The Gem worker and the Idaho labor herald. (Boise, Idaho) 1914-1917, 1915-04-29
PRESIDENT spR0ULE OF
SOUTHERN PACIFIC r. II.
TALKS ON HARD TIMES
Insinuates that People Must Submit
to Same Old Brand Of
Hold-Up.

William Sproule Of the Southern
Pacific short time ago addressed
the Traffic Club in Chicago and his
remarks have the approval Of his kind.
He attributed our present disturbed
industrial conditions in the United
States to long-continued clamor
against all sorts of public business,
and predicted that only with returning
prosperity for employers would better
times come for the workers. In other
words he insinuated that the people
must submit to the same brand Of
hold-up which they have been sub
jected for years or the captains Of in
dustry will refuse to move.
Whether Sproule's ideas as to the
cause of the hard times have any merit
is doubtful question. The distress
full conditions are worldwide in their
scope and it is not at all likely that
employers in the older. countries are
playing the game in the fashion, des-
cribed by the Southern Pacific chief.
He. of course. is anxious to convince
the American people that they must
cease in their efforts at regulation If
they desire prosperity, but the patient
and long suffering inhabitants of this
country have benn driven to about
the limit of their endurance BY the
trust manipulators and are in no mood
to accept such dictation now, knowing
full we'll that such a lapse in their eff
forts would only postpone the agony.
They know that they must suffer the
consequences of their early failure to
regulate the big corporations of the
country and that they might as well
go through with it now that the battle
is nearly won and have an end to it.
The corporations, of course will fight
and cause as much distress as possible,
but the people are determined and are
willing to pay the cost of ultimate
victory.
Mr.. Sproule knows. just as do all
others of his class, that had the big
business interests given the great mass
of the people anything even remotely
resembling square deal in the past,
there would not now be any need for
his eloquent complaint He said: II
urge the prosperity of the average
man." He followed by saying: "To
secure that prosperity I urge the inn
perativel necessity of taking business
out of the atmosphere of attack into
the old-fashioned, go-ahead atmos-
phere of business initiative and Ameri-
can enterprise. | urge relief from the
fads, fancies and isms which have fill
ed the streets with unemployed and
put awaythe dinner pail of the work.
ing man empty on the shelf of the
impoverished home"
I Just think of the heartfelt soiicitude
of Mr.. Sproule and his kind for the
average man. The people of Cali
fornia had forty years of experience
with the benevolence of the Southern
Pacific railroad. yet this chief has the
termerity to tell them they must desist
in their purpose to liberate themselves
from the clutches of such corporations
or they will have no prosperity.
Indications are that the greed mon
gers have not yet learned their lesson
and must still be thumped into reali-
cation of the fact that the days of
plumber have passed, never to return.
OF course it would be far better for
all if conditions were otherwise, but
he is not as sagacious as we believe
him to be if he still harbors hope that
the average man can at this late date
be coerced or intiInidated into giving
up III tiC iSHl III JEoLiACs 5NNi y iOOt-
ish, indeed, is such hope. The people
have been so thoroughly gouged and
buffeted about that they have learned
their lesson well and are now prepared
to assume their proper position of
master rather than that of servant
Big business has been in the saddle all
too long and must now dismount and
give the patient burden-bearers of
past years an opportunity to feed and
shelter themselves.
If the trust chiefs are capable of
reading the signs of the times they
will proceed to accept the inevitable
and play the game in the future on
basis of justice. The people are not
very vindictive and will. in spite of
past wrongs, even yet deal out even
handed justice to their former plumb
erers if they show a disposition to re-
form.-San Francisco Labor Clarion.