The Sentinel=record., 1914-01-21

eAperlenCe ana or the mature public opinion which finally springs out Of that experience. Legislation is a business of interpretation, not of oriSination, and it is now plain what the opinion is to which we must give effect
 'lt is not recent or nasty action. It springs out of the experience of a whole generation It has clarified it. self by long contests and those who for long time battled with it and sought to change it are now frankly and honorably yielding to it and seek ing to conform theeiT actions to it.
 Restraining Laws Needed.
 The great business men who organ ized and finances monopolies and those who administered it in actual everyday transactions, have year after year, until now, either denied it's ex- istence or justified it as necessary for the effective maintenance and deve- Opment of the vast business processes of the country in the modern crcum
 
 finance; but all the while opinion has made headway against them. The average business man is convinced that the ways of liberty are also the ways of peace and the ways of sue cess as well and at last the masters of business on the great scale have be gun to yield their preference and pur- pose, perhaps their judgment also, in honorable surrender.
 What we are proposing to do, there fore, is happily, not to hamper or in- terfere with business as enlightened business men prefer to do it, or in any sense to put it under the ban. The antagonism between business and gov ernment is over. We are now about to give expression to the best busi- ness judgment of America to what we know to be the business conscience and honor of the land The govern ment and business men are ready to meet each other half way in a com mon effort to square business meth ods with both public opinion and the law. The best men of the business world condemn the methods and pro- cesses and consequences of monopoly as we condemn them; and the instinct i've judgment of the vast majority of. business men everywhere goes with them. We shall now be their spoleas- men. That is the strength of our po sition and the sure prophecy of what will ensue when our reasonable work is done.
 Predicts Prudent Change.
 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 simply business readiustments in possible, nothing essential disturbed, nothing torn up by the roots, no parts rent asundeT which can be left in whole some combination. Fortunately, no measures of sweeping or novel change are necessary. It will be understood that our object is not to unsettle busi 1 ness or seriously to break it's estab l Iished courses athwart On the con trary, 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 a new spirit, in thoughtful moderation, with. out revolution of any untoward kind.
 Monopolies ndefensibIe.
 We are all agreed that private mo nopoly is indefensible and intolerable' and our program is founded upon that conviction It will be a comprehens- i've, but not a radical or unacceptable l program and these are it's items, the changes which opinion deliberately sanctions and for which business waits.
 Tt was without acquiescence in the first place. for laws, which will eff fectually prevent suCh iGterlockings of the personnel of the directorates of great orporations-banks and rail roads, industrial. commercial and pub lie service bodies-as in effect result in making these who borrow and those who lend practically one and the same; those who sell and those who buy but the same persons trad ing with one another under different names and in different combinations and those who affect to compete in fact partners and masters of some whole field of business. Sufficient time should be allowed, of course, in which to effect these changes of or ganization without inconvenience or confusion.
 Such prohibition will work much more than a mere negative good by correcting the serious evils which have arisen, because, for example, these men who have been the direct, ing spirits of the great investment banks have usurped the place which t,to