The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-04-20
Glowing Tribute to South
Which Is Just Beginning
to Realize Its Vast
Power

Wv
us from the intolerable abuses of ruth
less competitive methods. How incon-
sistent,
TT is noble and patriotic to strive
for disarmament in war at arms that
saps the lives of men, but it Is ignobla
and unpatriotic to strive for disarma
ment in the war of commerce that not
only saps the lives of men, but Of
women and children as we'll
In the evolution of governmental
regulation and control of our railroads,
which was the purpose of stamping
out the evil that existed and preserY-
ing the good that -existed. rebating
was made Illegal and punishable with
Imprisonment. That proceeding took
away from the railroads their one great
competitive weapon---the rebate. When
we took it away we practically said TO
the railroads: You stop this dlscrimin-
ation this competition, or go to JAIL
And now, through the mouths of our
very highest government officials, we
are saying tos our industrial organiza-
tions: You get busy and compete with
each other, or you go to Jail How per-
fectly Inconsistent,
AIy lOI lNtO1C DhCSh manu-
1--WE complain bitterly at the agita-
ton abroad in the land to give the
people a larger hand, a freer hand, a
more direct hand in the affairs of gov
ternment, local and national. We are
| said to be going to the bow-wows be-
cause of this tendency. This tendency
| is decried by men of learning, by men
of wealth, by men of craftsmanship.
"One hundred and thirty-five years
o.. . !, Of t1.1 ,,alr.
| of the king-a perfectly unprecedented
step forward; nothing equal to 1t was
ever done before; nothing equal to it
| has been done since. One hundred and
thirty-five years have passed We
have spent hundreds of millions of dol
lars educating ourselves; spent 1t
through county appropriations, city ap-
| preparations, state appropriations, gov
ernmental appropriations, and through
predigious gifts from individuals; and
we have constantly praised our great
| educational system.
| NOW from the Pacific coast comes
| the cry to give the people more of a
| hand in their own government. These
steps proposed by the Pacific coast
are small and Insignificant compared
with the mighty stride taken by our
Iforefathers on the Atlantic coast 1876
years ago, provided the results from the
colossal sums we have spent in educat-
ling ourselves and the experience we
have had in free government amount
| to anything at ALL Did our forefathers
say the last word for free government?
| What have we been educating our
people for? We have been educating
! them at a momentous rate in every
| way, for we have spent even more
money on our systems of intercommuni-
cation than we have on our schools,
and one is as great an educator as the
other. A large number of our wealthy
men have made their fortunes out of
our railroads, which have mixed and
mingled the people. Some of the money
they have made out of our railroads
| they have given to our schools and
colleges. They would not have con-
sidered their railroads successful if the
railroads had not paid dividends, and
lit Is to be presumed that they would
not consider their educational invest
ments satisfactory unless they paid
dividends; and what kind of dividends
can you get from an educational sys-
tenn except minds that are better
trained, that think more Independently.
more accurately, and with a better
storehouse of knowledge from which to
reason and make deductions? We are
getting this very sort of dividends from
our educational factories, and it ill
behooyes the men who are criticising
these dividends to praise the educa-
tional system which they have helped
to build up, and criticise the output
they are getting. How inconsistent!
Building Up Foreign Trade
President Wilson in his tariff measure
said: I'VE must build up trade, espe-
cially foreign trade We need the outlet
| and the enlarged field of energy more
than we ever did before" A splendid
thing to say. 1t is true, absolutely true.
| But does this statement square itself
| with what our government is actually do
! ing? l think not. 1t takes capital to do a
| foreign business-a much larger capital
| than to do domestic business; vet one
| of the great states of our union has a
| law to the effect that a company With
a capital of more than s1O,0O0,O00 cannot
| do business within its borders. How
can manufacturing company with only
$4,000, 900 of capital do worldwide busl-
ness? How inconsistent
F., Again we are told that swollen for
tunes have come to be menace and an
| undesirable thing, and almost at the same
momert we are told that great corpora
| tions are likewise undesirable How are
| we going to do q large foreign business
without large capital? If large individual
| fortunes are undesirable, then we can
not do our foreign business with this sort
of capital; if we cannot do it with in
u1NluuIl Capital we cdH only uO IL Win
corporation capital and yet we are not
to be allowed corporation capital. How
Inconsistent
s..Our last federal administration plumed
itself on breaking up the Standard Oil
company in such way as to largely
increase the wealth of inside stockholders
and largely increase the cost of the COM
pany's product to outside consumers. At
the time this was done something over
65 per cent of the Standard OIL companys
business was being transacted outside the
United States; in other words, it was
foreign trade and so successful was this
company in capturing foreign trade for
us that almost at the same moment that
our government WAS smashing the COM
pany, the independent oil dealers of Ger
many filed petition with their home
government, urging the German govern
ment to make haste to take some radical
steps to repel the onward march of the
Standard Oil company of America in
German territory
what better evidence could we have
that we Americans had kind of ma
chine that could whip the Germans in the
oil business in their own territory? And
vet our leading statesmen tell us with
one breath that we must be sure to se-
cure foreign trade, and with the next
breath order the machinery that is sue
cessfully capturing this foreign trade
smashed to smithereens. How inconsist-
ent,
s.Every time Germany or England builds
great batteship we think we must
build one equally large. Why? To be
prepared to match her in the game of
war. Yet Germany is building great in
5,,e4r,oI mite huiIdinp them greater and