The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1912-08-08

exchange tnem ACCORDING TO their A1u
tual needs-and this is business.
With our vast advantages, contrast
ed with the vast disadvantages of 9th
er nations, American business all the
time should be the best and steadiest
In the world. But 1t is not. Germany
with shallow soil, no mines, only q
window on the seas and a population
more than ten times as dense as ours
yet has 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 bust
ness. One Of these wrongs is over
capitalization which taxes the peoples
very living. Another is the manipula-
ton 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 1t had been
doing Another example Is the shame
full meat legislation, by which the beef
trust had the meat 1t 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 a higher
What good does it 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 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 it repudiated
pledged the people that we would give
them; and just this important pledge
the administration, elected on that
platform. repjudiated as it 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 Meth
err.
We mean to put new business laws
on our statute books which will tell
American business men what thew can
do and wha. they can not dc We
mean to make our business laws Gear
instead of foggy-to make them plain
ly state just what things are criminal
and what are lawful. And we mean
that the penalty for things criminal
shall be prison sentences that actually
punish the real offender, instead Of
money fines that hurt nobody but the
people, who must pay them in the end.
No Cause for Alarm. to Business.
And then we mean to send the mes
sage forth to hundreds of thousands
OF brilliant minds and brave hearts
engaged in honest business, that they
are not criminals but honorable men
in their work to make good business
in this Republic. Sure of victory, we
even now say, go forward, Ameri-
nd Ina !,