The Washington herald., 1914-04-21
BUSINESS AND POLITICS.
worship of Destructive Politicians
Ii About to Collapse.

Is About to Collapse.
B. C. Forbes. In New York American.
A great revulsion of sentiment i'm
pends. ! believe, In America
Worship of politicians of the destruc-
tive stripe Is about to collapse, / think
When the change comes II will not be
tepid or half-hearted.
The citizen whose business and energy
are devoted to providing honorable, WE'LL
paid employment to fellow mortals
struggling for q living deserves well of
bis country. He deserves to rank high
higher than the windy, self-seelxing poll
tician who creates more substantial than
discomfort and animosities, and who lives
OF the wealth produced by the employer
and his coworkers.
Not SO long ago millionaires and multi
millionaires Of the trust-forming variety
excited hero-worshIp. But they abused
their privileges In many cases, and the
inevitable reaction came.
The politicians, quick to scent oppor-
tunity for self-aggrandiEement. sprang
forward to champion the people. They
hit right and Ieft-and the public ap-
plauded. Capital was brought to its
knees with a vengeance. He was the
most popular politician who fired the
hottest shot at the capitalists, who was
most successful in tearing down the edi-
fees the millionaires and multi-million-
aires had built up.
But ! forsee another stage in our evo-
luton.
The people are tired Of destruction. of
senseless tearing down. and are eager TO
build up and forge ahead. The decent
business man is to come into his own and
the shyster, ranting politician is to be
dethroned.
Unless the Democratic administration
see the handwriting on the wall and
promptly act accordingly. history is apt
to repeat Itself.
To my mind President Wilson has al
most reached the parting Of the ways.
II he stubbornly persists in lashing Con-
gress into ill-considered. hasty, chaotic
action against the nations business or
ganizations. / believe the good he has
done will be forgotten and that the peo-
pie. subjected to distress and privation
and idleness, that could have been avoid
ed, will rise up against him and all his
advisers and mark them for political ex-
tinction.
There are corporation wrongs to be
riEhted.
There are antitrust measures that
ought to be passed.
There are monopolies that ought to be
broken up.
But, in the name OF humanity. in the
name OF common sense, why wantonly
harass business at this juncture when il
Is struggling for its very existence? Why
throw more thousands of men idle when
so many families are already writhing
under the pangs of hunger and haunted
by the specter OF unavoidable debt? Why
subject business, the much-operated-on
patient, to more Xperimental vivisection
until its health has had some slight
chance to revive?
Who will suffer from delay? Certainly
not labor.
Who will benefit from precipitate. hap
hazard action? Labor? Certainly not
Business men. business organizations
are not today stalking over the country
seeking whom they may devour regard
less of law, regardless of consequences.
Corporations are not now a pack OF con-
scienceless marauders. plundering and
pillaging the public defiantly and merCi-
lessly. They are not a devastating army
whose repredations st be outlawed in
stanter at the cost OF plunginG the whole
nation into the abyss of bankruptcy and
destruction.
No. Business men. coporations have
TO walk in the straight and narrow path.
That this path must be fenced with
certain new laws every one agrees. But
IL Congress acts now IL Is in danger of
erecting. not hemming-in fences. but
impossible barriers and boulders across
the path.
/ suppose I'll be charged with sensa-
perhaps even with playing in
to the hands OF the capitalist" for de-
mi, n a
are reaching a parlous state. All is NOT
well. There are at this moment trem-
blings in the financial world-the kind of
that the seismograph can re-
cord. let me- with studied vagueness call
them. Business is NOT prosperous.
For some time l have been declaring
that May would probably bring a de
cisive turning point. In less than thirty
days the die should be cast.
At the moment hopes are running low
in financial circles, as the much-de-
spised. but truthful ticker plainly
But the whole outlook could be changed
overnight by Washington.
For the present the business world and
Wall Street dts reflex are undergoing
a tense period of wasteful waiting.
Whichever way ii goes, the politician
Is likely to be relegated to the back
ground before the year is out and en-
ployers and employees seem to arrive at
the sensible conclusion that the inter
ests of one are the interests of the
other. and that on their efforts. on their
cooperation, depend the filling of
now empty. In this new scheme
Of things, If it be established, the strife
stirring. destructive panic-breeding poll
tician will have no exalted place