Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-01-21

ban. The antagonism between bust
ness and government is over. We are
now about to give expression to the
best business judgment of America. to
what we know to be the business con-
science and honor of the land. The
government and business men are
ready to meet each other half way in
a common effort to square business
methods with both public opinion and
the law. The best informed men of
the business world condemn the
methods and processes and eonse-
quences of monopoly as we condemn
them; and the instructive Judgment OF
the vast majority Of business men
everywhere goes with them. We shall
now be their spokesman. That is the
strength of our position and the sure
prophecy of what will ensue when our
reasonable work is done.
when serious contest ends. when
men unite in opinion and purpose,
those who are to change their ways of
business joining with those who ask
for the change, it is possible to effect
it in the way in which prudent and
thoughtful and patriotic men would
wish to see it brought about, with as
few, as slight, as easy and simple
business readjustments as possible in
the circumstances, nothing essential
nothing torn up by the
roots, no parts rent asunder which
can be left in wholesome combination.
Fortunately, no measures of sweeping
or novel change are necessary. 1t will
be understood that our object is NOT
to unsettle business or anywhere
seriously break its established courses
athwart. On the contrary, we desire
the laws we are now about to pass to
be the bulwarks and safeguards of
industry against the forces that have
disturbed it. What we have to do can
be done in new spirit, in thoughtful
without revolution Of any
untoward kind.
I'VE are all agreed that private
is indefensible and intoler
able and our program Is founded
upon that conviction. 1t will be
comprehensive, but not a radical or
program and these are
its items, the changes which opinion
deliberately sanctions and for which
business waits.
1T waits with acquiescence, in the
first place, for laws which will effec-
tually prohibit and prevent such in
teriocking of the PERSONNEL of
the directorates of great corporations
banks and railroads, industrial,
commercial and public service bodies
as in effect result in making those
who borrow and those who lend prac-
tieally one and the same. those who
sell and those who buy but the same
persons trading with one another un-
der differnt names and in different
combinations, and those who affect to
compete in fact partners and masters
of some whole field of business. Suf-
fcient time should. be allowed, of
course, in which to effect those
changes of organization without in
convenience or confusion.
such a prohibition will work much
more than a mere negative gpod by
correcting the serious evils which have
arisen because, for example, the men
who have been the directing spirits of
the great investment banks have
usurped the place which belongs to
independent industrial management
working in its own behalf. 1t will
bring new men, new energies, new
spirit of initiative, new blood into
the management of our great business
enterprises. 1t Will open the field of
industrial development and Original
ton to scores of men who have been
obliged to serve when their abilities
entitled them to direct. 1t will I'M
mensely hearten the young men COM
ing on and will greatly enrich the
business activities of the whole coun-
try. FRI
IN the second place, business mea
as well as those who direct public af-
fairs, now recognize. and recognizes
with painful clearness. the great harm
and injustice which has been done to
systems Of the country by the way In
which they have been financed and
their own distinctive interests sub
ordinated to the interests of the men
who financed them and of other bust
ness enterprises which those men
wished to promote. The country Is
ready, therefore to accept, and accept
with relief as we'll as approval, a law
which will confer upon the Inter-
state Commerce Commission the
power to superintend and regulate the
financial operations by which the rail-
roads are henceforth to be supplied
with the money they need for their
proper development to meet the rap
idly growing requirements of the
country for Increased and improved
facilities of transportation. We cannot
postpone action in this matter with
out leaving the railroads exposed to
many serious handicaps and hazards,
and the prosperity of the railroads and
the prosperity of the country are in
separately connected. Upon this
question those who are chiefly re-
sponsible for the actual management
and operation of the railroads have
spoken very plainly and very earnest
ly, with a purpose we ought to be
quick to accept. 1t will be one step.
and avery important one, toward the
necessary separation of the business
of production from the business of
transportation.
1.-THE business Of the country awaits
also, has long awaited aand has suf-
fered because 1t could not obtain, fur
Their and more explicit legislative