The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-08-24
THE FOLLY OF POWER.

Sophy which the Latins have adopt ed in a proverb that whom the Gods would destroy they first made mad
 The Greeks saw the hands of the Gods in every little thing, and when they saw individuals in so- ciety court ruin by their folly, they saw them also the victims of the diivne wrath which had softened or intensified the blow was about to fall.
 The saying then finds application in society not iDfrequently, and we invariable witness the ending of play of folly which seems the excuse often enough for it's destruction. We could not get better example of this truth than by a study of the manner in which the Captains of h. dustry are by their own arbitary acts smoothing the way for their evolutionary removal from the scheme of social things, and especi- ally is this strikingly eXemplified in the actions of the railroad presidents. in their way of meeting the great railroad crisis which confronts them
 Whether they know it or whether they do not, this crisis is weighing all in the balance. It is focusing public attention upon the details of an industry Supremely essential to human intercourse and to human well being It is crisis which in- wolves the life of the nation as mo- thing can ever so deeply affect it short of war for existence, and the people instinctively feel that either a step forward or a step backward is to be registered as a result of the negotiations now being carried on.
 And in a crisis of this sort it Is supremely essential that those who are the immediate parties to the controversy which gave rise to it must know their own minds. There can be no hesitancy among the lead CTS, for whoso hesitates here indeed is lost. There must be no exhibition of delay for delays are deadly dang erous. There must be no uncer- tainty, for self confidence is an es- sential for the men who know.
 But what we do find is that the railroad presidents are vacillating and hesitating and delaying. That they can come to no conclusion. That they cannot agree among themselves That they will not ac- cept a settlements at the hands of Wilson and can agree to offer none at all from their own body. They them with firmness and without he- sitation and with no delay by the brotherhoods. And in their unhap- py method of meeting that deter mined action, they whose action is so indeterminate and so weak, prove themselves wanting in all things but one.
 They have all the arrogance of men who know they have power but can only blindly and uncertainty use it. They display themselves as incapable of decision as incapable of concession, and they fail wholly to show anything else but their own unfitness for position of control and that they can be eleminated from the railroad industry without the country being disturbed one iota.
 And these indeterminate and un- certain and hesitating men are the ones who are held up as. models of efficient captains of industry. Upon the demise of the least of these, the wheels of the industry they con- trol will stop in their course while the body is laid to rest. And re- gardless of the fact that they have departed, the industry proceeds to operate as if they had never been.
 The instinctive tendency of hu- man beings is to judge the fitness of human beings or human institu- tions by their usefulness. It is true that some outlive their usefulness but their ultimate extinction is as- sured.
 And always society is submitting