own, full of intelligence and
of indomitable energy.
Power in the hands of great bust.
ness men does not make me apprehen-
s1ve, unless it springs out of advan-
tages which they have not created for
themselves. Big business is not dan
gerous because it is big, but because
It's bigness is an unwholesome infia-
ton created by privileges and exemp-
lions which it ought not to enjoy.
While competition cannot be created
by statutory enactment, it can in large
measure be revived by changing the
laws and forbidding the practices that
killed it, and by enacting laws that
will give it heart and occasion again
Concentration of Credit.
But the problem and the difficulty
are much greater than that. There
are not merely great trusts and COM
binattons which are to be controlled
and deprived of their power to create
monopolies and destroy rivals; there
is something bigger still than they
are and more subtle, more evasive,
more difficult to deal with There are
vast confederacies Gas l may perhaps
call them for the sake of convenience
of banks, railways, express compa-
MES, insurance companies, manufac-
turing corporations, mining corpora
tons, power and development COM
panies and all the rest of the circle,
bound together by the fact that the
ownership of their stock and the
members of their boards of directors
are controlled and determined by COM
paratively small and closely inter
related groups of persons who, by
their informal confederacy, may con-
troll, if they please and when they
will, both credit and enterprise
Their very existence gives rise to
the suspicion of a money trust" a
concentration Of the control of credit
which may at any time become in
finitely dangerous to free enterprise
If such concentration and control
does not actually exist, it is evident
that it can easily be set up aud used
at will. Laws must be devised which
will prevent this, If laws can be
worked out by fair and free counsel
that will accomplish that result with
out destroying or seriously embarras-
sing any sound or legitimate business
undertaking or necessary and whole
some arrangement
Question of Conservation.
OF conservation and allied matters
Governor Wilson said:
| do not know any greater question
than that of conservation. We have
been spendthrift nation and must
now husband what We have left We
must do more than that. We must
develop, as we'll as preserve, our wa
ter powers and must add great wa
terways to the transportation facili-
ties of the nation, to supplant the
railways within our borders as well
as upon the isthmus. We must revive
our merchant marine, too, and fill, the
seas again with our own fleets We
must add to our present postofice
service a parcels post as complete as
that Of any other nation. We must
look to the health of our people upon
every hand, as we'll as hearten them
with justice and opportunity.
Free to Serve the People.
In concluding, the governor said:
A presidential campaign may easily
degenerate into mere personal con-
test and so lose its real dignity and
significance. There is no indispensable
man. The government will not col
lapse and go to pieces if any one of
the gentlemen who are seeking to be
intrusted with its guidance should be
left at home. But men are instru-
ments. We are as important as the
cause we represent, and in order to
be important must really represent a
cause. What is our cause? The peo-
pies cause? That is easy to say, but
what does it mean? The common as
against any particular interest what
ever? Yes, but that, too, needs trans
lation into acts and policies We rep
resent the desire to set up an unen-
tangled government, government
that cannot be used for private pur-
poses, either in the field of business or
in the field of politics.; a government
that will not tolerate the use of the
organization of great party to serve
the personal aims and ambitions of
any individual, and that will not per-
NIT legislation to be employed to fur
Their any private interest 1t is a
great conception, but l am free to
serve it, as you also are. l could not
have accepted a nomination which left
me bound to any man or any group Of
men. No man can be just who is not
free; and no man who has to show
favors ought to undertake the solemn
responsibility of government in any
rank or post whatever, least of all
in the supreme post of president of
the United States.
To be free is not necessarily to
be wise. But wisdom comes with
counsel, with the frank and free con-