White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1914-02-08

and girls, or put them on short time
at a reduced wage.
When | do, the stores in this
village will suffer, because my people
will not be able to buy as they have
in the past.
To kill the courage of a builder is
to destroy, in degree, a payroll.
To destroy a payroll is to strike
employers, employees, storekeepers,
manufacturers, and make women and
children go ragged and hungry.
The chief implement of business
destruction in this country has been
the Sherman act.
1t has been used. and Is being used,
as a club to beat payrolls into In
s~ensibility.
h success of these assaults is
now being felt In a widespread bust
ness depression.
The present industrial conditions
in America arise out of the fact that
the attitude of our government is
hostile to business.
Big business has come through nat
ural evolution. 1t having been as
certained that men can work to-
gether in an organization much more
economically than they can work
alone.
Competition Is not the life of
trade. Competition pushed beyond a
point becomes suicidal. To sell ON
sumers goods at less than these goods
cost. leads to a ~receivership, and the
buying capacity of the consumer will
suffer accordingly.
The most desirable thing is not a
lower cost of living, but an increased
ability of the consume to buy.
High and low are merely compare
tive terms. If beefsteak is thirty
cents a pound and | have a dollar in
my pocket. ] a buy beefsteak all
right: but IL beefsteak is five cents a
pound and | haven't the five cents, |
will be a vegetarian. The many en-
deavors to invoke the Sherman act
have killed initiative, destroyed origi-
nality, ironed out invention. and sub
dued employers to a point where they
ARE not venture on new enterprises.
Business genius Is exactly like art
genius. We do business on en-
thnsiasm. on hope. on good-cheer, on
courage, and the best of men have
only a small amount of these needful
mental qualities. and the plodders
have none at all. For the past ten
years. and especially for the past six
years. business has been under the
official ban of Washington.
Investors will not put their money
into railroads that are run by politi-
clans. who fix the price of t~ransporta-
ton at a rate where the railroad can
not thrive.
Also, investors will not purchase
stocks in corporations that are being
assailed by the government on crimi-
nal charges. Would you?
When a United States judge visited
an enormous fine on the second larg-
est employer of labor in America. the
general belief was that he did SO on
the suggestion of the man who was
then president of the limited States.
If the government could by con-
f~scatory fines cripple a great cor
poration. what hope was there for the
rest of us.
This is the feeling in the entire
business fabric today. Ii was the ono
thing that brought on the panic of
1907, and we have not yet re-
covered from that particular STAN
pede.
Especially was confidence given a
blow when a law was recently passed
releasing trades unions and farmers
from any action under the Sherman
act.
The natural inference from that
action was that the business world
was going to be made to suffer, and
1t has beer made to suffer.
Investigations, inquisitions, prose-
BUTTONS. citations-thousands of laws
passed In the various states and by
the federal government for the regu-
lation of business-these things have
all tended to destroy initiative,
.strangle originality. stifie invention,
and smother inspiration.
1t is not necessary to further