The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-08-05

including senators and presidents Of the United States. What profiteth it I the people if they do only the electing while the invisible government does the nominating?
 The rule of the people means that, when the peoples legislators make law which hurts the people, the people themselves may reject it. The rule of the people means that when the peo- ple's legislators refuse to pass law which the people need the people themselves may pass it. The rule of the people means that when the peo- 5le's employees do not do the peoples work we'll and honestly the people may discharge them exactly as busi- ness man discharges employees who do not do their work we'll and honest ly. The peoples officials are the peo- pIe's servants, not their masters.
 With the vast natural resources of the country and its comparatively sparse population. the speaker said, American industry should never suffer depression or even uncertainty, yet hundreds of thousands of workmen found it difficult to gain living, while the exploitation of the labor of women and children degraded great classes of the population ~ %
 With the growth of big business these evils of big business that hurt the people and injure all other busi- ness. One of these wrongs is overcap- talization, which taxes the, peoples very living. Another is the rnanipula- tion of prices to the unsettement 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 government in the unjust interest of evil business. Getting laws that enable particular in- terests to rob the people and even to gather criminal riches from human health and life'is still another.
 Other nations have ended the very same business evils from which we suffer by clearly defining business wrongdoing and then making 1t a criminal offense, punishable by impris- onment Yet these foreign nations en- courage big business itself and foster all honest business. But they do not tolerate dishonest business, Httle or big.
 What, then, shall we Americans do? Common sense and the experience of the world say that we ought to keep what the good big business does for us and stop the wrongs that big busi- ness does to us. Yetewe have done just the other thing We have struck at big business itaelf and have not even aimed to. strike at. the evils of big business. Nearly twenty-fve years ago congress passed law to govern American business in the present time which spsgiiamepts passed in the reign of King James to govern English busi- ness in that time.
 For quarter of century the courts have tried to make this law work.
 Yet during this very time trusts grew greater in number and power than in the whole history of the world before, and their evils fourished unhindered and unchecked. These great business concerns grew because natural laws made them grow and artificial law at war with natural war could not stop their growth. But their evils grew faster than the trusts themselves be- cause ayarice nourlshed those evils and no law of any kind stopped ava rice from nourishing them.
 < Sherman Law Condemned.
 Nor is this the worst. Under the shifting interpretation of the Sherman law, uncertainty and fear is chilling ] the energies. of the great body of hon. est American business men. As the ] Sherman law now stands no two busi- ness men can arrange their mutual af- ] fairs and be sure that they are not law ] breakers. This is the main hindrance ! to the immediate and permanent re- ] vfval of American business. If Ger man or English business men, with all 1 their disadvantages compared with our advantages, were manacled by our Sherman law. as it stands, they soon
 would be bankrupt. Indeed, foreign l business men declare that If their
 countries had such a law, so admins. tered, they could not do business at I all. . l Even this is not all. By the decrees 1 of our courts under the Sherman law l the two mightiest trusts on earth l have actually been licensed, in the prac
 tical outcome, to go on doing every
 wrong they ever committed. Under
 the decrees of the courts the oil and
 tobacco trusts still can raise prices un l justly and already have done so. They
 still can issue watered stock. and sure .l ly will do so. They still can throttle | other business men, and the United
 Cigar Stores company now Is doing 50
 They still can corrupt our politics and l this moment are indulging in that prac | tice. ,s | We mean to put new business laws
 on our statute books which will tel 1. American business men what they car
 do and what they cannot do. We near
 to make our business laws clear in
 stead of foggy, to make them plainly
 state just what things are criminal ant
 what are lawful And we mean tha
 the penalty for things criminal shal
 be prison sentences that actually pun
 ish the real offender instead of none,
 fines that hurt nobody but the people
 who must pay them in the end.
 And then we mean to send the mes
 sage forth to hundreds of thousands O
 brilliant minds and brave hearts CT