The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1917-12-06
CLARK DISCUSSES
INDUSTRY AND WAR
Representative Of Corporate Interests
Makes Address in MinOt and Pleads
For a Better Understanding.

representative VI COI pOIdIc 1NIcTcSIS
Makes Address in MinOt and Pleads
For Better Understanding.
S A. Clark, of Carroltor, Mo, ad-
dressed a crowd Of about one hundred
at the Elks' Home on Industry and
the War" last Monday night.
Mr.. Clark's address was well re-
Gel, ed, Notwithstanding the fact that
he represents the big interests of the
country. He came here not trying in
any manner to conceal this fact but to
admit it and to try to place big bust
ness in different light from that in
which it has been viewed during the
past few years. Mr.. Clark's argu-
ment is that big business is necessary
to the production Of things on a large
scale and that while everything has
not been perfect in the past as far as
corporations capable of doing big
things in big way are needed now as
they were never needed before. Mr..
Clark said in part:
We cannot afford to enter this war
hampered and harassed by discord and
strife, labor disturbances, class preju-
dice and ill-advised legislation. This
movement is intended to promote the
highest degree of industrial efficiency
to produce unity, harmony and CO.
operation between the men engaged
in all branches of industry, on the
farms, in the mines, in the factories
and on the railways of our country;
between employers, employees, and the
consuming public-all Of which are
patriotic purposes and imperative
needs in this hour of national peril.
The past decade has been an era of
legislative madness. 1t has been an
era of so-called illegal reforms" dur
ing which time we have been striving
to legislate virtue into life, to cure all
our ills by statutory enactment, to
legislate the devil out of business and
mould private character by law. It
has been an era of misunderstanding
railroad smashing and trust-busting,
in which passion and prejudice have
dethroned sanity and reason. Big
business in all lines has been savage
~ assailed. 1t has been an era of ag-
ltatlon, investigation, regulation, leg
lslatlon, confiscation and finally con-
sternation. The lecturer on the Chau-
tauqua platform, the minister in the
pulpit, the editor in his sanctum, the
lawyer at the bar and the judge on
the bench, joined hands with the
muckraker, the anti-business "dope-
ster," the charlatan, the demagogue
and the propagandists of thousand
and one reforms for the regeneration
of the world, and all mingled their
voices in one incoherent clamor, made
a veritable bedlam of our legislative
halls, and held high carnival in the
councils Of the nation. Every dema-
gogue seeking public office, whether
legislative, executive or judicial, join
ed the Performers" and devoted him
self to fomenting the populace The
legislator listened to the Glamour, the
executive became the tool of the I'M
scrupulous and unwise and even the
courts trembled and quaked in the
presence of the Infatuated mob. As
result we have had government of the
rabble, by the rabble and for the rab-
BILE.
More incompetent men have ridden
into office masquerading in the guise
of reform, than competent men who
were real reformers, but who refused
to indorse fake nostrums as a bride
for votes. Smelling committees and
investigating commissions have been
appointed to inquire into every detail
of business and investigate every
phase of private life; all of which
have entailed enormous public ex-
pense and placed heavy burdens on
the business interests of the country
/ appeal to you, my fellow citizens, to
stop and consider how fast these COM
missions have been multiplying, both
in the state and in the nation, prin-
cipally for the purpose of giving jobs
to deserving politicians; and then re-
fleet on what the logical sequence may
be-a condition such as followed the
French revolution, when every fourth
man was a governmental employee.
"The American farmer can win the
war;" said Herbert Quick, member Of
the Federal Land Bank Board.
"He can fight with his corn and
wheat and hogs; and he will have to,
for corn and wheat and hogs and
foodstuffs of all kinds are to have as
important part in this great con-
flict as the big guns in France" That
is true in the sense in which Mr.. Quick
meant it, cut it is not literally true.
Because the same may be said of the
miner, who delves into the ground and
brings forth the coal and the ore,
without which this great war cann.o
be won. The same M" be said of the
manufacturing industries, which
clothe and furnish our armies and ma
vies with munitions and the imple-
ments of war. And the same may be
said of the railways, which distribute
the products of the various sections of
our country and mobilize our great re-
sources along the Atlantic coast. The