Crawfordsville Weekly Journal, Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, 22 September 1899 — Page 8

((i

His Address Before the Trust Conference at Central Music Hall, Chicago.

EATS MONOPOLY OHEAPENSBR AINS.

StaclftreA That All Monopolies Are Evil—

"W^uld IMhco

the Rights of Man Jtefore

the Kiglits of Money—Kverj' Unjust Law li a Form of Larceny, and All Toilers AT© inseparably Related.

In addressing tbe conference on trusts at Central Music Hall, Chicago, Col. William .T. Bryan spoke as follows: "Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Geutlemen: I eome this morning to discuss in your presence a great question—a question of growing importance to the American people. The trust, principle hi not a new principle, but the trust principle is manifesting itself in so many ways and the trusts have grown so rapidly that people now feel alarmed about trusts who did not feel alarmed three years ago. The trust question lias grown in importance, because within two years more trusts tu have been organized, when we come to •outrider the capitalization and the magnitude of the interests involved, tyan were organized in all the previous history of the country, and the people «ow eome face to face with the questioa: Is the trust a blraslng or a curse? a curse, what remedy can be apj„.tiled to the curse? jl.j'wJiWanfc to start with the declaration vimonopoly in private hands is In-

ffejGen?ible from auy standpoint and In-

U(,taleiD^le.

I yirake no exceptions to

(j ifc® rnle. I' do not divide monopolies P|LIP private hands into good monopolies i] and bad monopolies. There is no good "»oaoRoly in private hands. There can ho no good monopoly in private hands antil the Almighty sends us angels to

PftwMe over us. There may be a desW* who Is better than another despot, hat there Is no good despotism. One trast may be less harmful than an-

•ljni

One trust magnate may be

•, benevolent than another, but tlioro 1b bo good monopoly in private haaAs, and I do not believe it is safe tor society to permit any man or gorup •f men to monopolize any article of ihandise or any branch of busl-

Objpcts to Monopoly.

the trust will sell to a man an dollar less than the article other conditions, then

1

some that proves the

jflVWlife1 £e good thing. In the first '.ilMW yeny that under a m6nopoly will beredueed. In the sec-

AKR) If under a monopoly the TOge tffci !mll'ced' the objections to a monopoly from other standpoints far •5a£welgh the financial advantage that the.tnistMwould bring. But I protest fpthe beginning aga.inst settling every QW^tion upon the dollar argument. /'In 1S09 Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to,some people in Boston and in the course of the letter he said: 'The Republican party believes in the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict it believes in the man before the dollar.' In the early years of his administration he sent a mesr.age to congress, and in that message he warned his countrymen against the approach of monarchy. And what was it that farmed him? He said it was the attempt to put capital upon an equal roting with, if not above, labor in the atmctnre of government, and in that attempt to put capital even upon an equal footing with labor in the structure of government he saw the approach of monarchy. Lincoln was right Whenever you put capital upon •a equal footing with labor, or above labor. In the structure of government TOO, ore on the road' to aid a governfa^pt that rests not upon reason but

the or ea til re of God and

njopey Ip the creature of man. Money to be the servant of man^ ai#

(tJij^tst

*$&[£

against all theories that

aRainst

all theories that

enthrone money and debase mankind. Tru«ts Got the Renefit. "But 1 want now to read to you a few of the advantages to be derived by the trusts from the trust system, from a speech made by Charles R. Flint ai Boston on the 2nth day of May last, before an audience of. bankers: 'Raw material bought in large quantities is secured at lower prices.' That is the first advantage. 'One man to buy wool for all the woolen manufacturers.' That means that every man who sells wool must sell it at the price fixed by this one purchaser in the United States. Tl^first,..thing is to lower the price of

The great majority of

are engaged in the produc­

tion of raw. material and in tlie

pur-

chpe ofjfinijhqd products." it is but coip^M^Jsels fnwi'Who can sfaiijl'at th%%«a lflfitRiTittifc-irt&s arid mShopofies ANA.IIIAUIN. 4UU'I

FTI, J')J

anfy#f«»»jro!.ti»f/ profits fi-ofti' tUeiii. Therefore, the first advantage 6f a monopoly Is to lower the price of raw material furnished by the people to thai combination. Those plants which are best equipped and most advantageously situated are run continuously and in preference to those less favored. "The next thing is, after you have bought all the factories, to close some of them and turn out of employment the men who are engaged in them— and If .you will go about over the country you will see where people have subscribed money to establish enterprises, having come under the control of the trusts, have been closed and stand now as silent monuments to the wisdom of the trust system.

Monopoly Cheapens Brains.

"There is no multiplication,' is the next statement, of the means of distribution and a better force of salesmen takes the place of a large number.' I want to warn you that when the monopoly has absolute control, brains will be at a discount, and relatives will be necessary to fill these positions. When there is competition every employer has to get a good man to meet competition, but when there Is bo competition anybody can sit in the office and receive letters and answer them when everbody has to write to the same house for anything he .wants, There is no question about-it A trust, a monopoly, can lessen the cost of distribution. But when It does

so society has no assurance that it will get any of the benefits from that reduction of cost in reduction of price. But you will take away the necessity for that skill, for that brains. You will take away the stimulus that has given to us the quickness, the alertness of the commercial evangelists who go-from one part of the'country to the other carrying the merits of their respective1 goods,- will not be needed, because when anybody wants them nil lie lias to do is to write to the one ninn who has the things for sale, and say.' 'What will you let me have it for today?'

Tariff Aidn Monopoly.

"The primary cause of monopoly is the love of money and the desire to secure the fruits of monopoly but I be lieve that: falling prices caused by a rising dollar have contributed to this desire and intensified it, because people with their platns, seeing the fall in prices and measuring the joss on investments, have looked about for some means by which they could protect themselves from this loss, and they have joined in combinations to hold up prices to protect their investments from loss which would not have occurred but for the rise in the value of dollars and the fall in the level of prices. "Another thing that, in niv judgment, lias aided monopoly is a high tariff. Nobody can dispute that a tariff law, an Import duty, enables a trust to charge for its product the price of a similar foreign product plus the tariff. "Now eome have suggested that to put everything on the free list that trusts make would destroy the trusts. I do not agree with this statement as It is made so broadly. I believe that the high tariff has been the means of extortion and that it has aided the trust to collect more than the trust otherwise could collect But I do not believe you could destroy all trusts by putting all trust-made articles on the free list. Why? Because, if an article can be produced in this country as cheaply as It can be produced abroad the trust could exist without the benefit of any tariff, although It could not extort so much as it could with the tariff, and while some relief may come from modifications of the tariff, we cannot destroy monopoly until we lay the ax on the root of the tree and make monopoly impossible by law.

Remedies So it genteel*

"Now what can be done to preveni the organization of a monopoly? 1 rather'think we differ more in remedy than we do In our opinion of the trust. I venture to guess that few people will defend the trust as a principle, or a trust organization as a good thing, but I imagine our great difference will bp as to,remedy, and I want, for a- moment, to discuss tlie. remedy. -1 "We ,have a dualoiformk of'govern ment. We have a state-*jf.government and a .federal govern mwnt,'aiiarW!hlle this dual forni ofr.gtfvemfljenf tfflgJItn advantages, and Jto^jmjrjf hUttd tages which can hardlyU&'ovi&reftSttfliit-' 3d, yet it also has its disadvantages, yet it also has its disadvantages When you prosecute a trust in'the' United States court it hides behind state's sovereignty, and when you. prosecute it in the state court it rushes tp. cover under federal jurisdiction— and we have had some difficulty in prosecuting a remedy. "I believe we ought to have remedies in both state and nation, and that they should be concurrent remedies. In the first place, every state has, or should have, the right to create any private corporation which in the Justice of the people of the state is conducive to the welfare of the people of that state. I believe we can safely intrust to the people of a state the settlement of a question which concerns them. If they create a corporation and it becomes destructive of their best interests they can destroy that corporation, and we can safely trust them both to create and to annihilate if conditions make annihilations necessary. In the second place, the state has, or should have, the right to prohibit any foreign corporation from «Jolng4Mtaitt0Ss In tilestate, ayd it ought

{n

toahftVB

or :bhs tate

right to ,impose Rueh^resti'ibtSottS Afid limitations as the rpqoRtd.iof "tUie -state may think necessary forrforeign cor porations doing business* in the state. In other words, the people of-the state not only should have a right to create the corporations they want, but they should be permitted to protect themselves against any outside corpora tion.

Congress Should Act.

"But I do not think this is sufiicient. I believe in addition to a state remedy there must lie a federal remedy, and I believe congress has, or should have, the power to place restrictions and limitations, even to the point of prohibition, upon any corporation organized in one state that wants to do business outside of the state. I say that congress has, or should have, power to place upon that corporation, •sufcli limitations and restrictions, ey#Ui. -to .tlie point of prohibition, as may to" confh'fess seem necessary for the pro tectipn of the public good. '•Now I believe that these concur,, rent'remedies will reach the difficulty! thiit' the people of every state shall first decide Whether they want to ere ate a corporation that they shall, secondly, decide whether they want a in outside corporations to do business iii the state, and, if so, upon what conditions and, thirdly, that congress shall exercise the right to place upon every corporation doing business outside of the state in which it is organized such limitations and restrictions as may be necessary for the protection of the public good. "Now, I am here to hear and to receive and to adopt any method thai anybody can propose that looks to tin annihilation of the trusts. One method has occurred to me, and to me it seems a complete method. It may not commend itself to you. If you have something better I shall acept it in tluplace of this which I am about to s.ig gest. But the method that occurs to me is this: That congress should pass a law providing that no corporation organized in any state should do business outside of the state in whicn it is organized until it receives trom soma power created by congress a license authorizing it to do business outside of its own state. Now, if tne corporation must come to this body created by congress to secure permis sion to do business outside the state, then that license can be granted upon conditions which will, in the first

ilace, prevent the watering of stock tbe second place, will prevent mo­

nopoly In any branch of business and third, for publicity as to all of the transactions and business of the corporation.

Danger In Secrecy.

"You can provide for publicity, and that anually or at such other times a9 the corporation shall make returns of its Hisiness and of its earnings, because, as has been well said by men who have spoken here, corporations cannot claim that they have a' right or that it is necessary to cover their transactions with secrecy, and when you provide for publicity, so that, the public shall know just what there is in the corporation, just what it is doing and just what it is making, you will go another long step toward the destruction of tlie principle of the monopoly. "But I am not willing to stop there. I do not want to go one step or two steps. 1 want to go all the way and make the principle of monopoly absolutely impossible, or a monopoly absolutely impossible in the industry of this country. And therefore, as a third condition, I suggest that this license shall not be granted until the corporation shows that it has not had a monopoly and is not attempting a monopoly of any branch of industry or any article of merchandise. Then provide that if the law is violated the license can be revoked. I do not believe in the government giving privileges to be used by a corporation without reserving the right to withdraw them when those privileges become hurtful to the people.

Unjust Law I* Robbery.

"Every unjust tax law Is an indirect form of larceny. If, for instance, aman who ought to pay $10 only pays. $5, and one who' ought to pay J?5 pays1: $10, the law that compels this contribuition from these two &en yji^tually takes $5 from one man's pocket and puts that $5 in another man's.'pocket, and I have claimed that when we collected our taxes we were making the poor people pay not only their own share, but the share of men- whom they have no chance to meet at the summer resorts. And I have been gratified to note the progress you have been making in Illinois toward a more equitable division and a more equit able distribution of the burdens of government. "If we can secure a governmen whose foundations are laid In justice and laws exemplifying the doctrine of equality before the law—if we can secure such a government and such laws, and then under such a govern ment and such laws wealth is accumu lated in a point where It becomes dangerous, we can meet that question when it arises, and I am willing to trust the wisdom of society to meet every question that arises and remedy every wrong. 'First I, would see if thev die soo" enough .to relieve (IB of danger, and iT they didn't I would see. what was necessary to protect society from-them. And this, brings me .to what I 'regard a very important branch of this .subject. Every trust rests.,aipotr a: cprinprntipn. At least that ride". ifeftSo? nearly universal that, I thintorwe can accept it as the basis for our delibera tion. Every trust rests upon a-cor-poration and every corporation'is a creature of law. The corporation is a man, individuals. •'..•..

When God Made Maii.r.

r'

"When God made man as the 'cliniax of creation. lie looked upon Ilis w.pi'K and said it was good, and yet wh&i God got through the tallest nttlh was not much taller than the shortest, and the strongest man was not much stronger than the weaker. That was God's plan. We looked upon His work and said it was not quite as good as it might be, and so we made a fictitious man that is in some instances a hundred times—a thousand times—a million times—stronger thauGod made man. Then we started this man-made giant out among the God-made pygmies. Now when God made man he placed a limit to his existence, so that If he were a bad man. he could not do barm long, but when we made, our man-madg man. .weRaised the limit on his flge. Wfieu Gftd otjiade" man He± breathed into~him a soul and warned him that in the next world he would be held accountable for the deeds done in the flesh, but when we made our man-made man we did not give htm a soul, and if lie can avoid punishment In this world lie need not worry about the hereafter. "We are not dealing with tlie natural man: we are not dealing with natural rights. We are dealing with the man-made-man and artificial privileges and so-called rights. What government gives the government can take away. What the government creates it can control and I insist that both the state government and the federal government must protect the Godmade man from the man-made man.

Outgrowth of Uimuturiil Conditions.r

"The trust is the natural outgrowth sof unnatural conditions qeatod''by, 'ihan-made laws. There are. soujl: Aylio, 'would defend every thing,"good $- T)iid,'" on the ground that it is as ^irt of„des-r tiny^an'd you cannot inmriie iiko'it" ^l«?T-i?f*ct- that It' -is,. proves^ tlffit it. 14 HSKtvthetfftct tfittt'it W rj{r'pve& .tii'a't' it Sias coine' to $^,'' afia^btf%moS£poteilt fivgumoiytrftifrt wti^'^ ever ijiiacte in defense of a vicious system was not that it was right, and ought to stay, but that it has come to stay, whether you like it or not. I say that it is the most potent argument that has ever been advanced in behalf of an error-

It is here, it has come to stay, what are you going to do about it? "Shall I decide the ethics of larceny by discussing how much tlie man is going to steal, or the chances or getting caught? No, my friends, you have to decide upon a higher ground, and if you were to prove to me that a monopoly would reduce the price of the articles we have to purchase I would still be opposed to it for this reason, which to my mind overshadows all pecuniary arguments: Put the industrial system of this nation into the hands of a few men and let them determine the price of all material, let them determine the price of finished products and the wages of labor paid and you will have an Industrial aristocracy beside which a landed aristocracy would bte an innocent thing, In my judgment.

Knle of the Syndicates.

"Place the food and clothing and all that we eat and wear and use into the bands of a few people and instead of being a government by the people it will be a government of the syndicates, by the syndicates and for the syndicates."

COCKRAN Oil TRUSTS.

Speaks at Central Music Hall, Chicago, Before a Large Audience.

WM. J. BRYAN WAS AN AUDITOR.

Advocalos Publicity In the Form of Trusts Say« Secrecy Shelter* Fniutl —He Kellevns Trusts an Inevitable Step in the lnlu*triiil Evolution Surveys the

AVliole Field of Cupitftfand Lubor.

Bourke Cockran, of New York, spoke as follows before the conference on trusts and monopoly at Central Music hall, Chicago: "Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The precise question which we havejbeen called to consider is the effect upon the general prosperity of-the community of combinations, whether of capital or of labor. "A combination may be good or bad, according to its effect. For instance, a combination for prayer is a church. All good men would subscribe tp the success of it. A combination for burglary is a conspiracy. All good men would call out the police to prevent it. Any industrial system which operates to swell the volume of production should be commended anything that operates to restrict it should be suppressed.

The Opposinc Contentions.

"Some contend that the tendency of •these'combinations of capital is to cheapen the product, others say that it is to' 'raise the price tit

product The

test is to ascertain Wfietlier the combination of capital' flourishes through government aid or without it, for my friends, ^ou must see that any industrial enterprise which dominates the market without aid from the government must do so through cheapening the product, or as it is commonly called "by underselling competitors. An industry which at one and the same time reduces prices and swells Its own profits must accomplish that result by increasing the volume of its production. On the other hand, an industry which dominates the market by the favor of government, direct or Indirect, cannot in the nature of things, be forced to cheapen prices because if it could dominate the markets by underselling competitors in an open field •without the favor, it would not need the government favor. The interference of the government would be an injury and not a benefit to it. ..

The Other.Kind of Success &'£)'• ii y.

"An industry.pr a, combination of capital, or anytlVing you may choose &> call it, tha,t dominates market tl[rou£h a" restricted competitions tteuj demurs the consumer to itioniiitsOoS'u tetfnis, necessarily depends uponftunar-l roty output and large profits, extrntefl. •not from the excellency of its service. btit from the helplessness of those with \vhom it deals. "Now there are three ways in which the government interferes in the trade of individuals in this country. One is by pateiit laws. It is my purpose! ladies and gentlemen, tonight to try and emphasize, the points 011 which w'e can agree, and if possible by some suggestions to extend the scope and field of our agreement, but waste no time upon questions which cannot possibly be settled by this conference, and on which this conference can have very little effect. Therefore I will not waste time in discussing patent laws. "The other means by which the government Interferes is by tariff. Now I believe that every person can concede, whether he believes in high tariff or free trade, that so far as trusts are concerned, the tariff operates to favor them in this way and in this way only. It operates to restrict competition in the production of any article to those engaged in it In this country. But If ,a trust or combination* isito-b«f manifestly,Jt aldSothe^entew prlSe \ybeie tJie field, of competi tion. fist originally, limited/ JJnder a conditio*-'-' of free trade e:vfery.articlewhicbisajw#. duced is exposed to the competition of the whole \vorliI. If you rely upon the combination to- suppress competition, manifestly it fe easier to make a combination between the producers in one country than in all .countries, and to that extent the tariff favors trusts. liiipiirlialiiy DemandKd. "A government cannot be just and generous at the same time, for if it be generous to one it must be oppressive to another. If it does a favor it must, have a victim. And that government only is just and beueficicnt which has neither favorites nor" victims. The most that you can expect to make of a perfect government is a just one.

That is to sfiy, an impartial government. Government is always just n,nd always beneficent wla£n,it is absolutely impartial, but ^pf1, merely must its own hands be impartial, but, to paraphrase Lord Bacon, "tlie hands ofVits hands" must^ b$. Impartial. Not

wwertPSS 'disehftr«^

4fuj\titl6ns

assen-

tiially pu&lic must bfe impartial in that •service-To' every human being within the limits of the state. .Public latred of Corporations. "While I am on the subject, I think it wise to advert to what many call a phenomenon—that is, the public dislike and distrust or hatred of corporations. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't share that hatred or dislike, but I understand it. I don't think It is wholly justified, yet I think an examination of the history of corporate management will show some justification. We have heard much about over-capitalization as one of the evils to be treated in this conference. In one sense I think over-capitalization is a matter of no public moment. In another I think it has a serious aspect. It matters very little how I capitalize an enterprise in Itself.- If I capitalize it at $100,000 and it is earning $f0.000 a year the public would Immediately put the shares at 100 per cent, pretaium. and that would be quoted at 2u0. It would make no difference whether I capitalized at one hundred or two hundred thousand. If, on the other hand, I capitalize at $400,000, the stfares would sell at 50, and that would not make very much difference.

Fooling the Public.

"The public Is fooled as to the value of the stocks with specific statements

Interest Is paid upon bonds -which has never been earned, and the public believes them solvent it pays its fixed charges and the public buys the stock, e'ven thovgli no dividends have been paid, believing that dividends are soon to be paid because the fixed charges are met: •'=»'.r-e*t is paid on the preferred f-tuc'i. Aviiieh never has been earned tun the common stock ma j- be. ihuited. iu when the collapse er:r:\0i. when the ruin is complete, in nine cases out of ten the engineers of. {•'.•.'«! ruin are appointed the receivers- n-'ic cor.: ts in order to conduct the p'.-r oi iro.-c iiiizatio:i. "No ci -po' a tion lias a right to secrecy in tlie discharge of its duties. Whenever ::y person seeks to lure you 11]) a dark alley way 011 the pretense that he i.H going to serve you. do not parley with him a moment: he's a confidence man. Call a policeman, if you want to save your property or your character. No corporation anxious to perform honest services to the public and its stockholders will seek secrecy or will insist upon it.

Secrecy Cloaks Frau"d.

"Remember that this secrecy is not invoked by corporate members against the public any more than it is against their own stockholders. It is the cloak behind which all these frauds are perpetrated. The payment of interest, the false pretense of paying dividends which have not been earned, false pretenses about earnings, false pretenses made up of false bookkeeping, all these are possible while the managers of a corporation' have the right to close their offices in the face of their own shareholders and say that this is a matter which concerns only the management.

No American Monopoly.

"I do not bplieve that there is any single industry existing in this country to-day that is a monopoly in the sense in which that word can be used. I believe the Standard Oil company, which is generally considered the leading monopoly, supplies about 62 per cent of the entire product of all the country. But I suppose a better word would be a dominating industrial enterprise—one that dominates the market, that leads, not that has the largest measure of the total. I do not object even If you call the institution that gives me my clothes the cheapest, even if you call it a monopoly. I will not quarrel with the words. I do not care which term you use as much as I do about the clothes. But It must be bot-ne in mind that the gentlemen who object to this form of domination or monopoly—call it what you will—on the ground that it. destroys competition are wholly illogical. 5 lo«»Mn't

Destroy Competition.

"It does not destroy competition. It is .ttfe- very -jjMcfuct of competition. Kadles1 and gentf6then, you canot have tyMnftfdtitlon' wifliBtrt competitors, and M$%rtju*fiive competitors one must pre*PaifcsiIf'!ybu do riot allo^ the man who £|JF@^&aiS5ih the competitioii the fruit of fflfc JViffity he will' not compete, and •inobody else will, and then you will have no competition. The' competition of men in any department of human endeavor, if .It be absolutely free, always, develops excellence, and excellence is monopoly. It would not be excellence if it wasn't. You would surely not call that excellence which is shared by many. Now, if any number of persons competing to supply me with clothes and with shoes and with food and witji shelter have, among tliera one standing pre-eminently able to render me the best service of all, he does not suppress competition he is the competitor he is the successful competitor, and if you do not allow him the fruits of his success you destroy competition.

Lowest Price Dominates.

"He who sells cheapest must always dominate the market, for in economics the domination of tbe cheapest is the survival of the fittest. Now, I have beard it said as an objection to this that it throws—that the successful industry by serving me so wellthrown tlie men who cannot sarve me Iso^welHotft of employment. Well, I jriflgKtf'say in the first place that I do. jnWlMfeve it. These great industrial itEiftttf' I do not believe have thrown ahybfldy out of 'employment who de|serves employment. To begin with, the man who says that any combination throws him out of employment because he cannot compete with it admits that somebody else can do his job better than he can, and if so, he ought to give it up. But let us consider for just one moment what the acts of history show. There have been two or three great Industrial changes, and, ladies and gentlemen, my firm belief is that a period of industrial change is a period of apprehensions, but the apprehensions are never realized.

LAW Governing Wages.

"If you will bear with me for a moment and consider the law governing wages you will find that the one thing which affects fiie rate, of laborers' wages is the volume of his product, and no agreement between him0anJ his employer can enable the employer to pay more for the 'valine of his prop duct. You wijl. see in tliis sense that it is impossiljld, to maintain for a moment the idea so generally felt that wages area species of alms, that good employers pay higher wages and bad employers pay poor wages. Recurring to the example of the chair, it is perfectly plain that I cannot give the laborer any more than his share of that product, and if I bring charity into the matter, why, in a short time I will be bankrupt arid I will not be able to pay him anything at all. His compensation or his rate of wages depends very much not on the employer's philanthropy—it depends upon his own right arm and his own productive power. ii7

The Two Regulators.}

"There a»e two laws working upon wages which fix its standard. One is competition between laborers for employment, which operates to depreciatfe wages the other is the competition between capital and capital for profit, which operates to raise the rate of wages. You will see yourself if I am making chairs, and if I am getting my labor for less than It is worth, the results will be a great increase in my profits but the moment I show a large profit In my chalrmaking Industry capital will give me competition, and the resultant condition will be that there will be competition for the labor of the laborer, and the only way to prevent the employer from bankruptcy. from a failure to obtain labor, will be that he must raise wages. Now, the competition between capital and

capital is keener than between laborer and laborer, though we don't often know it. You will see that it takes fourteen days to move a laborer from New York to Chicago, but you can send $10,000,000 from Chicago to Hong Kong for a postage stamp.

Employer anil Kmploye Partners.

"We haveseen that the rate of wagesis fixed by the volume of the product, and nothing can change it. We have seen that since tke ..employer and the employe must share prosperity from the same causes and adversity from the same conditions, their relation is a partnership -and cannot be changed. The employer may discharge his employe—that is to say, he may change his partners—but when he takes on" others the partnership is renewed, and it is still a co-operative concern its nature cannot be changed. That has been fixed by the eternal laws of God and the universe. "Now, when a great corporation charged -with the exercise of public franchises, suspends the services which it has been chartered to render, it is today the duty of the attorney general to ask why that has occurred. A distinguished judge in New York state enjoined an application for a mandamus against a railway company whose system was tied up by a strike among its freight handlers, and I believe that a right of action lies now on the part of any member of the public against a corporation whose service is suspended, unless it can show the reasoy for the suspension.

His Suffgeatimis.

"My friends, these are my suggestions: Publicity for corporate mismanagement, prohibition under penalties for special favors, right of action against any corporatibn'whose service is suspended, except an absolute defense proved that It was at all times ready to .discuss with its employes questions at issue between tfiem, by agencies of their selection.

I am told, however, that if we promote this co-operation we will destroyindividualism. Individualism is another of those phrases which have been specially invented for the perplexity of mankind. Individualism, in its last analysis, is savagery. The savage, depending on himself alone for his shelter and his food, and the club from the tree or the stone picked by his unaided hand from the ground for hisweapon, is the most complete instance or individualism conceivable. Civilized man depends upon everybody else for his prosperity. The object of savagery is to get a weapon to beat men. away from them the object of civilization is the employment and protection of the individual and the cooperation of men. AIL men are engaged in civilized life in, a greatscheme of co-operation, in which the activity of every man's hand is of vital, importance to all the rest. -c.4

No Fear flf Soeialism. -7-

"We are told to/lay that this closer co-operation would bring around socialism. I have no fear of that--word. If the greater development of man's mentality and genius bridge him so far that he will work as well for the common good as, -he would for his own, and we have just the same impetus for industry as we have had, socialism would not frighten me for, my friends, I,j believe that we are all bound together* by one common «tie in common ind# of try, in one common partnership. C^on you or I do one thing for the Lo.ViHT of himself without benefiting *inFl5T fellows? Can fancy gratify itself, car pride indulge itself? can appeti satisfy itself without paying a trlbu to the whole human race? If a seek to build a palace in order to glv expression to his pride and satisfac tion to his sense of luxury, must no be employ ten thousand hands in every quarter of the globe? The woman\ who buys a new robe to gratify her vanity must give employment to hun-1 dreds of her fellow creatures every-/ where throughout the world "Even the. Capitalists." "Even the capitalist who from most sordid motives seek to raise rate of interest from 5 per cent, to per cent, must serve his fellows doing it.' There is but one way he ca] increase the profits of hii capital, an that is to increase its productivity. I lie is engaged in making tables, must make more tables if he is en gaged in building, he must erect morejf-i houses if he is engaged in agricui-i ture, he must increase the acreage of^' tillage, and in doing that he must em-/[ ploy more labor and he must dis-i1 tribute tens of dollars for every one that lie turns into his own pocket. Our patience, our vanities, our hopes, our} ambitions are but the delusions which! bind us to the cause of human pro-: gress, making each one of us discharge some tribute which we owe to all humanity. "If I were asked to define the eco- •, nomic effect of humanity, that-which makes, this civilization Christian 'civil.izatigu,_ I slioulcl-say it rroos the sub-' stitutioa.pf f^ee labor foEiSlavery? The diange. fr?Mi(jSla^lalioj Ttoii reetitt»t»r '•has worjc^ an ^extraordinary change**' throughput, the world} ltemovul ortlie Sifiria^iig^ "The removal of manaciefe froin hand of man has wonderfully

s«r

kicr£ase$?t

his productivity it has wonderfuili^. extended the scope of his powers.W multiplied his possessions, lengthened^ the span of his days and widened the horizon of his ambitions. But, out of his very prosperity it has created this difficulty with which we are conv, fronted today. The slave was willing to accept from the hand of his master a crust of bread as the reward for hi? labor, to escape the lash. But the tre laborer enjoys a fair share of the pros perity which has been created by hi" toil. Thank heaven we have turn away from the question of foreig wars and exterior boundaries to inteual conditions and domestic prosperity. I do not fear the specter of socialism or anything else that can he conjured. Sufficient unto today is this day in which wehavealready achieved I a splendid progress. ,v'T"-W

A Step Toward Brotherhood.

"Closer co-operation is a step toward the brotherhood of man. If socialism is to be the fruit of higher develop- jj ment I am not afraid of the word. I am not disturbed by anything which will extend that principle into our in-1 dustrlal system, for it is that which/ E underlies it. It is the origin of this' .. Industrial system built upon freedom, enlarged, not merely the field of man in citizenship, but his partnership la Industry."