THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 /^r-^
 
 rhe RAID on PROSPERITY
 
 The RAID on 
 PROSPERITY 
 
 By 
 
 JAMES ROSCOE DAY, LL.D., D.C.L. 
 
 CHANCELLOR OF SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1908
 
 Copyright, 1907, bv 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Publiahed November, 1907
 
 106 
 
 7> ^, ^ * L 
 
 TO 
 MY FATHER 
 
 THOMAS DAY 
 
 WHO TAUGHT ME 
 
 TO REVERE THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 AND 
 
 TO REGARD THE RIGHTS OF MEN 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK , 
 
 2049610
 
 PREFACE 
 
 When men cannot answer facts or arguments, they usu- 
 ally resort to impugning motives, and they descend to abuse 
 more or less coarse, according to the fiber of their natures. 
 To such persons it is useless for one to give a reason for acts 
 or utterances which they assail. The student with judicial 
 mind finds his way to explanations of motives by processes 
 that require no emendation. For him a statement is not 
 necessary. To the hurried, sincere man a prefatory word 
 may be proper. 
 
 Since I entered upon this discussion, a year and a half 
 ago, when my opinions met violent opposition, a marked 
 change seems to have come over a large portion of the 
 public. 
 
 The subjects discussed in these pages I pronounced 
 myself upon for the most part twenty years ago. My con- 
 victions have not come to me out of the exigencies of a col- 
 lege presidency or by the contaminating Influence of million- 
 aires! I am on record, with such record as a comparatively 
 young man could make, far back beyond the present agita- 
 tion. From the time when as a lad of fourteen I passed 
 around the continent from Maine to Oregon to the times 
 
 vii
 
 PREFACE 
 
 when I penetrated to its centers and crossed It along its 
 diameter, I have had an increasing appreciation of our coun- 
 try's magnitude and the immensity of our times, and I have 
 believed that if as a people we were as large as our oppor- 
 tunity, the civilized world would revolve around us as its 
 axis because we would comprise the blood and force of all 
 great peoples, and our mighty endeavors, restricted only by 
 the extent and enormous resources of our vast territory, 
 would be the necessity and service of all lands. 
 
 The occasion for my speaking is due to certain incidents 
 in the administration of the government which I believe un- 
 warranted by our Constitution, and in their tendency de- 
 structive to our liberties and the progress of our commerce. 
 Carried to their conclusions — and these are not far away — 
 they must result in an oligarchy. A lawmaking, court- 
 controlling executive department, a government by commis- 
 sions, a personal construction of the Constitution is not a 
 republic. 
 
 The trial of business corporations in courts of the ad- 
 ministration, by a prosecuting administration, the arraign- 
 ment of citizens and their business by name in a condemna- 
 tory way, the characterizing of private citizens offensively, 
 and the commenting adversely upon men under indictment 
 waiting trial, unseemly quarrels with the representatives of 
 our highest official positions before an astonished civilized 
 world, and gratuitous attacks upon citizens for their personal 
 opinions and teachings, have seemed to me so opposed to all 
 our dignified traditions and such a menace to our boasted 
 freedom as to justify an examination of some first principles. 
 
 viii
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I speak by no man's favor nor am I restrained by any 
 man's frown. My credentials are sufficient. I am an Amer- 
 ican citizen. 
 
 If a corrective to existing evils should be applied in any 
 case, it should be done by calm, statesmanlike perception of 
 the large and far-extended interests of the country; not as 
 " punitive only, but as protective " also, and not as " offen- 
 sive alone, but defensive " of our country's immense com- 
 merce, both foreign and domestic, rather than by emotional 
 and sensational fiction writers of socialistic vagaries, whose 
 romancing is accepted against the character of firms of the 
 highest reputation in their commercial relations, which are 
 the most sensitive courts of probity and honor, or by small 
 men whose official relations to such mighty questions is the 
 accident of political preferment, men usually without pre- 
 vious training or practical knowledge. 
 
 The future of our country depends upon the men of 
 faith, men who believe in the sure movement of the gulf 
 stream of human events along definite lines of progress with 
 no very serious or fatal deviations. We must navigate these 
 currents by adjustments suited to their laws. 
 
 I believe in American citizens, and abhor any intimation 
 that that citizenship has a basis in anything but manhood. 
 Riches do not make citizenship. The thought now urged in 
 demagogic and socialistic agitation that there is a class in this 
 country downtrodden and oppressed by the rich is an im- 
 pertinence and an insult to our intelligent working peo- 
 ple and mechanics. It is an anarchistic importation. Noth- 
 ing can oppress us but our own voluntary ignorance and 
 
 ix
 
 PREFACE 
 
 vices. So little patience have I with the attempt to create 
 classes in this country that I hesitate even to discuss the sub- 
 ject, lest by inference I recognize it as a tendency of our 
 constitutional government. 
 
 We all have enormous opportunities. We need only to 
 put into them faith in our possibilities, wisdom in the use 
 of our resources, reverence of our time, and devout grati- 
 tude to the " Giver of every good and perfect gift." 
 
 I wish to acknowledge the courtesy of Fan Nordens 
 Magazine and Leslie's Weekly in permitting me to use por- 
 tions of articles which I had furnished to those periodicals. 
 
 J. R. D. 
 
 Syracuse University, 
 August ID, 1907.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. — The New Age i 
 
 II. — New Proportions 19 
 
 III. — ^The Citizen 37 
 
 IV. — The Rights of Speech 52 
 
 V. — Reactionaries 69 
 
 VI. — Stretching the Constitution .... 84 
 
 VII. — Rights of Corporate Business .... 103 
 
 VIII. — The Corporations . . . . ' . . .120 
 
 IX.— The Corporations — Continued .... 139 
 
 X. — The Standard Oil Company 157 
 
 XI. — Standard Oil Defended by Economic Writers. 174 
 
 XII. — The Standard Oil Company in Court . . 191 
 
 XIII. — Exact Justice 2H 
 
 XIV. — ^Swollen Fortunes 231 
 
 XV. — ^Charitable Trusts 248 
 
 XVI. — Tainted Money 264 
 
 XVII. — Labor Unions 283 
 
 XVIII. — WoRKINGMEN ........ 3OO 
 
 XIX. — The Remedy 317 
 
 XX. — Men for the Times 336
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NEW AGE 
 
 WE cannot overestimate the value of a full 
 acquaintance with the ages that have 
 preceded us since they are storehouses 
 out of which we may bring much that will greatly 
 aid us to an appreciation and to a proper use of 
 our times. Since history constantly repeats itself, by 
 tracing the course of peoples gone we shall find that 
 many of those experiments with which men are now 
 meddling in philosophy and religion and practical 
 affairs have been tried and have failed because of in- 
 herent defects, while much more that engrosses the 
 present age has always ministered to the highest in- 
 terests of man. Among such archives we shall dis- 
 cover many things that will modify the conceits of 
 the twentieth century and much that will prove help- 
 ful for the solving of perplexities that now confront 
 us in many departments of human endeavor. 
 
 But valuable as the past is to us, its chief value is 
 in interpreting for us the present. Ancient petrifac- 
 
 I
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 tlons and historic embalmments tell the story of how 
 peoples have lived in their times, and from it we 
 learn lessons for practical application to our en- 
 deavors. Our business is the making of an ever on- 
 coming age, 
 
 Man must be more than a collator and venerator 
 of what has been. He must create history for ages 
 yet to be. If he may look upon the past he must, 
 like Janus, have a face on both sides of his head 
 that he may be always apprehending the future as 
 well. But while it is our duty to appreciate these 
 times, our ability to arrive at a just comprehension 
 of the age may not be so clear. We confess that to 
 take a comprehensive and discriminating, a philo- 
 sophical and practical view of the times we live in, 
 is not a trifling matter — is not an easy thing to do. 
 On the contrary, it is a most difficult task. If it does 
 not demand the acroamatic skill for the solution of 
 abstruse subtiltles it certainly does call for the acro- 
 batic feat of swinging oneself above the dust of 
 party strife and beyond the Influence of all those 
 prejudices which so confuse the vision and bewilder 
 the judgment. Bacon says that " the understanding 
 of man Is like a mirror which is not true and so 
 mixing Its own Imperfections with the nature of 
 things distorts and perverts them." For example, 
 old age indulges In Imaginative memory. Youth 
 Indulges in Imaginative hope. Neither Is accurate, 
 but both are overdrawn and overcolored. So for 
 want of an accurate memory and unprejudiced com- 
 
 2
 
 THE NEW AGE 
 
 parisons there always are some who do injustice to 
 the present in their recollection of the past. There 
 are people who say there are no such orators as in 
 the days of Clay, Webster, and Wirt, no statesmen 
 like those who ruled the destinies of the earlier Re- 
 public, no poets like those whose verses they recited 
 in childhood, no preachers like those under whose 
 sermons they used to sleep fifty years ago. 
 
 But the fact is things appear not only as they 
 are but often as they are not, according as we may 
 look at them or the media through which they are 
 seen. You recall that this is the theory of colors 
 and, in fact, of seeing. Dr. Thomas Young showed 
 us that in the human eye there are certain nerve 
 fibers which respond to certain waves of ether and 
 produce the sensations of the colors. There are 
 three kinds of these fibers at least and the combina- 
 tions effected produce all of the colors of the spec- 
 trum. There is the one class which when Irritated 
 produces the sensation of red, the second the sen- 
 sation of green, and the third that of violet. 
 The first is excited by the waves of ether of the 
 greatest length, the second by the middle waves, and 
 those which convey the impressions of violet are 
 created by the shortest vibrations of ether. Now it 
 sometimes happens that when one of these nerve 
 fibers is defective the person is by just so much color- 
 blind. In some the fiber responding to red is de- 
 fective and they cannot see any difference between 
 red and green or violet. The color of a blossom and
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 a leaf Is all the same to them. Because of this de- 
 fect men have made great physical mistakes. 
 
 There arc a great many people in the world who 
 are troubled with mental color blindness. These 
 persons will of course represent things as they see 
 them, while often that which they see is in their 
 eyes and not in the thing seen. In looking at our 
 times we must make due allowance for our nerve 
 fibers, otherwise we may make grievous mistakes 
 and become the victims of just ridicule. 
 
 We must remember that our profession, our 
 calling, the educational course over which we hav^e 
 come, our national pride, our social bias, our physi- 
 cal temperament, our digestion even, will have much 
 to do with the way things will appear to us. The 
 time of life also at which the painting is made, 
 whether in the rosy morning or the evening shadows 
 or the full golden splendor of the noon, will effect 
 very materially the coloring of the picture. 
 
 With such reflections we can fortify ourselves 
 against the charge of pessimism with which I have 
 no sympathy. For though I cannot exactly accept the 
 rose-tinted view of our age I have less sympathy 
 with the pessimistic waitings that too often enter into 
 a discussion of the times in which we live. 
 
 We live in a choice age. There never has been 
 a subllmer arena since creation than that which 
 awaits the young man to-day. I am not an op- 
 timist with regard to the times. Neither do I be- 
 lieve in the impending crash of all tilings good and 
 
 4
 
 THE NEW AGE 
 
 great which some men think they see. I feel no 
 rumble of earthquakes opening their jaws to swal- 
 low us up. I hear only the thunder of glaciers 
 launching icebergs under the heat of the early sum- 
 mer sun. I see a mighty growth and giant uplift 
 and hear the consequent cracking and snapping off 
 of some dead and moss-covered branches which 
 sometimes split back promising growths as they fall. 
 It is to guard such growth that I speak. 
 
 But after we admit all that is bad and listen to 
 the mutterings of every storm threatening in our 
 widely expanding skies, our times are the grandest 
 this world ever has known. There never were 
 greater men than those who project our vast achieve- 
 ments, nor men who should receive in a larger de- 
 gree the confidence of the people. To such men the 
 reins should be given. 
 
 We are multiform — more so than men of any 
 previous age. In this regard we differ decidedly from 
 the epochs that have preceded us. Other periods 
 of human history are more like the early formations 
 of our earth, our own resembles the later upheavals 
 and intersections. In the structure of some portions 
 of our earth we recognize great creative epochs and 
 that there was a time when the periods were regu- 
 larly tabulated on the rocky strata. Each forma- 
 tion was marked and distinctly defined with these 
 stratigraphical characters. There was order from 
 foundation to summit and every layer was recog- 
 nizable from Laurentian to Pliocene. But the evi- 
 
 3 5
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 dences are that at a later date there was an eruption 
 which resulted in a confusion of these epochs and 
 now we have " the formations horizontal, vertical, 
 inclined, contorted, and undulated, and the older is 
 frequently superimposed upon the more recent." So 
 that the near surface of our modern earth contains 
 fragments of every formative period. Among them 
 and over them the husbandman drives his plow, lit- 
 tle thinking perhaps that his beautiful earth with 
 its valleys and hills, its enameled meadows and 
 castellated mountains is a contribution of all of the 
 ages. 
 
 So has it been with human history. There have 
 been well-defined ages with their lines of demarca- 
 tion sharply drawn and their character made distinct 
 by some one thought or movement or phase of 
 human progress. So we hear about the stone age 
 and the iron age and the ages of bronze and brass 
 and there have been ages in architecture and ages 
 of literature and ages of art and ages of philosophy, 
 each of a peculiar type and each with its own and 
 appropriate name. There have been ages ancient, 
 mediaeval, and modern, and men have marked the 
 time when many of these began and when they 
 ended as we calendar the weeks of the year. But 
 when you come to inquire about our age, it is 
 like the superficial structure of the earth which is 
 composed of all the creative periods. It is the 
 cumulation of all the times. It is like our archi- 
 tecture which combines Hindoo, Egyptian, Gre- 
 
 6
 
 THE NEW AGE 
 
 cian, Roman, Italian, and English with their styles 
 Doric, Ionic, Gothic, Corinthian, Pyramidal, and 
 varieties purely modern and nameless. It is like our 
 language which is composed of all the languages. It 
 is like our climate within whose broad expanse dif- 
 ferent zones of temperature and flora are found 
 from the pines of Maine to the semitropic fruits 
 and flowers of Florida and California. 
 
 All ages have been fused into the twentieth 
 century and we are living In the universal times 
 — met in every department of life by the facts and 
 forms and fancies of other continents, of other 
 peoples, of other ages. In all of our considerable 
 cities the four corners of the earth are represented, 
 the traditions of all lands are venerated. We -are 
 in the track of the nations of the world — the old 
 world on our East, the older world on our West. 
 We are the Mecca to which the tribes of the earth 
 have come up. Jerusalem In her day, situated simi- 
 larly in her relation to surrounding nations, was far 
 less cosmopolitan when the gift of tongues was nec- 
 essary to publish the glad tidings to the masses 
 flocking to her feasts for worship and for gain, than 
 are we of the Yankee land and the Yankee times. 
 
 The same Is true of our arts and of many of 
 our Inventions. They are contributed often by other 
 ages and peoples In the germ at least and we evolve 
 them. Roger Bacon claims the discovery of our 
 gunpowder. The magnetic needle guided the mari- 
 ner centuries before we became a colony even and 
 
 7
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERri Y 
 
 Solomon De'Caus would doubtless have anticipated 
 our locomotive had not the Ignorance and super- 
 stition of that time flung him Into a lunatic asylum 
 for his advanced thinking. 
 
 You see that our times are Inventing the old 
 times over again. Shall we not say that this Is true 
 of philosophy, of science, of art, of poetry? while 
 our religion Is that which was from the beginning, 
 bloomed out into beauty In the gospel of the new 
 commandment and the beatitudes. 
 
 This is an explanation of the conflict of our 
 times, the all kinds of theories, professions, and 
 claims. Inventions praised and inventions jeered, 
 philosophies accepted as practical and philosophies 
 pitied as chimerical, religion venerated and religion 
 branded as the reproduction of forms of supersti- 
 tion, men called original and more men accused as 
 imitators as men may or may not discover the old 
 in the new form. 
 
 But If our times are made up of the olden times, 
 we put our mark upon the age so Indelibly that the 
 thought, the distinctive character of these times will 
 be borne down to the latest limit of human existence 
 and our times will be an epoch In the world's gray 
 centuries. As the drift has scratched and marked 
 every eruptive rock which has presumed to push up 
 into the sunlight, so the nineteenth century has 
 stamped her mark on all of the past that has 
 crowded in upon these modern times and these lines 
 are laid so deep, these forms are so recast that the 
 
 8
 
 THE NEW AGE 
 
 crashing events of coming ages can never destroy 
 them. 
 
 We are chiseling the nude out of the marble, we 
 are painting the lewd out of the canvas, we are 
 writing the obscene out of literature, we are lift- 
 ing the vapors from philosophy, we are letting the 
 inventors out of the lunatic asylums, we are strip- 
 ping the husks from religion and discovering in it 
 the finest of the wheat, we are breaking through the 
 guesses of life into life's sublime realities, and these 
 imprints, like the fern marks in the rocks, shall go 
 with this century into its future and tell to other 
 generations the manner of people we are. 
 
 We have doubtless been impressed with the in- 
 tensity of our times. This intensity is perhaps the 
 type by which we shall be distinguished. The ma- 
 terials of the structure have been furnished largely 
 by the times preceding us, but their adjustment and 
 their employment are discovered in the spirit of our 
 age. The different parts of the engine have been 
 brought up from the four corners of the earth. Our 
 times have set them up, utilized them, and put on 
 steam. And this genius and power are the peculiar 
 property of the times. Had the centuries sent up 
 on the shores of any other continent or peoples the 
 treasures which their tides have borne to us, results 
 would have been far different. But we contemplate 
 nothing with indifference. Our age and our people 
 burn with an unquenchable spirit. Our whole age 
 is vital with activity. The air we breathe is spirit 
 
 9
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 force. Never before have men lived so fast. We 
 are impatient with space and time. 
 
 It is said that not long since a man rushed into 
 a telegraph office in Boston and inquired how long 
 it would take to send a telegraph dispatch to San 
 Francisco. " Twenty minutes," was the reply. " I 
 cannot wait," he answered, and hurried out again. 
 This incident illustrates the age. Comfort, life, 
 safety, composure, morals are often sacrificed to 
 speed. When a railroad train rushes over an embank- 
 ment and hurls a score of souls into eternity, men in- 
 vent another danger signal and crowd on steam. Men 
 used to send men with their messages, but now they 
 send lightning. Men once lifted heavy weights 
 with lever and windlass, but now they lift them with 
 dynamite and the electric spark. If by tunneling the 
 mountain a given point may be reached a few min- 
 utes sooner than by going around, a million of 
 money is no consideration. The mountain is tun- 
 neled. To conquer time is the master passion of 
 the hour. As the years fly by, the head is constantly 
 taxed to add another mile to the schedule, to take 
 another minute from the time-table. 
 
 This intense passion is both fortunate and un- 
 fortunate. It becomes a part of the man. It is 
 discovered in something more than his conquest over 
 physical obstacles, time, and space. And this comes 
 about by the slave becoming the master. By his 
 own inventions man is made a slave. When he in- 
 vented the railway plan of travel and the telegraphic 
 
 lo
 
 THE NEW AGE 
 
 method of doing business he levied upon himself an 
 enormous tax of haste and speed, for the maker 
 must keep up with the thing made. Much is said 
 about labor-saving machines. They are called man's 
 tireless servants. This is true in part, but they are 
 also his taskmaster, so that where they lift from 
 him toil they add friction, when they lighten burdens 
 they bring wear and tear. 
 
 The excitement and rush of these times with 
 their inventions, political agitations, money-getting 
 fevers, and jostle for fame are a terrible strain upon 
 human endurance. The effects are visible. We 
 wonder at so many sudden deaths and shattered con- 
 stitutions and business failures and moral lapses. It 
 is largely because these human engines are over- 
 crowded. Nerves that are always on the tension 
 must some time snap. If men will go fast they must 
 arrive sooner. If men drive with loose rein, it will 
 not be strange if the stop is sudden, startling, and 
 fatal. It will not be surprising if the old man with 
 whitened locks, the village patriarch, becomes un- 
 known to future generations if this lightning life is 
 to be the leading characteristic of our times. 
 
 This leads to the thought that these are times 
 of great possibility. To the intensity of the age is 
 due this fact. Our impatient, energetic life renders 
 perhaps some things impossible. We do not take 
 the time to do patient, plodding work. Rare, in- 
 deed, are the instances among us of a man giving 
 himself to one thought for a lifetime. Our thinkers 
 
 1 1
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 seem more inclined to be superficial with many things 
 than profound in one. We will not let men alone 
 long enough to become philosophers, to become 
 great in literature, science, or art. Our times tend 
 to make smatterers. Our authors, instead of send- 
 ing down a great book at distant intervals, are 
 scattering their volumes and pamphlets as the decidu- 
 ous trees drop their leaves, so that our creations 
 lack the giant strength of the slow-going German's 
 exhaustive book and the thoroughness of the English 
 essayist's production. 
 
 We sparkle like wine. We lack the deep, broad 
 channel of the patient river. Our times will scarcely 
 permit that yet. Push and eagerness still make our 
 school curricula summer days and hurry our stu- 
 dents out of their novitiate into the spheres of active, 
 crowded life before the spring morning of charac- 
 ter has fairly dav/ned. Our apprentices are turned 
 out workmen in three years. Our brothers across 
 the waters work seven. Our student is a savant in 
 four years. Our cousins over the way study half a 
 lifetime preparatory to some one work that shall 
 occupy the next half of life. In our chase for the 
 West we cannot afford such waste. With our face 
 toward the mountain and our rush for the summit 
 we lose the fairest visions of life. But we gain also. 
 And perhaps we can afford to go faster since our 
 cousins are willing and positioned to do the slow 
 work. We can let them sit in the dust and knock 
 the mortar off the old bricks and clear away the 
 
 12
 
 THE NEW AGE 
 
 rubbish since we are permitted with clicking trowel 
 and hopeful hearts to rear the lofty walls of a new 
 civilization of symmetrical and astonishing propor- 
 tions. 
 
 Our physical achievements, our inventions, our 
 useful arts, our conquerors of material force, these 
 are our philosophies. Our telegraph, whose mys- 
 teries flash through the hidden deeps of the sea and 
 sing on the mountain tops, is our latest metaphysics. 
 Our telephone, whose numbers vibrate along the 
 subtle paths of natural force, is our last poem. We 
 are intense, but we are making swift strides into the 
 kingdom of conquerable mysteries. 
 
 Our possibilities are found in the wonderful 
 physical development of the age. Because of con- 
 quered space and time we can accomplish in a day 
 what our fathers could not do in months. In that 
 time a man might have grown old in an attempt to 
 circuit the globe. We circle the world in a summer 
 vacation. Look at the possibilities of travel. How 
 long and tedious journeys were! Men spent weeks 
 in going a few hundred miles and back. And there 
 was no hurry or impatience. They had the time, 
 for nobody else could go quicker. You have been 
 interested doubtless in reading of the composure of 
 those good old days when men never knew what 
 day they would start or when they would come back. 
 One wrote of those times: " Here one may be trans- 
 ported without overviolent motion and sheltered 
 from the influence of the air, with so much speed 
 
 13
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 that some of these coaches will go above fifty miles 
 on a summer day." And another wrote: " The like 
 of it hath not been known in the world." 
 
 That was all the speed they wanted in those 
 days, for when over there in England George 
 Stephenson, within the memory of some men now 
 living, began to talk about the railway, pamphleteers 
 were hired to ridicule railroads. It was said they 
 would prevent the cows grazing and hens laying! 
 The poisoned air from locomotives would kill the 
 birds as they flew over them and it would no longer 
 be possible to hunt foxes and pheasants. There 
 would be no more use for horses, and oats and hay 
 would not be salable. Country inns would be de- 
 serted and the boilers would burst and blow things 
 up generally. 
 
 Men of science declared that people could not 
 travel at the fearful speed of fifteen or twenty miles 
 an hour and keep their heads ! 
 
 In Nuremberg, that famous city of brains and 
 progressive ideas, the physicians met and formally 
 protested against a proposed railway. They declared 
 that it should be prohibited in the interest of public 
 health, for the rapid movements could not fail to 
 produce in the passengers the mental ailment known 
 as delirium furiosum! They further said: "If the 
 passengers will run the risk, the State can do no less 
 than protect the bystanders. The sight alone of a 
 locomotive passing at full speed is sufllicient to pro- 
 duce this frightful malady of the brain. It is there- 
 
 14
 
 THE NEW AGE 
 
 fore indispensable that a barrier six feet high be 
 erected on both sides of the track." 
 
 That was the measure of those times physically. 
 We are in another world and another age. Fifty 
 miles a day then. The like had not been known since 
 the world began. Now sixty miles an hour. Now 
 the business man gets into his car in the morning, 
 rushes away three hundred miles, transacts impor- 
 tant business, and is home for the evening with his 
 family. We set our watches by the mile posts of 
 the great railways. 
 
 We need not remind you of the wire that speaks 
 with a tongue of lightning. How a merchant may 
 sit in his office in New York and order a cargo of 
 figs from Smyrna or a cargo of tea from China or 
 a cargo of laces from Belgium or a cargo of silks 
 from France or a cargo of ship spars frpm Victoria 
 or Seattle and receive an answer that same fore- 
 noon. By these physical possibilities man accom- 
 plishes a thousandfold more than in ancient ages. 
 You lament that you have not Methuselah's age. 
 You have it multiplied by lightning and steam. He 
 had none too much time at the gait he had to go. 
 
 Man's life the Bible says is not in years but in 
 deeds. Measured by events, none have ever lived 
 so long as we are living. If man has not been able 
 to push forward the length of human life to patri- 
 archal age or to make enduring the fragmentary 
 years, he has scored against the flight of time a life 
 mammoth in the magnitude of its scenes and events 
 
 15
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 and achievlngs. He Is old in conquered worlds 
 while he is young in years. I here is more in a year 
 of a young man's life than in a generation of his 
 patriarchal ancestors. 
 
 Man molded matter into various coarse and tan- 
 gible forms. The seven wonders of the world 
 wrought from it were statues, pyramids, and hang- 
 ing gardens. Men brought from crude materials 
 crude works. They endure as mountains endure. 
 They are heaped-up rocks and sand. They are 
 monumental to muscular strength and expenditure of 
 physical resources. In our age the clay has become 
 a living soul. The angel has broken into pieces the 
 marble and escaped. Magnitude, weight, distance, 
 physical conflict, the end and glory of ages gone are 
 but the shaftings and pulleys of our vast movements 
 and power. 
 
 We use the forces that sent the worlds forth 
 upon their eternal pilgrimages and kindled the fires 
 of the unfading stars and set the seas to throbbing 
 with their mighty, ceaseless heartbeats. Man stands 
 now with his hand on the lever and with steam 
 at his command he rushes across the continent 
 of sea or land with a whole community of fellow 
 beings committed to his trust. He calls the light- 
 nings out of their infinite mystery and they obey 
 him. One day at Hell Gate in New York I saw 
 them. Obeying the touch of a child's tiny finger, 
 they lifted an island of rock out of the tides whose 
 assaults it had resisted for untold ages, and before 
 
 i6
 
 THE NEW AGE 
 
 the smoke cleared away published the news In every 
 quarter of the globe. 
 
 Amazing forces! Man is filled with gaping 
 wonder over his own works. It is the gods whom 
 he has enslaved and set grinding at his mills. He 
 gazes at them at their toil with ever unanswered 
 queries upon his countenance. Every day from St. 
 John to Puget Sound he puts ten hundred thousand 
 heads out of factory and home windows and stops 
 millions of people in village streets and country 
 roads and in the fields to look upon the palaces of 
 the gods as they roll by at fifty miles an hour, and 
 every evening he calls the populace of every con- 
 siderable town and city to wonder at the earth's new 
 satellites burning with the luster of the North star. 
 
 Man is feeling the propulsive energy of the spirit 
 force of the universe. Great things are, our inheri- 
 tance and great achievements are forced upon us. 
 They are not vulgar nor exaggerated. They are 
 natural and proportioned to the man who must 
 measure up to this age. 
 
 And they are intensely practical. Heat, light, 
 electricity, immeasurable, inexhaustible forces both 
 created and used by God In creation are as common 
 as horses. As Emerson, often quoted, has said: 
 " Man has taken the chariot of the sun for a market 
 cart." Over the highways of the gods, piercing all 
 mountains and suspended across all valleys, he sends 
 his beef and wheat to market and under the electric 
 light mends shoes. 
 
 17
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 It Is within such an age that our Republic has 
 arisen. It was here to receive this enormous in- 
 heritance. It is to prove whether such a form of 
 government can endure the strain of these inter- 
 active forces and it is to be tested by conditions such 
 as no Republic ever was subjected to since the world 
 began. 
 
 We are in a new world as literally as if we had 
 been transplanted to some other planet. Old times 
 are not a precedent. Old proportions are not a 
 formula for these new activities. The seer of large 
 and clear visions undismayed is our prophet of to- 
 morrow. The captain who navigated the sailing 
 shallop of the yesterday's world would run this 
 steamship ashore.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 NEW PROPORTIONS 
 
 MANUFACTURE and commerce are tre- 
 mendous instruments of civilization. 
 And the accumulation of wealth Is the 
 multiplication of man's powers of noble conquest. It 
 is the measure of possibilities in subduing the lands 
 and seas, in the institutions of the State, in educa- 
 tion and the Church, In the development of the 
 earth's resources and the application of, them to the 
 varied demands of mankind. It is a prime equation, 
 when properly used, of civilization and the mil- 
 lennium. 
 
 In these times an association of business men 
 stands for something more than the money-getting 
 interests of a great community. It has to do with 
 the expenditures of moneys as well, in the interests 
 of all the people, in sanitation, education, and all 
 forms of thrift and morals. It perhaps is one of 
 the most public-spirited Institutions In all the land. 
 Its scope is so wide that it is unembarrassed by any 
 possible subject into which one's thought and discus- 
 sion may range — for its field is the world. For in 
 
 19
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 these days manufacture and commerce are the patron 
 saints of philosophy, art, and letters, of war, peace, 
 and religion, of invention, discovery, and politics. 
 Love of money is the root of all evil; but lawful 
 money-making, the right use of money and the wis- 
 dom of the money-makers are the roots of all prac- 
 tical good — or at least the practical application of 
 all good. 
 
 The extent to which manufacture has widened 
 and penetrated all human interests from the plow to 
 the altar reveals the pace of modern thought. It 
 is the way the century has been thinking and moving. 
 It is the faith of the new man pushing on and push- 
 ing out. It is irresistible. I suppose the first move- 
 ments of migration and trade were inspired by 
 physical consideration exclusively. It was to get 
 pasturage for flocks and to find food more abun- 
 dant. But now civilization is the great goal of 
 manufacture and trade. All forms of business vol- 
 unteer their offerings to discovery, to science, to the 
 State. We have a new concept, broad, worthy, in 
 which no man is to live for himself. We are to 
 discover not trade alone but duty and opportunity 
 and the signs of God that shall indicate our place 
 and part in the mighty struggle to emancipate this 
 world and give it in every part liberty. 
 
 Men who stand protesting against this logic of 
 events represent the old and unworthy commercial 
 ideas. A nation has something to do besides exist 
 upon the products of its own soil, its mines, its 
 
 20
 
 NEW PROPORTIONS 
 
 mechanical arts and commerce. That is civilized 
 selfishness, and a civilized vice is the worst of all 
 vices. If it were only a question of the develop- 
 ment of our resources, we could scarcely more than 
 begin in a thousand years. But character, con- 
 science, thought, ethics, civilization, are mines In- 
 finitely richer than the diamond fields of the tropic 
 Transvaal or the gold seams of Arctic Alaska. 
 Some men in these days are standing on these 
 mightier mountains and looking out along the lines 
 of God's thoughts. Corporate business is not large 
 to them. It is logical, natural, consistent. It has 
 its relation to commerce, the opening of vast fields 
 for our manufactures and cereals, exports and im- 
 ports. It opens lands and makes homes. It is 
 building a nation. It is a tremendous agency In our 
 obligation and opportunity as civilizers and educa- 
 tors. It means our red schoolhouse and our printing 
 press and our free thought and our Christian faith 
 for the wide circuits of the globe under all flags. 
 To discuss our obligation and opportunities on 
 a commercial basis simply as rates, tariff, competi- 
 tion, is small and unworthy. To reverse the pres- 
 ent order and install the old time is as impossible as 
 it would have been for the colonists to sit inactive 
 upon the Atlantic rim of the country with a west- 
 ward continent waiting for them. Certain men 
 much later than colonial times were blind and deaf 
 to the logic of a new world and new opportunities. 
 They said fifty years ago that all west of the MIs- 
 3 21
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERllY 
 
 sissippi was not worth the trouble of contending 
 over the boundary line. Senator Benton, whom God 
 afterwards rebuked with a son-in-law known as the 
 Pathfinder, demanded that the statue of the god 
 Terminus be set up at the Rocky Mountains as the 
 natural western limit of the Republic. You remem- 
 ber that Senator Winthrop, of Massachusetts, said: 
 " We shall not be straitened for elbow room In the 
 West for a thousand years." But the great States of 
 California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, and 
 Nevada seem a very natural and neighborly part of 
 the country now. And as It Is not as far from New 
 York to Manila as It used to be from the Delaware 
 breakwater to the Golden Gate, very soon the Philip- 
 pines will seem as logically a part of Uncle Sam's 
 domains as do the Pacific Coast States to-day. 
 
 This land cannot crawl Into its shell again. 
 Death alone can keep an eagle In Its shell and there 
 Is no process of life that can put him back into the 
 shell once he gets out. This country Is between the 
 old world on the East and the older world on the 
 West. It Is related physically and providentially to 
 all mankind. God has waited just long enough for 
 It to grow up, seasoned and developed It by tre- 
 mendous experiences within Its own borders, at a sort 
 of apprenticeship, and then when It got of age has 
 sent It out to serve the world. 
 
 That this tremendous mission of the United 
 States has been In preparation Is seen in the magni- 
 tudes of commercial thought and enterprise which, 
 
 22
 
 NEW PROPORTIONS 
 
 while filling some with dismay and affording the 
 demagogue a text and an opportunity, are neverthe- 
 less the calm and cool logic of events. It perhaps 
 has been the only land where these great problems 
 could be worked out successfully. Business has been 
 taking on gigantic proportions. Individuals have 
 joined together brains and moneys and formed 
 themselves Into corporations because they could make 
 more for themselves and save more for the people, 
 and serve more the mighty Interests of their country. 
 
 It is because these men form corporations that we 
 ride at fifty miles an hour; we can cross from New 
 York to Liverpool between two Sundays and run 
 over from New York to San Francisco In four days, 
 and enjoy a thousand things as the common people 
 that fifty years ago were the exclusive luxury of 
 millionaires and princes. The millionaire has given 
 the comfort of the millionaire to the poor man and 
 made himself miserable. 
 
 In the good old times when they had no grind- 
 ing corporations or devilfish trusts with their ten- 
 tacles on the throat of Individual rights and privi- 
 leges, you could have traveled on a canal boat. And 
 If you were In a hurry you could have gone on an 
 express canal boat drawn by three mules Instead of 
 two mules. But in any event you would have been 
 so long going that you would have forgotten where 
 you were going and what you were going for before 
 you reached your destination. Time spent so lav- 
 ishly was not worth much. But then no corporation 
 
 23
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 was grinding that captain of the canal boat or that 
 mule driver. They went their own pace leisurely. 
 The people then were ground only between the tow- 
 path and the berm! But now the oppressive and 
 grinding corporation gives you a seat in a parlor of 
 palatial furnishings and takes you along from New 
 York to Buffalo in seven and three-fourth hours, in- 
 stead of ten days or two weeks. It Is an outrage 
 that a merciless corporation should exist In this en- 
 lightened age that will hurl a man through the 
 world, around curves and over bevels and across 
 bridges at such a terrific rate of speed — and tempt 
 men to leave the secure and calm pace of the canal 
 boat by charging only two cents a mile, with which 
 no canal man can compete. Such a thing Is against 
 competition, has restrained the traffic of the canal 
 boat and ought to be Investigated by a commission 
 and prosecuted. 
 
 Business used to do its work by longhand. It 
 now does It by shorthand. A typewriter Is Indispen- 
 sable to a business office. The average price Is one 
 hundred dollars. A trust has made It cost that. If 
 an Individual made It, It would cost five thousand 
 dollars, so It Is said by those who have computed 
 the cost. The transatlantic liner Is one of the 
 products of the modern corporation. Such massing 
 of wealth, such combined skill, such diplomacy of 
 statesmanship In business are the new proportions of 
 a new age. 
 
 I wonder If any one of those men who opposed 
 
 24
 
 NEW PROPORTIONS 
 
 these mighty proportions when they first appeared 
 has a proud and boasting grandson in these days, 
 who boldly declaims that his grandfather was the 
 clear-visioned seer who predicted the appalling evil 
 of the modern railway and tried to prevent it. 
 There were men who smashed Arkwright's loom and 
 Whitney's cotton gin into kindling wood. I wonder 
 if anyone is boasting in these days that his grand- 
 father was the man who did it. When half of the 
 next century is gone, you cannot find on this continent 
 any man who will admit that he is a descendant of 
 the pygmies who sought to destroy these mighty 
 movements of manufacture and trade, logically pro- 
 portionate to this tremendous age, who tried to 
 reach up and turn the shadow back on the dial of 
 God's plan of human progress. The magnitudes of 
 the business of the present age are logical events. 
 Business has widened into vast areas of which 
 the world knew nothing prior to the middle of this 
 century and it is still widening by all the cumulative 
 force of the most marvelous century the world has 
 ever known. And there is no surer evidence that 
 we have not kept intellectual pace with our own 
 progress than in the attitude of the common minds 
 toward the great corporations and business forces by 
 which we are moving onward. When a great move- 
 ment or invention or discovery is resisted by the 
 people, it shows that the people are down on the 
 plain from which as a summit or high range that 
 discovery arises, and they fear it is the upheaval of 
 
 25
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERn Y 
 
 a volcano threatening their destruction, instead of 
 hailing it as a mountain range of perpetual springs 
 and fountains out of which are to flow rivers of un- 
 wasting blessings in industry, manufacture, and dis- 
 tributed wealth and happiness. 
 
 No individual can use such capital or furnish the 
 executive ability for such achievements. Men must 
 be incorporated and money massed into thousands of 
 millions for such purposes. It is the enormous times 
 you see in all of this. And it is idiocy to expect to 
 reverse it. And the man who is shouting himself 
 hoarse over trusts and corporations and swollen for- 
 tunes will take his place in history with the men w^ho 
 smashed Arkwright's loom and Whitney's cotton 
 gin and the pamphleteers who ridiculed George 
 Stephenson's locomotive. And our friends who at- 
 tack the mighty movements of the age are preparing 
 for their posterity no greater pride of ancestry. 
 
 But we are told that there is no disposition to 
 destroy the great forms of corporate business but 
 just an attempt to regulate them. It makes little dif- 
 ference whether you destroy them by direct enact- 
 ment or regulate them to death. In the old practice 
 of medicine the doctor reduced his patient by purga- 
 tives, blisters, and bleeding to get the disease out, 
 but the trouble with that practice was that the life 
 of the patient went out with the disease. 
 
 We do not want to destroy the present forms of 
 corporate business, but we will discredit them and em- 
 barrass them by every law we can invent; we will 
 
 26
 
 NEW PROPORTIONS 
 
 make a public sentiment that will encourage every 
 man who attempts to mulct them; we will sow 
 dragons' teeth of hate in every corporation plant, 
 among the workingmen ; we will brand every aggre- 
 gation of capital and corporate wealth as an octopus 
 or a criminal corporation; we will talk of "preda- 
 tory wealth," a silly jingle of words; we will urge 
 upon careless-thinking people that wealth is grind- 
 ing them and that cooperation is synonymous with 
 tyranny, oppression, and gigantic theft — thrift and 
 theft meaning the same thing; and then we will 
 smite upon our breasts pharisaically and say: "Ah, 
 no, we do not oppose the natural and proportionate 
 methods of the twentieth century. We want to 
 regulate them only! " 
 
 It will not be the fault of insidious socialism in 
 high and low places, of yellow journals read by 
 workingmen almost to the exclusion of all other pa- 
 pers, of frenzied magazines, and demagogic agita- 
 tors if the great invested capital and industries of 
 the land are not destroyed. Certainly there is noth- 
 ing in present conditions to increase their credit or 
 to strengthen their confidence. 
 
 All of this agitation is destructive. And much 
 of the evil that has grown up in the corporate forms 
 has been due to the conflict between them and the 
 inimical forces that have opposed and embarrassed 
 them in legislatures, newspaper agitation, and popu- 
 lar clamor. That there has been much for just criti- 
 cism no one denies, and that is due not to the form 
 
 27
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 of business but to the human nature of business. It 
 is more visible because in greater mass. It always 
 exists and will until the millennium. 
 
 But as long as the people are taught, wickedly 
 taught by the agitators of various types, that cor- 
 porations have for their purpose the robbing of the 
 people and the oppression of the poor, business will 
 be obstructed and the people will suffer the penalty 
 of their folly. 
 
 Such attacks, persistent and unreasoning, are not 
 only destructive but the people have to pay for the 
 damage. They pay it in increased price of the com- 
 modity if not in decreased wage. They are paying 
 for the riotous attacks of the coal-mine agitators of 
 a few years ago. They will pay for every strike and 
 lawsuit and for the millions now being lost and ex- 
 pended in harassing all forms of business with the 
 politician's investigations. The agitators do not pay 
 it, the corporations will not charge it to profit and 
 loss. It is a plain case of the people fighting their 
 own interests and paying the cost. 
 
 It is folly to suppose that corporate business is 
 not directly concerned with the thrift and prosperity 
 of the people. That is its chief asset. Its policy 
 is a large volume of small profits. That is the only 
 way small profits can be profitable. To place prices 
 beyond the ability of the people to pay is business 
 lunacy and destroys those who do it. 
 
 There is no form of investment that is happier 
 for the mechanic and workingman than corporate 
 
 28
 
 NEW PROPORTIONS 
 
 stocks of the reliable concerns. He can buy a share 
 or two or more shares and have an investment that 
 earns a wage with him and increases in capital value 
 with the growth of the business. It is better than 
 the savings bank. It is owning the savings bank. 
 In many forms of business to-day he can take shares 
 in the concern with which he works and contribute 
 directly to the success of his own property. Tens 
 of thousands of men who never in any age or cir- 
 cumstance could build a business for themselves can 
 in this way accumulate substantially against the rainy 
 day. 
 
 Every interest and common good of our country 
 should prompt all citizens to promote harmony be- 
 tween capital and labor as a work of loyalty, and 
 the disturbance of this confidence by exciting hatred 
 of corporate business, by exaggerating ills of work- 
 ingmen or appeals to passion and prejudice should 
 be frowned upon as treason to the country itself. 
 
 The reason given for attacks upon corporate 
 business is that it crushes out the individual and 
 makes it impossible for smaller forms of business to 
 flourish. In this statement it is assumed that this is 
 an evil. But we contend that it may be and for the 
 most part is a positive good. The big ship swallows 
 up the little ships and the dangers and discomforts 
 of the sea; the big trunk line absorbs the little rail- 
 ways and tickets you through. Twenty little shops 
 fighting each "other at a loss appear in a great fac- 
 tory with profits. 
 
 29
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 Men are incorporated and the man of a small 
 business becomes the superintendent or manager of 
 millions of invested capital. The contention that 
 " individuals are being wiped out " is a strange one 
 in view of the hosts of men who reach successes 
 which if of a subordinate character are immeasur- 
 ably beyond anything they would have attained 
 alone. Instead of crippling the individual the cor- 
 porations have promoted him. They encourage 
 men to great achievements by offering the mightiest 
 opportunities since the world began. 
 
 To hear the agitators you would suppose that 
 all the rich were ready-made and an entailed class, 
 and that all men must approach success from that 
 side, and that the poor are doomed to be poor. But 
 with rarest exceptions our millionaires and business 
 giants have come up from the ranks of the poor. 
 Nearly every one of them came up over the road of 
 the common toiler and they did not bring the road 
 away with them. 
 
 But if it were not so that all men have the op- 
 portunity left to them which other men have used, 
 you cannot legislate a common success. You may 
 want a thousand men to do the business that ten men 
 control. But you have got to do something besides 
 legislate the ten men out of business. You have got 
 to make the nine hundred and ninety men in that 
 particular as big as the ten men unless you think 
 that small men are best for the world and its enter- 
 prises. You may destroy any corporation you please 
 
 30
 
 NEW PROPORTIONS 
 
 — Standard Oil if you choose, or United States Steel 
 — and the business will not go into the management 
 of a hundred companies and ten thousand men. It 
 will gravitate to its center and be managed by ten 
 men. It is a law as pervasive and permanent 
 as gravitation. The pull of it Is toward the 
 center. 
 
 It is stupendous folly to talk about giving in- 
 dividuals a chance to act alone by forbidding indi- 
 viduals to work together ! It is a very old fallacy. 
 Paul met it at Ephesus when the silversmiths cried 
 out, "By this craft we have our wealth." The new 
 doctrine was going to destroy their craft and trade. 
 But that which filled them with fear has filled the 
 world with the arts and crafts of civilization. We 
 are not to adapt things to individuals but to the 
 common good, and individuals must adapt themselves 
 to such conditions. 
 
 I do not exist for the store in my city. The 
 store exists for me and it has no claim upon me if 
 another can serve me better. Its only claim is what 
 it can do for me. If a corporation can do for me 
 more than an individual can, it has the higher claim. 
 The claim is established by service. What shall the 
 individual do? Join the corporation or work for 
 it unless he can find some way to do more for me 
 than the corporation can. The old-time stage driver 
 became the railway conductor. 
 
 At any rate it is a piece of insolence for the 
 individual to insist that the corporation shall be dis- 
 
 31
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 banded because it sells me goods cheaper than he 
 can. The canal-boat man may as well say that the 
 New York Central shall tear up its tracks because 
 it carries me for t^vo cents a mile and he cannot 
 carry me for less than ten, and the train will take 
 me home in five hours and the canal boat would do 
 it in two weeks by express! 
 
 We cannot change the order of things. The 
 law of human progress is not a statute to be revised 
 by Congress. Men are only obeying that law which 
 no man can annul — that has come out of the im- 
 mutable principles that govern among peoples of 
 differing capacities and aptitudes. 
 
 Our Congress and legislators are about a strange 
 business when they attempt to level men down. 
 Transcendent ability is welcomed everywhere except 
 in trade and commerce. But surely we do not ex- 
 pect to help up the men at the bottom by pulling 
 men down from the top. Who are the men who 
 are thought to threaten the country? They are in- 
 dividuals. Do you think, if you displace them, other 
 individuals will prosper? And is the country under 
 more obligation to one class of individuals than to 
 another? Is it obligated more to the independents 
 than to the corporations? Are you going to say to 
 one class of individuals : You have had your success, 
 now give this other class a chance? Do you think 
 that is the province of government? Do you think 
 that men who have to have opportunities made for 
 them by removing other men out of their way are 
 
 32
 
 NEW PROPORTIONS 
 
 going to use their opportunities after they are made 
 for them ? 
 
 Legislate all you choose, you never can make the 
 great men do small things or the small men do great 
 things. Great men will make small things great and 
 you cannot stop it and you cannot by all the laws 
 of the Solons and Numas of the earth make a small 
 man do a great thing. Every man will work in his 
 own order. If we get misplaced, legislation will not 
 place us. We have got to work out our own sal- 
 vation. 
 
 This new doctrine that you can legislate unsuc- 
 cessful men into success by legislating successful men 
 out of success is a piece of imbecility that does in- 
 justice to our twentieth century. The man who 
 whines that he has no chance because other men 
 have got the trade cannot be helped by law. There 
 will be nothing of him that is not in him, nor for him 
 that he does not do for himself. 
 
 The activities of capital are the distribution of 
 the earth's resources and the peoples of the earth, 
 and the practical adaptation of nature's gifts and 
 man's powers. Capital turns rocks, metals, min- 
 erals, grains, life, and the forces of all kinds into 
 properties and distributes them to industrious men. 
 It brings forth for them the inaccessible treasures of 
 the earth and compels the infinite energies which 
 formed creation to serve them as do obedient, docile 
 beasts of burden. Poverty is Benjamin Franklin fly- 
 ing a kite among the clouds to catch a bottle of 
 
 33
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 lightning. The corporation is Niagara generating 
 a force' of electricity which drives the wheels of a 
 hundred cities and makes the lightnings to talk with 
 every continent under the sun. 
 
 The measure of our inheritance and the privilege 
 of our achievements are ourselves. We should in- 
 sist upon the right of being as big as we can be, 
 of doing as much as we can do, of having as much 
 as we can get, provided we defraud no man. And 
 we cannot be made good by being stopped from 
 being what we can be, or doing what we can do, or 
 having what we have got. 
 
 The sequestration of man's wealth by direct 
 confiscation or indirectly by an income tax is a doc- 
 trine better suited to the dark ages, only no age ever 
 has been dark enough to contemplate it seriously. 
 
 When a new Cunarder is built we do not begin 
 a protest and investigate because she is too big for 
 the channel of our harbor or because she will bring the 
 passengers of five great ships across the seas and 
 make tramps of the old-time greyhounds and restrain 
 their trade. We dig our channel deeper and build 
 our docks longer and say. Come on ! We will dig as 
 deep water as you can draw and we will float you 
 lengthwise of the North River before we will sur- 
 render to anything that man can put upon the ocean ! 
 
 We had better be digging our channels than cut- 
 ting down our enterprises. We had better a thou- 
 sand times explore for the greater uses of corporate 
 capital and ability than spend our time in childish 
 
 34
 
 NEW PROPORTIONS 
 
 attempts to restrict their power and privilege. If 
 we want to reduce " swollen fortunes," we had bet- 
 ter look about for new and greater uses to which 
 to apply them in opening ten thousand unemployed 
 and unused resources of our country, and in philan- 
 thropy, education, and in promoting common thrift, 
 than in the socialistic insanity of confiscating them 
 above a sum to be set by our Congressmen ! 
 
 We should dig our channels deep for our trade, 
 our manufactures, and inventions, and man should 
 multiply himself a hundredfold for the new and 
 startling capacity demanded by the new age. It is 
 our business to make way for him, to join forces with 
 him, and to welcome him with all of his powers of 
 brain and wealth, for he is working out the gigantic 
 proportions of a new and last civilization. 
 
 It is the utmost folly to suppose that men can 
 be restrained from getting fortunes or doing those 
 things from which fortunes arise so long as the God- 
 implanted acquisitiveness is deep in the constitution, 
 the nature of man. And the size of his enterprises 
 will be in proportion to the resources of the earth 
 and the intelligence and activities of the race. 
 
 We have only begun the gigantic corporate busi- 
 ness of the world. Millions have taken the place 
 of hundreds of thousands as a measure of wealth. 
 Billions will displace millions before the century 
 closes. The wealth of this country is increasing at 
 the rate of $10,000,000 a day. Railways are so 
 overwhelmed with the business of this country that 
 
 3S
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 wrecks are the current news at every breakfast table. 
 Where we have two tracks, we must have four; and 
 where four, ten will be required. We are only on 
 the edge of the development of our country. 
 
 Our corporate forms of manufacture and com- 
 merce are in their infancy. We are making our- 
 selves a laughingstock for coming generations by 
 our panic over the magnitude of present enterprises. 
 
 There is no fear of the new proportions of 
 wealth if equally we accumulate manhood. The 
 only ground for fear would be if the wealth of the 
 world became greater than the men of the world. 
 So long as the man is greater than his fortune and 
 it is only an instrument of his useful purpose, we 
 need have no fear. 
 
 The signs are thick about us that such is rapidly 
 coming to be the proportion between the foremost 
 commercial men of this country and their mighty 
 enterprises.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CITIZEN 
 
 OUR Nation began by enthroning the citizen 
 instead of the ruler, by making the citizen 
 the king. It placed sovereignty in the 
 people and not in governors or presidents. It arose 
 out of contention against arbitrary authority, and 
 leaped to full strength battling for the rights of the 
 people to rule themselves. When it became neces- 
 sary for the people to place their representatives in 
 positions of authority they designated them as repre- 
 sentatives of the people, as agents selected by the 
 people to do the business of the people, and arranged 
 a plan by which they should give frequent account- 
 ing to those whom they served, so that if they were 
 not suitable persons for such business others might 
 replace them. And the people made the tenure of 
 office so short that those intrusted with it were con- 
 stantly reminded that the only right by which they 
 enjoyed its honors was a choice which could be with- 
 drawn and which might replace them with others. 
 The citizens always have been greater than the 
 officeholders, for they create offices and select office- 
 4 37
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 holders, who cannot select themselves. The people 
 are the President, the Governor. These are names 
 for their will, their authority, and their power, their 
 agents. This is a good reason why they should de- 
 fend such offices and those who occupy them, for 
 they are represented in them, and their self-respect 
 must suffer by any degradation of the instruments of 
 their self-government. And this is why men chosen 
 as representative rulers can never afford to forget 
 whom they serve. 
 
 That remark of one of our governors that " the 
 people want a governor to rule them " was the op- 
 posite of the truth. It could be reversed and be 
 true. The people should rule the governor. They 
 make the laws and the institutions and they determine 
 the person who shall be called governor. And he 
 can rule nobody. He can simply act for the people 
 in carrying out their rulership and enforcing under 
 well-defined limitations their laws. He has abso- 
 lutely nothing that they have not given him. And 
 any assertion of any other authority is a usurpation 
 and an impertinence. Even his discretion Is buoyed, 
 an unmistakable channel. 
 
 The citizen is supreme. One half and one of the 
 citizens of the State can control It absolutely by the 
 choice of one of their number to execute their will. 
 And they have said what number of the whole shall 
 amend constitutions or make laws. All of the gov- 
 ernors and judges and presidents and cabinets com- 
 bined cannot do it. The people, however humble 
 
 38
 
 THE CITIZEN 
 
 and unlearned and obscure, can do what no persons 
 by virtue of any office or position or wealth or in- 
 fluence can do. And if they do not do these things, 
 and prevent things which they do not approve, it is 
 because they are indifferent and unworthy of their 
 citizenship or have sold to the demagogues the birth- 
 right of the primary and the ballot. 
 
 In no country on earth has so much been secured 
 to the citizen. What he does not have in the State 
 he gave up to secure greater things in the Nation. 
 Nothing can be taken away from him. And there 
 is nothing that he has surrendered that he cannot 
 recall, nothing delegated that he cannot recover and 
 do himself. No one has superseded him. He may 
 bear the proud consciousness that he is the King, the 
 lawmaker, and ruler. And all that he requires to 
 change institutions and laws is the power of reason 
 to persuade other citizens with equal rights to agree 
 with him within the clearly defined processes of se- 
 curing such changes. 
 
 We have drifted so far away from these simple 
 and primary facts of our citizenship that It is neces- 
 sary for our thought to be turned to them. 
 
 We have these rights and all of their dignity, 
 but we have renounced them almost criminally. It 
 would be criminal were it not that we have felt our- 
 selves so helpless to recover and assert our rights. 
 Adroit men, expert in leadership, professional and 
 skilled citizens in such matters, control us — always 
 with the argument of our inviolate rights, and we 
 
 39
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 find ourselves perpetually blindfolded and led up to 
 the same political corral and herded for a hun- 
 dredth time in the same exciting round-up. We fire 
 bombs and blow horns and clang bells ov^er the suc- 
 cess of the demagogues in fooling us again. Mak- 
 ing our discovery too late, we plan a reform to 
 justify ourselves. Another politician quickly dis- 
 covers the state of mind in which we are or in which 
 we are not and prepares skillfully the issue and starts 
 out to arouse the people to vindicate their rights 
 which they lost in the last campaign ! Possibly he 
 is a veritable civil-service reformer ! That appeals 
 to us, for we do not want ofl'ice and we want to be 
 protected from the purchase price, the graft, and the 
 corruption of office. We seek to take office out of 
 mere party politics and personal ambition and re- 
 store it to Its function In the service of the people. 
 We follow the leaders who promise It. 
 
 All of this Is set forth for us in burning, fist- 
 clinched eloquence and again we are used by a yet 
 more skillful demagogue. Such experiences lead the 
 people to distrust themselves and the worst condi- 
 tion of all follows. They become indifferent, and 
 thenceforth the fight Is between politicians for issues 
 that will arouse the people and secure the most suc- 
 cessful herding of them at the polls. 
 
 This action and reaction goes on. There are 
 times when the spirit of '76 kindles Into an ascend- 
 ing and mighty flame and the mere politicians go 
 scurrying before It like rabbits before a prairie fire. 
 
 40
 
 THE CITIZEN 
 
 But it is only a prairie fire. The wind shifts. It soon 
 burns out, for it cannot burn over the same ground a 
 second time. 
 
 But there remains the citizenship, the Constitu- 
 tion that secures it, and the liberty that is its arena. 
 They remain if abandoned. We can return to them. 
 We can and we cannot. All of the provisions are 
 intact. They need not to be reenacted. They wait 
 only to be put into operation. But how? That is 
 the unsolved problem in all republics and constitu- 
 tional forms of government. How can the people 
 rule themselves and not be ruled? 
 
 Can it be done by tenure of office? Switzerland is 
 given as an example. Were more emphasis put upon 
 the institution of government and less upon the men 
 of government, were the Constitution and the law 
 magnified, and the executive understoodas having no 
 authority by discretion but only by the terms of the 
 instrument, and could the people be impressed with 
 the sufficiency of a few great laws and the folly of 
 overgoverning themselves and excessive lawmak- 
 ing, it would be a great stride toward that ideal but 
 as yet unrealized condition w^hen the land shall be 
 governed by the people for the people. 
 
 There would not be enough in one year's tenure 
 without reelection to excite an arbitrary ambition. 
 And there would be no possibility of that pernicious 
 thing, " my policy," which has wrought at different 
 times so much mischief in this country. And there 
 would not be so much of professional politics in it 
 
 41
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 as to exclude the best citizens nor so much of burden 
 as to excuse men best suited to the office by great 
 business training and ability. The system would be 
 the perpetual thing. The men would fit into the 
 system. 
 
 Another step toward self-government by the 
 people would be secured by taking thousands of ap- 
 pointments out of the hands of the President, espe- 
 cially judicial appointments, which never should be 
 subject to the will of any officer who may have a 
 personal or partisan interest in measures that come 
 before the courts. And scarcely less the importance 
 in the case of the thousands of appointees who can 
 be used to influence the complexion of nominating 
 conventions and the results of elections. 
 
 By leaving such appointments to the chief execu- 
 tive and the advisers whom he may retain and dismiss 
 at will, the people put away from themselves effec- 
 tually their democratic form of government and sub- 
 stitute for it an autocracy. They permit a gigantic 
 party to be created against them, for this mighty 
 host of officeholders ceases to be of the people. 
 Their associations, their manner of life, their income 
 are from altogether different sources and their ar- 
 rogance in many cases becomes conspicuous. De- 
 fenseless womanhood does not always escape from 
 it. The humble and dependent are crushed by petty 
 martinets. 
 
 But if all such appointive positions were kept 
 close to the people, reviewed and inspected by often- 
 
 42
 
 THE CITIZEN 
 
 recurring appointments, a tremendously inciting cause 
 to autocratic tyranny and control would be removed 
 from the executive, and the appointees would retain 
 the responsibilities of citizenship. We place too 
 much in the hand of one man and we make men who 
 serve us in subordinate positions too independent and 
 sufficient by the nature of the offices, by making them 
 depend, instead of upon the people, upon the pleas- 
 ure of an appointing power which is practically out 
 of the hands of the people. 
 
 Nothing is more illustrative of all this than the 
 quadrennial discussions of the complexion of a great 
 convention by which a presidential nomination is to 
 b€ made. The man In office has been known to de- 
 feat the will of the party in power, to say nothing of 
 the people, by securing as delegates to that conven- 
 tion men holding office under his administration or 
 such delegates as these officeholders could secure by 
 the influence of their position. 
 
 When a President declares that no man will be 
 permitted to succeed him who Is not in sympathy with 
 " his policy," upon what does he base this assump- 
 tion but this fact, that there is in the field subject to 
 his civil-service influence thousands of men who are 
 the servants of his administration and of his ambi- 
 tions. Such a position Is so arrogant and so opposed 
 to the entire spirit, as well as to the letter of de- 
 mocracy, that it would be impossible except for the 
 army of officeholders to whom the appeal may be 
 successfully made. The " policy " of a President, 
 
 43
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 so long as we must have It, is the very thing the peo- 
 ple should pass upon. A free choice of the incum- 
 bent or his successor is the only way that they can 
 pass upon it, but they are informed months before 
 the event that they will not be permitted to say 
 whether It shall continue or not. The kind of suc- 
 cessor has been decided. That Is settled and no one 
 will be permitted to succeed to the office who is not 
 agreeable to the present incumbent and who cannot 
 be depended upon to carry forward his good work, 
 whether the people like it or not. And the people 
 are not to determine that question, but it will be 
 decided by their servant by the use of their other 
 servants in subordinate positions whom they fool- 
 ishly have made subject to the chief servant's will 
 and not to their own ! Is it wide of the facts to 
 say that such a democracy Is a farce and that such 
 government is a tyranny? Intense partisans will 
 evade the question by pointing to the cruelty of 
 tyrants. Tyranny does not always Imply the cruelty 
 of the Neros and Diocletians. 
 
 There is such a definition of tyranny as " the 
 use of arbitrary power." Though political tyranny 
 need not Imply cruelty. It is none the less despotic 
 and its despotism is emphasized by the fact that It 
 Is exercised In a Republic. As it only arbitrarily 
 violates an instrument, the principal instrument of 
 government, and for the time takes nothing away 
 that the people In general want nor for that matter 
 take pains to consider, It passes as an eccentricity or 
 
 44
 
 THE CITIZEN 
 
 is praised as a piece of brave originality. In these 
 preliminary stages such usurpations are fairly safe 
 in this country. We are too much engrossed in our 
 business affairs to be very close students of govern- 
 ment, and then our " get-there " spirit excuses much 
 to strenuous men. Such conditions only invest polit- 
 ical tyranny and usurpation with more danger to 
 the Republic. Precedent becomes the unwritten law. 
 
 The acts of this kind attributed to Andrew Jack- 
 son are mischievously quoted until this present time. 
 The curse of " To the victor belong the spoils " is 
 still upon the country. 
 
 The most serious thing about the betrayal of our 
 citizenship is in the fact that it is at a time in the 
 history of our country when because of our increas- 
 ing numbers and the varied elements of socialism by 
 immigration eternal vigilance is the only price at 
 which we can retain our liberties. And only a homo- 
 geneous people will find unity of thought and a 
 common ground of patriotism. 
 
 We are a vast people spread over half of an 
 inhabitable hemisphere. We are from every clime, 
 in every state of crudeness, with every vagary born 
 under the sun. It is possible for a shrewd leader 
 of men to gather a formidable following. There Is 
 nothing however absurd that cannot muster to its 
 bugle call cohorts ready to follow to the death the 
 flag, black or red, which it flings to the breeze. 
 These are elements which if amalgamated and assim- 
 ilated will contribute great fiber to the Nation, but If 
 
 45
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 let run wild or left to the spoilsman and self-seeking 
 demagogue will gather force and fury which will 
 require armies to stay them. The obligations of 
 citizenship become a consecration in the face of the 
 dissimilar and fiercely antagonistic elements meeting 
 but not coalescing on our shores. 
 
 A similar condition came down upon a Nation 
 once and overwhelmed it. That Nation took up one 
 of those secret foes and reared him from childhood 
 to lead his kinsmen to the overthrow of that nation. 
 It had not a force of citizenship strong enough to 
 oppose to the Incoming hordes and direct them and 
 assimilate them. 
 
 Our country's safety is in the strength of an 
 Americanized citizenship — native-born, or alien nat- 
 uralized and assimilated. It must remain In the 
 ascendency. The protection and preservation of our 
 sacred citizenship is In those who have inherited it, 
 who know what It Is in its purity, who have the 
 blood in their veins that was consecrated to it, who 
 have scars from whence flowed blood for it; men 
 who were actually on San Juan Hill and caused it to 
 tremble beneath their mighty march of victory, men 
 who were In scores of battles of our great Civil War, 
 loyal on both sides to a high ideal of citizen- 
 ship, united now In one citizenship. 
 
 Here Is where we are to look for the holy war 
 of citizen rights and not to men who never had 
 a country and to whom all government Is tyranny 
 and all law oppression. 
 
 46
 
 THE CITIZEN 
 
 Were the conditions simply economic, a matter 
 of irrigation and commerce, it were something un- 
 usual as contrasted with past ages. But it is the 
 government itself as a stake which the politicians 
 are putting up. The yellow journals are selling 
 pools on the future of this land of liberty. It 
 is a weak answer of the partisan to cry " pessimism." 
 Count the ships as they come in, not from the in- 
 telligent shores of England, Germany, Ireland, 
 Scotland, and Sweden, but many of them from lands 
 of oppression, freighted with the malcontents and 
 anarchists of some of the great countries of Europe, 
 glad to be rid of them on any shores. To such dis- 
 integrating forces must be opposed the best manhood 
 and womanhood of the land. 
 
 They must not bring in their citizenship. They 
 must take ours. They must not be permitted to 
 break down and override the institutions of which 
 they are ignorant. They must not fall into the 
 hands of professional politicians to be used by them 
 at the price of our liberties. 
 
 They are to be valuable to us chiefly and solely 
 for that matter by their citizenship. They will have 
 a place of economic value in constructing and repair- 
 ing our railways, irrigating our arid lands, opening 
 our mines, and harvesting our enormous products. 
 But in all of this they are machines constantly being 
 displaced by inventions. 
 
 What we want most in them is intelligent loyalty, 
 the power to think things to be done as well as to 
 
 47
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 do things with the work of the hand. We are in 
 more need of men than we are of animals. Our 
 problem therefore, with the millions increasing the 
 volumes of our census from foreign shores, is how 
 to citizen them. That is accomplished only by being 
 that which they never have hitherto seen, freeborn 
 citizens carrying as a profound responsibility the 
 duties and privileges of self-government, a govern- 
 ment by the man for whom it is made. 
 
 But the man coming to our shores is usually met 
 at the ship's gangway by a politician with a lugubri- 
 ous story of the wickedness of the party in power 
 and of the rascality of those officeseekers who wish 
 to get into power. So from him he receives the im- 
 pression that he has come to a land worse than the 
 one he left, though that was hopeless. 
 
 There is a suggestion worth noting in the state- 
 ment of Pat as he came off the ship with his little 
 bundle on his shoulder and his short-stemmed pipe 
 in his mouth. He was asked what party he would 
 join and he answered: " Be golly, I don't know. I 
 am agin the government ! " It does not matter 
 much what the government is, people to whom gov- 
 ernment has meant oppression are against all forms 
 of government. 
 
 It is ours to show the ways of liberty, the jus- 
 tice of a Constitution, the fairness of laws made by 
 the people for all the people, the responsibility for 
 intelligence, the opportunities secured to all men by 
 just administration. The American people must be 
 
 48
 
 THE CITIZEN 
 
 an object lesson to all peoples coming to our shores 
 and the first thing must be not partisanship but citi- 
 zenship. 
 
 A profound sense of responsibility to one's coun- 
 try, the calm patriotism, the quiet, practical, daily 
 loyalty to our liberties Is incumbent upon everyone 
 who lives, a sharer of the blessings of our freedom. 
 
 The citizenship is not delegated. It cannot be. 
 And it cannot be retained in Ignorance of primal 
 facts or with indifference to the acts of those who 
 make or enforce laws. 
 
 Our peril is not on the Atlantic or the Pacific. 
 There is no " yellow peril." The foe that threatens 
 America to-day is that archenemy, indifference to our 
 citizenship, by which It is handed over to men who 
 make a profession of keeping It for us and of mend- 
 ing it at will In our absence. In our, country an 
 enormous bulk of laws are made annually and a 
 casual observer would receive the Impression that the 
 people are In earnest about affairs of government. 
 
 We are informed by a municipal club interested 
 in noting the process of lawmaking, that over twenty- 
 five hundred laws were introduced In the last New 
 York Legislature. One fifth of them had received 
 executive approval. As many more were waiting 
 the Governor's decision. 
 
 The last Congress passed almost four thousand 
 bills. The total for Congress and a third of the 
 States examined amounted to nearly if not quite 
 twenty thousand new laws, and the fever of this 
 
 49
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 craze for making laws gathers strength and the 
 craze increases. 
 
 But this must not be supposed to indicate a 
 popular interest. The people have little to do with 
 it. They groan under the burden and the bewil- 
 derment. Laws are originated by representatives 
 who must " make good " with their constituents by 
 showing an ample record in Congress and the Leg- 
 islature. Many young lawyers are sent to these 
 halls. And the younger the lawyer the more laws 
 he will discover for us. 
 
 It were a happy state of things if the peo- 
 ple in general were so universally interested in the 
 State as to prescribe these statutes even if not one 
 in a hundred were constitutional or practicable. A 
 thousand times better such popular results than the 
 indifference of a dead patriotism, than unquestioning 
 servility to the doings of men who hold office as a 
 trade or calling and who vindicate their pretensions 
 by useless statutes, most of which pass through by 
 bargains between demagogues. 
 
 We never shall have seriousness of citizenship 
 until the people maintain it. The feeling of citizen- 
 ship is essential to its vitality. The proud conscious- 
 ness of it, the jealousy of it, this gives it force. Too 
 many thousands hold their citizenship as we hold 
 voting membership in a mutual life-insurance com- 
 pany where we vote by proxy. Our laws are en- 
 acted and compiled for us. Not one in a thousand 
 men of the country ever reads the laws passed by 
 
 50
 
 THE CITIZEN 
 
 a Legislature and published in his paper. We liv^e 
 by " the common law " and we use less than fifty of 
 them. We are so ignorant of these twenty thousand 
 new laws of the past year that we are surprised when 
 we accidentally and unwittingly violate one of them. 
 
 As a matter of self-preservation the people soon 
 will have to utter a protest against too much law- 
 making. They will be obliged to select their repre- 
 sentatives upon the issue of doing nothing or doing 
 only such things as the people in convention may 
 require to have done. 
 
 He will be a great friend of the citizens of this 
 country who shall find a way of making legislation 
 unnecessary, of reducing it to the minimum, who 
 will appreciate the simplicity of freedom and secure 
 to the people the most unobstructed avenues of in- 
 telligent activity for the country's good.,
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 RIGHTS OF SPEECH 
 
 ONE of the highest privileges of an American 
 citizen is the discussion of the affairs of 
 his land and country in an orderly and ra- 
 tional manner. If he is worthy of this privilege he 
 will speak reverently of the institutions of the coun- 
 try which are fundamental to liberty and progress, 
 and of the high officials who are appointed by him 
 and his fellow citizens to protect the laws and 
 to enforce them and to represent the country in its 
 relation to other nations. If he must take issue with 
 acts upon their part that he believes to be threaten- 
 ing to the present and future stability of the country, 
 invading personal liberty and mischievous to the 
 commercial interests of the people, he will do so 
 with regard to all such matters as principles and 
 acts, and will be incapable of epithets, personal as- 
 sault, and inflammatory language. 
 
 No man can claim justly or successfully the at- 
 tention of the people who is hostile to the institu- 
 tions of his country or who attacks with anarchistic 
 purpose the chief executive of State or Nation, the 
 courts or the legislators. 
 
 52
 
 RIGHTS OF SPEECH 
 
 It will be many long years before this Republic 
 forgets that the assassin's brain was inflamed and his 
 pistol aimed at one of the noblest of our Presidents 
 by the reckless writing of the editor of a yellow 
 journal. It will be written into history that William 
 McKinley was slain in a manner that fulfilled to the 
 letter the demands of that yellow-journal writer, and 
 the incendiary will talce his place in that awful 
 tragedy in a frightful responsibility with the man 
 who fired the murderer's bullet. If he did not act as 
 an accomplice before the fact, he put forth sentiments 
 and uttered language that found the most complete 
 counterpart in the crazed brain of the assassin. And 
 any man who helps to make a condition of sentiment 
 and feeling against the head of a nation or the judge 
 of a court which calls for any violent actions or 
 that has any logical issue in anything but the estab- 
 lished processes of correction by constitutional and 
 lawful order is an enemy of the country, and it 
 is a pity that there is not some way of reaching 
 him with a law as direct and effective as Lese 
 Majeste. 
 
 We have to remember as good citizens that we 
 are giving shelter to thousands of men to whom all 
 government has been another name for oppression 
 and these men make a virtue of violent removal of 
 rulers. They mistake the yellow cartoon and coarse, 
 low editorial for the general sentiment of the land. 
 They expect to be applauded by a party with all 
 of the conditions of successful revolution in hand. 
 6 53
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 Nothing is more logical to them than the assassin's 
 weapon. 
 
 Therefore the man who discusses any policy of 
 the Republic which he would urge upon his fellow 
 citizens and who criticises an administration must 
 keep the emphasis constantly upon the impersonal 
 feature of the discussion as far as possible and upon 
 the constitutional relief in such cases by a sacred 
 franchise. 
 
 Ours is a country where remedies are wrought 
 not by an assault upon one man but by persuasion of 
 a majority of the people. Nothing is ever accom- 
 plished in this country by removing with violence a 
 man who is the choice of the majority. It is the 
 majority that we must remove by solid and unan- 
 swerable argument. The majority must rule in this 
 country so long as we remain a Republic. Those 
 newspaper attacks which called for the death of a 
 President and secured it in the assassination of the 
 great McKinley, as well as all violent methods of 
 anarchism, are treason against the government. 
 
 But while all men who discuss our country's af- 
 fairs must be careful to do so within constitutional 
 limits and in language which a crazy anarchist can- 
 not misconstrue, the privilege of such discussion is 
 undoubted. Our foundations were laid in discus- 
 sion. Public opinion, which is the final court, makes 
 up its verdict by discussion. The surest and shortest 
 road to tyranny is by the interdiction of free speech. 
 It were better to take large chances with fanaticism 
 
 54
 
 RIGHTS OF SPEECH 
 
 and anarchism than to close the minds and voices 
 of our citizens to the fullest and freest discussion of 
 all National and State questions and all executive 
 actions. 
 
 There can be no vote if there Is no voice. The 
 one implies the other. Voting is a blind act if it is 
 only a dumb privilege. We are not talked to nor 
 talked for simply in this country. We all have the 
 reserved right of talking back. And the partisan 
 impatience that will not listen is the least intelligent 
 and least loyal form of American citizenship. It 
 is condemned by its insistent servitude of an unques- 
 tioning following. Its principles and practices will 
 not bear to be discussed. The affairs of a Republic 
 should be discussed much by the plain people and 
 frequently with them is the soundest wisdom and 
 truest loyalty. 
 
 The old days when the state of the country was 
 the constant topic of conversation, the rural argu- 
 ments of country village groceries, the stump speech 
 and the impromptu debates of the field and the road- 
 side, were the days when American greatness was 
 being created by American patriots and first citizens. 
 It is a mistake to suppose that our Constitution was 
 wrought out of the forges of the men who met in 
 Philadelphia and wrought at the anvils of gigantic 
 argument and tempered their steel with diplomatic 
 compromises. The whole people from the Province 
 of Maine to the Carolinas were one mighty assem- 
 blage of thoughtful, earnest, patriotic disputants, as 
 
 SS
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 was plainly shown when the instrument was finally 
 submitted for adoption by the States. The injunc- 
 tion of secrecy could not withdraw the subject nor 
 silence the universal voice nor prevent a most in- 
 tense popular interest in a question which penetrated 
 every part of the land even in those times of slow 
 communication and widely separated communities. 
 Had it not been so, what good of those laborious 
 weeks of the statesmen? The people must pass 
 upon that work. Not an article could be made ef- 
 fective until the men of the plow and the shop 
 consented. And their consent was formulated in the 
 forum of their daily toil and in groups where they 
 congregated after the day's labor was over. In the 
 best days of our political life the people have used 
 their voices freely and fearlessly. 
 
 It is not only a privilege for men to speak upon 
 public matters, it is a duty. Nothing could be more 
 dangerous than an indifferent acquiescence in exist- 
 ing conditions. Nothing would leave the road open 
 more invitingly to oligarchy. The safety of the 
 Republic is in the fact that every act of legislation, 
 every act of the executive is sure to be reviewed in 
 a white light by unselfish and fearless discussion. 
 He is not worthy to live under good laws who does 
 not defend them intelligently, and he merits the op- 
 pression and discomfort of bad laws who hides 
 away from the responsibility of resisting and con- 
 demning them. In a Republic the voters must be 
 practical students of its affairs and discuss them. It 
 
 56
 
 RIGHTS OF SPEECH 
 
 is not enough to consent that self-seeking profes- 
 sional pohticians go up to halls of legislation and 
 act by proxy for the citizen. The voter should fol- 
 low him there with clear observation and question 
 him upon his return as an agent in making the laws 
 of the land. It is the representative who discovers 
 that his constituents have their eyes upon him and 
 their mouths full of questions who is careful to give 
 account of a good stewardship. 
 
 Our shame is that as the real rulers of the land 
 we have left these matters to those who assumed to 
 be the authority in statecraft and who have reached 
 a degree of arrogance which resents any protest as 
 party disloyalty and brands it with opprobrium, who 
 even sometimes treat a hearing with insolence. 
 
 The citizen as other than a part of a machine 
 is being eliminated. He has eliminated himself and 
 one of his most sacred rights is being disputed. He 
 cannot afford to renounce the right of personal de- 
 bate. To look upon it as less than a duty is dis- 
 loyalty. 
 
 But if a man flatters himself that he can speak 
 freely within the law and in terms of loyal devotion 
 to his country because he is a citizen of a free Re- 
 public, he will have a rude awakening. Human na- 
 ture is not regenerated by political doctrines. Its 
 tendency is intolerance and it receives opposing 
 teachings and criticisms in an inimical spirit. 
 
 It will be a startling revelation to the man who 
 presumes to raise an issue that in the freest land on 
 
 57
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 earth there are those who will treat with violence any 
 utterances with which they disagree. To them the 
 answer is wickedness, sinister motives, ignorance, or 
 weakness. A right which is treated theoretically as 
 Inherent in our form of government is resisted by a 
 certain type of minds as an unpardonable offense. 
 The forum of private discussion is overgrown with 
 the noxious and destructive creeping vines of a sub- 
 servient sycophancy. Any attempt to enter it and to 
 restore it to its former place in the political discus- 
 sions of the times is resented as the invasion of 
 vested rights, a piece of insolent assumption. State- 
 ments are not met with argument. Reason is clam- 
 ored down by angry partisan resentment. 
 
 The editor of Harper's Weekly, in a recent ad- 
 dress, ventured to arraign in fearless, strong terms 
 present tendencies. The collection of replies which 
 he received presented a curious anachronism. They 
 were musty with middle-age intolerance. The mer- 
 its of the question were not touched. The feebleness 
 and helplessness of slurring resentment was a strong 
 exhibit of the degeneracy that has come upon the 
 country from the days of our fathers through servi- 
 tude to party interests. 
 
 A protest Is a violent shock to the complacent 
 partisan mind. It is a startling revelation of how 
 little we differ in the attributes of human nature 
 from that which we condemn in other times. It Is 
 the old story of the Intolerance of those who profess 
 and claim tolerance. 
 
 58
 
 RIGHTS OF SPEECH 
 
 But nothing could be more inconsistent and 
 strangely defiant of our rights as free citizens than 
 this arrogant denial of the privilege of free speech 
 or impatience with protest. It is so entirely at 
 variance with every principle which we profess in 
 this country and has come about so insidiously that 
 the change is quite likely to be disputed. There are 
 ways of disputing the right in other than arbitrary 
 terms. The clearest evidence of an unfriendly at- 
 titude toward private discussion is the reception 
 given to anything not strictly partisan, that has not 
 the approval of the local caucus, the members of 
 which require no badge to designate their assumed 
 office. The independent man becomes a marked 
 man. He is branded as a crank. He is remembered 
 as unsafe from a party standpoint. The wisdom of 
 Solomon would not be welcomed from any other 
 than party sources. The criticism of the recording 
 angel would be voted down in caucus. The partisan 
 press will discredit anything, however indisputable 
 its facts and logic, that can be turned against the 
 party. And as free discussion of principles, stat- 
 utes, policies so-called, must range afield, and as 
 their merits will inevitably not coincide with any 
 party unless omniscient wisdom has been covered by 
 party organization and declaration, the independent 
 is sure to be odious and to be made to feel so if 
 possible. 
 
 It is not strange, therefore, that few men will 
 contend for personal discussion or take the odium 
 
 59
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 of it, especially as the adjuncts in the case of equip- 
 ment are not a perfect gift to all men. 
 
 It were a happy thing for the land if there were 
 more independents, more men with thorough fur- 
 nishing upon civic questions and with facility of ut- 
 terance. 
 
 It prohably will be said also that the engrossing 
 contention of affairs of business, the struggle to keep 
 a foothold on the earth is chargeable with the almost 
 universal silence of the people upon questions of 
 state. But this Is not an answer. It is more likely 
 to be an engrossing self-interest or a politic timidity. 
 Many men, for such reasons, refuse to touch any pub- 
 lic question upon which there Is a decided division be- 
 cause of a fear of business loss or of losing popularity 
 in the community. 
 
 A passenger waiting on a railway platform saw 
 up the track a car jutting over on the main rails from 
 a siding just far enough to obstruct the passenger 
 train then due. He hesitated to speak because the 
 station master and his assistant must know about It 
 and he might be rebuked for meddling. Too many 
 men in this time seem to feel that they would 
 meddle if they protested about matters given 
 over exclusively to professional politicians. They 
 are quite sure that they are jutting over upon 
 the main line of the Constitution and the law 
 but these are great questions. It may be better 
 not to meddle. There are various views of these 
 things. 
 
 60
 
 RIGHTS OF SPEECH 
 
 That personal discussion is inherent in man and 
 the universal mind must find expression somehow is 
 shown in the fact that periodically it swarms to 
 some thought or doctrine however absurd and spends 
 itself in a vehement protest, not so much because it 
 believes what it advocates as that it disbelieves every- 
 thing that has ignored it and which It has not had 
 a part in creating. 
 
 A Republic should encourage the protesting 
 talker. Nonprofessional debate should be culti- 
 vated. Reason and not ridicule should reply. Ridi- 
 cule often covers the ignorance of him who indulges 
 in it. It is an easy way out of an embarrassment. 
 But the philosopher of political economics, the 
 statesman, will appreciate the supreme fact that in a 
 government by the people the people should be 
 heard, and people answer to people. 
 
 For the perpetuity of a Republic and a free citi- 
 zenship there must be always a solid substratum, a 
 foundation layer of free speech. The pulpit, the 
 political forum for personal discussion must have a 
 permanent place and speak faithfully and uncom- 
 promisingly the truth as they see it. 
 
 The curse of this land has been and is the tim- 
 idity with which thousands of men of power and 
 influence face great moral and political issues. The 
 compromise they make with vice, with intemperance, 
 with labor abuses, in fear of loss of trade, of social 
 prestige, and of awakening unpleasant antagonism is 
 destructive to manhood and has encouraged and pro- 
 
 6i
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 moted these evils until they stalk through the land 
 in defiant insolence. 
 
 The sleeping disease is alarmingly prevalent. 
 It was when men slept that tares were sown. 
 
 Every form of vice presumes upon the indif- 
 ference of those not immediately disturbed and the 
 presumption is safe. Silence is particeps criminis. 
 We are having conditions that put to shame a twen- 
 tieth-century civilization because men whisper when 
 they condemn evil. They put their preaching into 
 beautiful rhetoric and sing their faith in sweet 
 poetry. They are not prophets who prophesy until 
 God breaks the rocks in pieces. 
 
 In Elba, among the mountains of the Adiron- 
 dacks, is a mighty bowlder that the Almighty sent 
 there by the glacial drift for an imperishable monu- 
 ment to the courage of the honest convictions of a 
 plain man of plain speech. Whatever may be the 
 opinions of men as to the wisdom of the acts commem- 
 orated In connection with them, they revere that man 
 for his courage and the consecration of his life to an 
 unselfish purpose. The times of John Brown did not 
 confer with flesh and blood. The men who did 
 passed as the dust Is blown by summer winds. The 
 men who did not counsel with a tampering prudence 
 but took obloquy from their neighbors and friends 
 lie in graves that are shrines to which thousands 
 make their annual pilgrimages. 
 
 One day a man reared among these mountains 
 said to me: "I was requested to join John Brown's 
 
 62
 
 RIGHTS OF SPEECH 
 
 raiders and go to Harper's Ferry but I asked, ' What 
 will you be doing when you get there ? ' and when they 
 said they didn't know, I told them that I didn't go 
 anywhere where I didn't know what they would do 
 when they got there ! " He will have a grave some 
 day and it will be like the millions of other graves 
 — a generation and no one will look at it. He will 
 have lived a life which he saved and lost. Over by 
 the bowlder is the dust of men who lost lives which 
 they saved, and the ceaseless generations will feel 
 the power of their fearless souls that go marching 
 on. It is dangerous to deny the right of speech to 
 honest, patriotic men even though it be prema- 
 ture and mistaken in the judgment of human 
 prudence. 
 
 The prudent, careful, judicious, self-preserved 
 men are like pebbles rolled around on tbe beach by 
 ceaseless coming and going tides. The world wants 
 men who are jetties of granite pushed into the sea 
 to channel its harbors and its commerce and define 
 its morals, men who " count not their lives dear unto 
 themselves." They are made sometimes by war and 
 sometimes by great exciting moral issues. And some 
 are worn smooth by the tides of thought which they 
 do not resist, controlled by men of fiercer will and 
 strenuous action. 
 
 What shall be the making of our young men 
 of easy-going temperament if the general senti- 
 ment of loyalty does not awaken them to an earnest 
 discussion of their country and a oatriotlc defense
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 of the Constitution and the Institutions which they 
 have inherited from sturdy men of sturdy times? 
 
 Let those men who gnash their teeth and surge 
 against the chains that hold their tempers in leash 
 remember that they are not of America. The man 
 who understands the first principles of a Republic 
 will welcome every voice that is evidently loyal and 
 devoted to the public good. He will suppress noth- 
 ing that is forced out of honest convictions and high 
 purpose. 
 
 The wisdom he will question, since no man is in- 
 fallible. The wisdom he will question with wisdom, 
 however, and not with folly of passion or partisan 
 hate. To the man whose voice he opposes he will 
 accord the privilege which he assumes for himself, 
 that the freest interchange may be obtained in a land 
 where every man is an integral part of the ruling 
 power. 
 
 But any man with a just and valid claim upon 
 citizenship will never be deterred by the reception 
 which his convictions receive by intolerant minds. 
 He will ask two questions only: Are they true? 
 Ought they to be said? 
 
 In the present conditions, more alarming than the 
 Civil War, more threatening than any political fal- 
 lacy that ever has agitated the country, the encour- 
 agement is in the signs of an awakening discussion 
 among the people at large. What was thought to 
 concern the millionaires and the great corporations 
 only, with whom through ignorant prejudice there 
 
 64
 
 RIGHTS OF SPEECH 
 
 was little sympathy, is now seen to have a vital re- 
 lation to all forms of trade and investment and to 
 follow the citizen into the courts of justice, where any 
 day his liberties in some form may be called in ques- 
 tion. 
 
 What he has left unquestioned and beyond his 
 practical thought as fixed principles, concerning him- 
 self with them no more than with the stars or the 
 tides, he is slowly but surely coming to see profaned 
 for political uses, and made by processes of con- 
 stitutional stretching and extension to cover all sorts 
 of civic vagaries. 
 
 That he will not blindly submit to the quarry- 
 ing of the very foundation stones of the Republic 
 for the purposes of this new and bizarre structure 
 of political economy is as certain as his intelligence 
 and his loyalty. The plain citizen has not ab- 
 dicated. He has been careless. He has been mes- 
 merized into a strange infatuation that magnifies a 
 man above law and Constitution and the institutions 
 of clearly defined government, but he will awake and 
 he will speak. 
 
 That is an old fallacy that " the voice of the 
 people is the voice of God." Quite as often the 
 voice of God has opposed the voice of the people. 
 It has happened sometimes that the voice of the peo- 
 ple has been a voice of bondage, a voice of drunken- 
 ness, and a voice of cowardly prudence. It has been 
 a voice of selfishness and not of God in righteous- 
 ness. Speech Is more likely to be the speech of 
 
 65
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 freedom and of reason when it speaks alone than 
 when it is an echo rebounding with the popular ac- 
 claim, because there is nothing more certain than the 
 perverting influence of the traditions of men. There 
 are political parties, as there are religious organiza- 
 tions, which bear ancient and honorable names but 
 which have no other resemblance to the mighty 
 thought which framed them and gave them their eflli- 
 cient power for generations before they fell into the 
 hands of the Philistines, It, therefore, is not a sure 
 sign that he is right because he agrees with the 
 multitudes or wrong because he differs from them. 
 Even mathematics are a growth and a development. 
 They would be opposed if there was any competi- 
 tion in them. The mind must hold itself open and 
 the tongue must give a reason for the hope within. 
 
 Sometimes it requires the courage of faith. It 
 is not difficult to shout a victory which other men 
 have won. It is a test when one hears the victory 
 of his cause within himself and commits himself to 
 it, sure that what he sees alone will be seen by others 
 in times to come. 
 
 There must be much seeding of speech. It often 
 must be cast out to take slow root and tarry long 
 with small promise before it bears fruit. There is 
 no lack of men to shout with the crowd. There is 
 great lack of men who will stand alone and sacri- 
 fice to a principle with greater joy than they receive 
 even just applause. The greatest and most intensely 
 satisfactory applause is sound principles firmly vin- 
 
 66
 
 RIGHTS OF SPEECH 
 
 dlcated and fearlessly defended. Nothing so im- 
 poverishes manhood as the exchange of such prin- 
 ciples for the pottage of sycophantic approval or the 
 barter of preferment. 
 
 The fearless, reverent position taken for truth 
 Is sure to be vindicated, and, If It were not, there Is 
 something Infinitely more Important — the truth is 
 vindicated. 
 
 There should be no deterrent in impugned mo- 
 tives. For one's own security it is not necessary for 
 him to prove to others the sincerity of his motives 
 and his acts. And It would be a futile effort to 
 vindicate himself with that lowest specimen of all 
 moral depravities, the anonymous accuser, because 
 such a one embodies the unworthy things which 
 he charges and declares the consciousness of his own 
 low motives. This is his righteous judgment! 
 
 The man who exercises free speech must under- 
 stand that It Is a challenge. It will be protested. 
 The only thing that ought to concern him Is the 
 answer of fact and of sound reason. Slurs, Im- 
 pugned motives, are always a concession. When 
 there Is nothing more to be opposed to one's posi- 
 tion, It may safely be assumed that that position is 
 impregnable. It will not do to say that It is not 
 worth answering. We are bound to answer a re- 
 spectable contention or yield to it. The man who 
 cannot be answered has the right of way; the man 
 who can be answered must step aside. 
 
 The individual champion of a cause is more 
 67
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 likely to have thought seriously and safely than the 
 hllnd followers of partisan leaders. The world's 
 history Is strewn thick with such incidents. Nearly 
 all of the great issues have been lamentably in the 
 minority and the men who have stood in the front 
 of them have had to bear obloquy. The great con- 
 sideration is not the voices of to-day but the voices 
 of the to-morrows into which will be streaming the 
 light of accomplished facts. 
 
 It is safe to assume that the voice of progress 
 will be vindicated by the ages. To protest small 
 concepts, to champion great proportions is sure 
 prophecy. It is out in that direction that we find 
 the purposes and plans of God. It is out in that 
 direction that we follow the orbit of large and noble 
 human events. 
 
 The right to be heard is inherent in man and 
 fundamental in his free land. The right to be fol- 
 lowed must depend upon what reason and sound 
 arguments he makes known. 
 
 If no age, neither his own nor any succeeding 
 one, hears him, he has spoken in vain. If he utters 
 truth and wisdom, somewhere at some time It will 
 accomplish that whereunto It Is sent. It will not 
 return void. If it proves to be a mistake, neverthe- 
 less he who speaks his convictions has the ennobling 
 satisfaction of having obeyed the command of duty 
 as he saw it.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 REACTIONARIES 
 
 THIS is a time prolific in odious phrases and 
 titles. We have the " Octopus," the 
 " Predatory Wealth," the " Swollen For- 
 tunes," the " Monopolist," the " Reactionist," and 
 others. They are aimed at those persons or busi- 
 nesses that have become victims of one of the world's 
 strange fanaticisms. 
 
 The Reactionist is a term applied to those who 
 take issue with what they believe to be an abuse of 
 the Constitution and an arbitrary invasion of per- 
 sonal rights. Why it is given such an application 
 I do not understand. It certainly is not by its legiti- 
 mate definitions if It is meant to express any revolu- 
 tion from constitutional forms of government and 
 the established order of things in the commercial 
 pursuits of men. If the word is dissected, it means 
 to act back, and the example given is the reaction 
 after a period of democracy to the principles and 
 practices which that democracy contested and sup- 
 planted. Its appropriate use, therefore, is in the 
 description of that autocratic and arbitrary practice 
 6 69
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 which has been introduced into the administration of 
 our democratic government during the past two or 
 three years — unjustified by precedents of war and in 
 a time of solid financial stability and unprecedented 
 prosperity. 
 
 The Reactionists are the men who advocate 
 " stretching the Constitution," who officially rebuke 
 judges of the courts, who usurp legislation by dic- 
 tatorial messages from the executive office, who 
 attempt to force receiverships as instruments of 
 prosecution, who prosecute men in defiance of the 
 ex post facto provision of the Constitution, who con- 
 demn men and prejudge them as undesirable citizens 
 when their lives are in the judicial balances, who 
 arraign men as criminals and then set in motion 
 against them the machinery of the Federal Courts 
 and prosecuting department, who insist upon brand- 
 ing men as guilty who never have been indicted even 
 in the cases alleged — as notoriously characterized a 
 Federal Court within the past summer in a great cor- 
 poration case — who sentence men for alleged mili- 
 tary offenses without evidence and without hearing, 
 who investigate great business interests for alleged 
 offenses and with a blare of trumpets condemn them 
 — the innocent and the guilty alike — in all of the 
 markets of the world, who by enforcing an imprac- 
 ticable law which the President has said would 
 reduce business to chaos — a law which had lain 
 dormant since its enactment because unjust, a law 
 forbidding combination in business that has been the 
 
 70
 
 REACTIONARIES 
 
 business practice of the country for a generation — 
 and who upon such a law send business men of un- 
 questioned integrity to jail, who threaten to inter- 
 pret the Constitution so as to evade the reserved 
 rights of the States and to establish paternal gov- 
 ernment by the subterfuge of Post Roads, who by 
 agitation in speech and the public press disturb 
 values and depreciate the properties and investments 
 of millions of our people, both the rich and the poor 
 — these are the real Reactionists. 
 
 And this is reaction such as the history of the 
 world cannot show, because it is against the most 
 perfect form of democracy that men ever have seen. 
 It could not occur in Russia or Turkey, for there is 
 no democracy in those countries to react against. It 
 becomes alarming simply from the fact that it is tol- 
 erated thirty days in this country, to which such 
 things never have been known since the Constitution 
 was adopted. 
 
 To say that men who protest and raise a warn- 
 ing voice against these monstrous violations of con- 
 stitutional rights are Reactionists is characteristic of 
 the whole high-handed procedure. It is of a piece 
 with the cry of the " Millionaires' Conspiracy," in- 
 vented to silence the just protest of men who are 
 being harassed and whose business is being ruined 
 under the cry of predatory wealth. 
 
 It is the charge of a reactionary administration 
 that a class of men are plotting to change a political 
 policy and therefore they are enemies of the people, 
 
 71
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 as though the Constitution guaranteed to any of our 
 officials, however high, the right to continue a 
 *' Policy " and to silence objections to the same upon 
 the part of our citizens by crying conspiracy. 
 
 I submit that it is not the men who contend for 
 the old order of government, that has stood firm as 
 mountain foundations for over a century and that 
 is the astonishment of the civilized world, who are 
 the reactionists, but It is the men who are reacting 
 back to an oligarchy and autocracy by raising Issues 
 which blind the people and who are appealing to 
 class prejudice, which rallies every form of discon- 
 tent and hate, of anarchy and socialism in the coun- 
 try. Such men are the reactionists. Men who 
 would have a government by men and not by law — 
 men who would give government over to the discre- 
 tion of an executive and substitute star-chamber com- 
 missions for the grand jury and the courts. 
 
 It is astonishing that conservatives, that sturdy 
 and unyielding patriots of the constitutional govern- 
 ment of their forefathers are reactionists. Against 
 what are they reacting? Certainly not against the 
 Constitution, surely not against the interpretation and 
 administration of a Jefferson, a Madison, a Lincoln, 
 or a Washington. Not a thin shadow made by the 
 exigencies of war falls out of any past administration 
 as a precedent for the astonishingly arrogant practices 
 of the present hour. 
 
 Washington, writing to John Jay, says : " Let 
 . . . every violation of the Constitution be repre- 
 
 72
 
 REACTIONARIES 
 
 hended. If defective, let it be amended, but not 
 suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an ex- 
 istence." There is no intimation here of the expedi- 
 ency of the reactionary stretching of the Constitution 
 or of usurping the authority reserved by the States 
 under the pretense of Post Roads or of appointing 
 receivers to manage private business confiscated by 
 the government in time of peace. 
 
 But if the men who protest against the abuses of 
 our constitutional government are Reactionists, have 
 they not a right to react by every argument and per- 
 suasive influence that they can use? How long since 
 it came to pass that citizens must calmly acquiesce 
 in things honestly believed by them to be destructive 
 to the Republic? What consummate arrogance if 
 not insolence that covers itself with an armor of un- 
 disputed authority and hurls epithets at men who 
 point to the Constitution and the law, and not men 
 as authority and government. Such reaction is pa- 
 triotism of the highest order. If it be a Reactionist 
 to contend for the government given to us by the 
 gigantic labors of those summer weeks of 1787 and 
 acclaimed by the mighty voice of the people as one 
 State after another adopted it, then no higher civic 
 honor could be worn by an American citizen; but 
 if to be a Reactionist is to dig under any stone of that 
 foundation or to substitute for any part of the sacred 
 structure a forced and false construction, or to mis- 
 use it as a fortress of arrogant discretion and arbi- 
 trary assertion of government by men instead of by 
 
 73
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 law, of government by commissions instead of by the 
 frequently chosen representatives of the people, then 
 to be a Reactionist is to be classed with the foes of 
 our government, whatever may be pleaded for errors 
 in honest intentions. 
 
 The Reactionist against the Constitution, who 
 presumes upon any liberty with It or to ignore it in 
 any particular, strikes at the only source of authority 
 in a country like ours. 
 
 Authority was not given to men but to law, and 
 men were made custodians of the sacred laws. They 
 cannot go a step beyond the law. The minute they do 
 so they unclothe themselves of authority. The law 
 has no moods, no whims, no eccentricities, no passion, 
 no conceits, no personal vindictlveness and petty 
 spites, no policies and partisan ends, nobody to elect 
 either Gov^ernor or President. It has no quarrel with 
 anybody. It can be trusted to rule. Men know what 
 it is because it is always the same while it lasts, and 
 if amended they know what it is and that it will be 
 made certain and sure. 
 
 We do not know what a discretion will do for 
 us. We know the fallibility of men and that our 
 founders protected us against them by making law 
 and not men to rule us. 
 
 The great men of 1787 created coordinate forms 
 of government and made them separate and inde- 
 pendent and a check each upon the other, and to 
 quote the words of John Fiske, singularly appropri- 
 ate to this time, " If either one should ever succeed 
 
 74
 
 REACTIONARIES 
 
 in acquiring the whole sovereignty, then they thought 
 there would be an end to American liberty." 
 
 To quote Fiske further: "If the day should ever 
 arrive (which God forbid!) when the people of the 
 different parts of our country shall allow their local 
 affairs to be administered by prefects sent from Wash- 
 ington [Commissions?] and when the self-govern- 
 ment of the States shall have been so far lost as that 
 of the departments of France or even so far as that 
 of the counties of England — on that day the pro- 
 gressive political career of the American people will 
 have come to an end, and the hopes that have been 
 built upon it for the future happiness and prosperity 
 of mankind will be wrecked forever. 
 
 " I do not think that the historian writing at the 
 present day need fear any such direful calamity, for 
 the past century has shown most instructively how in 
 such a society as ours the sense of political dangers 
 slowly makes its way through the whole mass of the 
 people, until movements at length are made to avert 
 them and the pendulum swings in the opposite di- 
 rection." What would John Fiske say of the gov- 
 ernment by prefects sent from Washington to gov- 
 ern the local affairs of the people In transportation and 
 trade to-day ! Would he say that those men who 
 have some sense of political dangers are simply re- 
 actionaries to be snuffed out by an ultrapartisan 
 press ? 
 
 Precisely the thing that our forefathers guarded 
 against has come to pass in spite of their wise pro- 
 
 75
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 vision. By an attempt to control Federal Judges, and 
 by dictating legislation it is sought to vest the " whole 
 sovereignty " in one form of the government. That 
 *' palladium of liberty," " the separate and distinct 
 offices " of the government is practically a fiction both 
 in the national and in the State government. 
 
 John Fiske, in writing upon this ideal form of 
 government, said of the result of the convention that 
 gave us the Constitution : " Thus at length was re- 
 alized the sublime conception of a Nation in which 
 every citizen lives under two complete and well- 
 rounded systems of laws, the State law and the Fed- 
 eral law, each with its legislature, its executive and 
 its judiciary, moving one within the other noiselessly 
 and without friction. It was one of the longest 
 reaches of constructive statesmanship ever known in 
 the world. There never was anything like it before, 
 and in Europe it needs much explanation to-day even 
 for educated statesmen who have never seen its work- 
 ings. Yet to Americans it has become so much a mat- 
 ter of course that they, too, sometimes need to be 
 told how much it signifies." And the need never has 
 been emphasized more than now. 
 
 I wonder if John Fiske would think to-day that 
 there is no need that the historian warn us of the 
 danger of a concentrated sovereignty, of the possi- 
 bility that the people will allow their local affairs to 
 be administered by "prefects" from Washington! 
 The choice of their very representatives in some in- 
 stances has been dictated from Washington. Their 
 
 76
 
 REACTIONARIES 
 
 candidates for Governor must please the authority at 
 Washington if they hope for election. 
 
 And those who protest against such invasion of 
 local affairs are Reactionists ! We are warned that 
 the principal streets of our cities may be taken in 
 charge as Post Roads for interstate purposes, our local 
 business may be condemned and placed In the hands 
 of receivers and managed by " prefects " from Wash- 
 ington if the administration can secure the sanction of 
 the courts ! And an objection to this high-handed 
 governmental piracy and an appeal to the Constitu- 
 tion is reactionary! 
 
 That was a singular prophecy of Macaulay in 
 1857 when in discussing our destiny he said: " It Is 
 quite plain that your government will never be able 
 to restrain a distressed and discontented majority. 
 For with you the majority is the goyernment and 
 has the rich, who are always a minority, absolutely 
 at its mercy. The day will come when In the State 
 of New York a multitude of people, none of whom 
 have had more than half a breakfast or expect to 
 have more than half a dinner, will choose a Legis- 
 lature. Is it possible to doubt what sort of Legis- 
 lature will be chosen? On one side Is a statesman 
 preaching patience, respect for vested rights, strict 
 observance of public faith. On the other Is a dema- 
 gogue ranting about the tyranny of capitalists and 
 usurers and asking why anybody should be permitted 
 ... to ride in a carriage while thousands of honest 
 folks are in want of necessaries. Which of the two 
 
 77
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 candidates Is liable to be preferred by a workingman 
 who hears his children cry for more bread? Here 
 [in his own country] the sufferers are not the rulers. 
 The supreme power is in the hands of a class, numer- 
 ous indeed, but select, of an educated class, of a 
 class which is and knows itself to be deeply interested 
 in the security of property and the maintenance of 
 order. Accordingly, the malcontents are firmly yet 
 gently restrained. The bad time is got over without 
 robbing the wealthy to relieve the indigent. The 
 springs of national prosperity begin to flow again; 
 work is plentiful, wages rise, and all is tranquillity 
 and cheerfulness. Through such seasons the United 
 States will have to pass in the course of the next cen- 
 tury, if not of this. How will you pass through 
 them? I heartily wish you a good deliverance, but 
 my reason and my wishes are at war and I cannot 
 help foreboding the worst." 
 
 We believe in the sufferers and the prosperous 
 being rulers together, but in such times as shall find 
 the sufferers in the majority we need " the statesman 
 preaching patience, respect for vested rights, strict 
 observance of public faith." With such statesmen 
 and such reverence for law and the constitutional 
 rights of men to personal liberty, to property, to the 
 pursuit of business and happiness, we are In no dan- 
 ger. Such statesmen have carried us through as 
 serious agitations as are threateningly portrayed by 
 Macaulay. 
 
 But it becomes quite another aspect and one 
 78
 
 REACTIONARIES 
 
 that justifies his " forebodings " when statesmen are 
 displaced by " demagogues ranting about the tyr- 
 anny of capitalists " in the exciting language of 
 " swollen fortunes," " predatory wealth," and 
 " tainted money." 
 
 The administration joining itself to the malcon- 
 tents and inviting them into its cave of Adullam in 
 a time when every man's dinner pail is full, with its 
 sympathy freely and excitedly given to attacks upon 
 the railroads, the enormous industries carried on by 
 massed capital, and the corporate forms of business 
 beyond certain socialistic limitations, though these 
 provide hundreds of thousands of men and women 
 with work at higher wages than men ever have re- 
 ceived for manual toil, has brought the cloud into our 
 sky that Macaulay saw, and it is much bigger than 
 a man's hand. Whether it shall gather to itself as 
 a storm center the furious elements that have hither- 
 to been firmly but gently restrained is to depend 
 upon whether statesmen or demagogues are to con- 
 trol in this country. With the type of statesmen of 
 Lincoln, Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley, we 
 should have nothing to fear. With the present agi- 
 tating and eruptive administration and with the chief 
 voices of the other political party echoing the same 
 " ranting about the tyranny of capitalists," we may 
 expect a revolution which shall become a conspicuous 
 date in history unless the sober-thinking people awake 
 to an imperiled inheritance. 
 
 The aid and sympathy given by political leaders 
 
 79
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 for political purposes to a socialism that has been 
 straining at its leash In this country for a genera- 
 tion Is appalling. It Is Insanity. Has anyone heard 
 any protest by the anarchist and the socialist against 
 the political doctrines now being preached by pres- 
 idential candidates and being enforced by the prose- 
 cuting machinery of the country? 
 
 When a dozen great business men are compelled 
 to travel to a court one thousand miles away in the 
 discomfort of midsummer heat, and at the abandon- 
 ment of interests which circuit the globe, when but 
 three of them were called to testify and their testi- 
 mony was Inconsequential and utterly useless for in- 
 formation as the court already possessed it and the 
 judge could have received It by affidavit as well If 
 not better than orally, what was the justification of 
 this tyrannical and sensational procedure by many 
 leading partisan newspapers which felt that an apol- 
 ogy should be made? They said that it would show 
 the people that the rich as well as the poor must 
 obey the law. Did anyone doubt that who had the 
 intelligence to appreciate such a showing? What 
 was It but an attempt to secure the applause of the 
 socialistic element of the country at the expense 
 of citizens made odious for the purpose of this 
 show? 
 
 The Reactionists are playing to the galler}', and 
 the gallery is becoming dangerously crowded for the 
 safety of the structure of the body politic. Justice, 
 statesmanship, citizenship, are being played as a farce 
 
 80
 
 REACTIONARIES 
 
 to excite the applause of the unthinking or the angry 
 thinking. 
 
 De Tocquevllle, in his " Democracy in America," 
 has said: " In America those complaints against prop- 
 erty in general which are so frequent in Europe are 
 never heard, because in America there are no paupers; 
 and as everyone has property of his own to defend, 
 everyone recognizes the principle upon which he holds 
 it." He did not foresee the time when the increase 
 of property by some would excite envy and prejudice 
 upon the part of the many and a doctrine of equal 
 division would be preached and the politician would 
 use elements of discontent to advance his purposes. 
 He did not see that a time would come when our very 
 prosperity would be made ground of complaint and 
 men would seek to destroy the opportunities of riches, 
 and set a bound to the capacities and resources of 
 their fellow men. 
 
 In no part of the world, in no period of history 
 has there ever been excited such unjust hatred of the 
 rich and such an effort to embarrass the accumula- 
 tions of great fortunes. Even the President of the 
 United States joins his voice in the well-known 
 phrase, " swollen fortunes," and proposes their se- 
 questration to the State by a class tax. What Is this 
 but reaction to that period in human history which 
 is too near to be forgotten so soon? 
 
 The falsely called Reactionists are the hope of the 
 country, and their numbers are hopefully increasing. 
 They refuse to give up the ship to pirates who seek 
 
 8i
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 its command that they may destroy it. They warn 
 those now in command that compromise with the en- 
 emies of constitutional government or with those who 
 would bend it to their theories, that the encourage- 
 ment of class agitation and the hatred of the rich and 
 of the great utilities is far removed from common 
 prudence, is lacking in every element of sound states- 
 manship. It is a political course which has given 
 more encouragement to the dangerous element of our 
 country than have all the reenforcements from Eu- 
 rope in a generation. Doctrines advocated on the 
 platforms of the anarchists are the extreme of dan- 
 gerous folly. 
 
 To plead for it that such a course was necessary 
 to pacify the increasing socialism of the hour, that 
 but for the persecution of the rich and the assaults 
 upon corporate business we should soon have been in 
 the hands of the socialists, is as untrue to historic 
 facts as it is puerile in both reasoning and courage. 
 It is a strange application of doing evil that good 
 may come. 
 
 Have we become so enervated, so servile that we 
 can no longer oppose sound principles to rotten ones, 
 that we can no longer array our constitutional forms 
 against the assaults of the chameleon socialist who 
 clamors against the freest land on -earth as despotic 
 and against proportions of commerce, which his little 
 brain cannot grasp, as oppressive to the poor ? Must 
 we make terms with him? Are we to be degraded 
 by being told in the cowardly sophistry of certain 
 
 82
 
 REACTIONARIES 
 
 editorials that we must " stretch the Constitution," 
 that we must anticipate him in assaihng our institu- 
 tions, that we must pacify him by putting our busi- 
 ness men into jail or fining them for too successfully 
 competing in the business enterprises of the twenti- 
 eth century? 
 
 Shades of our forefathers! Would that they 
 would pass that we might see what men were before 
 they skulked away from patriotism and the responsi- 
 bility of a definite and positive citizenship into mere 
 trickster politicians bartering every principle for the 
 pottage of a compromised power and dignity. 
 
 There must be patriots enough left in our coun- 
 try to resist successfully even in these times the vio- 
 lent and reckless passions which, Phaeton-like, have 
 taken the reins and care not where they drive if only 
 men will applaud their reckless skill in lashing on 
 their steeds of fiery and ungovernable spirit. 
 
 There are those who must be pardoned if they 
 prefer the old highway, the old constitutional team, 
 and a driver who cares more for safety than for 
 speed.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 A PROMINENT college president has re- 
 cently traced the changes which have taken 
 place in the exercise of the office of the 
 President of the United States. Whether these are 
 in the direction of improvement and progress he 
 does not tell us. The changes are so apparent that 
 it was not necessary to describe them. What is of 
 vastly greater importance is to show us that they 
 have been created by sound and safe governmental 
 evolution, that they are the result of law by the ex- 
 pansive and logical application of the Constitution 
 and are therefore wise and helpful, or that having 
 grown up by arrogance on one side and indifference 
 on the other they are a serious menace, a mischiev- 
 ous invasion of constitutional right and a disorder of 
 the coordinate branches of government which should 
 be resisted and removed as dangerous excrescent 
 growths. 
 
 And what would be most important of all is to 
 show us, if these changes are not lawful, how we can 
 safely retrace our steps from the treacherous quick- 
 
 84
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 sands. We confess that we cannot understand how 
 the President has taken to himself any large pre- 
 rogatives and added numerous special functions to 
 his office by mere lapse of time or by an executive 
 assertion not prescribed in the Constitution. What 
 he is and what he can do have been created for him. 
 He can add nothing and omit nothing. If he is 
 more than the chief executive officer of the govern- 
 ment with clearly defined duties and limitations, it 
 would be interesting to know how he became what he 
 is, and secured the right of doing the things he does 
 that are extraconstitutional. Who gave these things? 
 Who permitted them? If he has taken them, he 
 has exceeded his right and his oath of office. If the 
 people have given them, there is but one way that 
 they had the right to give them. They have no right 
 or privilege in any other way than by clear and un- 
 mistakable law. If they concede them because of 
 their indifference to such matters or because of the 
 popularity of the President who arrogates them or 
 because of the unpopularity of contesting them, it 
 is simply a case of disloyalty to our constitutional 
 form of government. The old maxim that " eter- 
 nal vigilance is the price of liberty " is being for- 
 gotten. 
 
 It is true that conditions in this country are most 
 favorable to official arrogance and aggression. The 
 Nation is absorbed in matters of gigantic develop- 
 ment, in invention, in science, and in the arts. It 
 is attaching far less importance to government as 
 7 85
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 such than in former times. The great political 
 parties have no distinct creeds or issues. For years 
 it has been a mere question of ins and outs and 
 everything has been used to those ends — money, 
 tariff, taxes, immigration, until now both parties are 
 growling over the same bone and contending as to 
 whose it is by right. The Democrats say it is their 
 bone, and the Republicans say, " We got it first." 
 The serious part of it is that it is a live bone and 
 the gnawing of it hurts the whole country. 
 
 The contention of reform is not for reform but 
 for votes. It is a mighty political stroke, the great- 
 est the demagogues of both parties ever have made. 
 It appeals to that pharisaical moral pretension of 
 human nature which blinds men to themselves and 
 to the motives of their reckless leaders. We go on 
 therefore with our absorbing pursuits and leave the 
 moral cleansing of the land to the political reformers. 
 To contest them would be self-condemnatory, a 
 straight plea of moral obliquity, therefore whatever 
 the liberty they take with such an antiquated thing 
 as a Constitution is a small matter. It is for " the 
 people's rights," therefore who shall protest? 
 
 The mighty majority of our citizens are not 
 sufficiently concerned with the great corporate busi- 
 ness interests of the country to awake to self-defense. 
 They cannot be expected to see far consequences, 
 especially when car fares and freights and prices of 
 corporate products are attacked. It is such things 
 that appeal to the average interest. 
 
 86
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 It is such a pleasant thing to see the world's 
 wrongs being righted when we are not the sinners ! 
 And then it is a novel way of regenerating a people 
 that we have fallen upon, and we are a great people 
 to try novelties. It used to be thought that you 
 must get at a man's motives and ideals and in that 
 way lift by a great ethical force the common senti- 
 ment of honesty, but here comes a new doctrine that 
 depravity is in corporate forms and subject to rail- 
 road rates — a fact that has been strangely over- 
 looked by moral philosophers until this administra- 
 tion. 
 
 Now you take a country full of business of In- 
 finite variety and amazing prosperity and a govern- 
 ment that proposes to take care of all the moral 
 aberrations and adjust all of the variant conditions 
 of the nations of the earth and the people are not 
 going to be sensitive to the violation of constitu- 
 tional prerogatives. It is easy to answer all of that 
 by saying, " Well, it ought to be lawful if it is not." 
 Of course that is the doctrine of a mob that hangs 
 a man. And that is what a people becomes when 
 it disregards the constitutional order of government 
 and substitutes personal leadership. Never has 
 there been a time when it was easier for an Executive 
 to justify despotic departure from our honored in- 
 stitutions and when the people would so readily con- 
 sent to it. No adventurer of the coup d'etat ever 
 had a happier conjunction. Indeed, the form need 
 not be changed since both parties in their mad 
 
 87
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 revelry of reform consent to the change of the es- 
 sence. 
 
 For many months we have been under a mon- 
 archy in everything but the name. How long will 
 the country continue to be so absorbed in its selfish 
 indifference that, having eyes, it will not see? The 
 change of the presidential prerogatives is going 
 on. How much farther could it go and retain 
 a semblance of what the Constitution provided it 
 should be? 
 
 One of these changes involves our judicial rights 
 and personal liberties. Recall an example or two. 
 The President of the United States for political pur- 
 poses arraigns a great business of the country by 
 message, without jury, without indictment, or any 
 processes of law except an ex parte report of an 
 inexperienced commissioner, with no opportunity 
 upon the part of the accused to be heard. The men 
 of this business are branded as dishonest and their 
 business is outlawed. Was ever such a thing known 
 in this country? Was there ever anything more 
 despotic in this country? That message was a no- 
 tice to every Federal Judge in the country that the 
 merits of his decision in this case would be noted 
 in the White House. Every juryman in the country 
 has been told how the verdict should be made up. 
 
 The enginery of prosecution is set in motion. 
 A test case is to be heard. Two days before the 
 hearing the Bureau of Corporations, one of the 
 President's big sticks, makes a report of a startlingly 
 
 88
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 damaging character, much of which was subse- 
 quently proved untrue. Was this a coincidence? 
 The accused and condemned (by message) cor- 
 poration is dragged fifteen hundred miles from its 
 incorporated headquarters, away from its books, 
 documents, and witnesses, into a State which has al- 
 ways been notoriously hostile to its interests. Was 
 this a mere incident without unfair and dishonor- 
 able intent? Was it the famous "square deal" ? 
 
 It certainly is a mighty change that has come 
 over our presidential office when it becomes such a 
 prosecuting, not to say persecuting, instrument. 
 
 Perhaps it will be replied by partisans that noth- 
 ing of this will influence the merits of a decision in the 
 case. But it must be conceded that it is at least 
 unfortunate that judges appointed by the President 
 and partisans, at least in some cases, among jurymen 
 should know the opinion and declared feelings of 
 the President in cases to be adjudicated. There al- 
 ways would be a question in the event of conviction 
 as to who decided the case. And it would be em- 
 phasized by the fact, never to be forgotten but it 
 is hoped never to be repeated, that a certain judge 
 was rebuked and disgraced In that rebuke for decid- 
 ing a cause contrary to the Executive's wishes or 
 notion of the law. 
 
 The Constitution very clearly defines the law- 
 making bodies, and to make these laws the country 
 elects several hundred men from all parts of the 
 land, representing the entire country's needs. The 
 
 89
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 making of laws by these bodies has become a fiction. 
 We are told that no law can be made without the 
 consent of the President. In times past Congress 
 has had sufficient courage and self-respect to pass 
 an act over a veto, but now it is so obedient to 
 its master's will that it does not do anything that 
 is likely to be vetoed. We are told by the college 
 president referred to that our citizens interested in 
 legislation no longer go to congressmen and senators 
 with their requests, but they go to the White House. 
 The President has taken the patronage and the con- 
 gressmen have yielded it gracefully. 
 
 We have a Douma at Washington which must be 
 careful how it acts or, like the ill-fated Wadsworth, 
 its members will not come back! 
 
 Yes, it is a prodigious change in the presiden- 
 tial prerogatives. But one cannot help thinking 
 what might happen if the mighty worthies of a gen- 
 eration ago were to walk back into those legislative 
 halls, the windows of which are open now so rever- 
 ently toward the White House. 
 
 It will be said by some in justification of the 
 mighty change that we get better laws and their bet- 
 ter enforcement. That impeachment of the great 
 past will not stand. But if it would stand, it is a 
 dangerous bit of reasoning, for it will not always be 
 that we shall have one man who is wiser than all 
 men. Our next President may be simply an ordinary 
 man. 
 
 Our safety is in getting back to the Constitution 
 90
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 as soon as possible. How to do It is the question. 
 A liberty taken becomes too often a right asserted. 
 It is making law by usage and it goes on until the 
 opposition is silenced. 
 
 The only secure form of government is by the 
 written instrument, and the man who is to obey It is 
 not the man who should be trusted to interpret it. 
 The wisdom of our fathers was prescient. The 
 people through their representatives were to make 
 laws. The laws were to be interpreted by courts. 
 The laws were to be executed by a man of 
 themselves chosen for that purpose. The laws were 
 made by many men, and they were passed in review 
 critically. They were the result of the best thought 
 of the ages. They have survived party passion and 
 self-interest. They have responded to the judicial 
 test. They can be trusted. If a change Is to be 
 made it is under such careful provisions as to safe- 
 guard against hasty and Ill-considered action or per- 
 sonal abuse of privilege. A man is sometimes fal- 
 lible, impulsive, self-interested, conceited, and vain. 
 His wisdom is partial. There never has been a man 
 on earth who could be trusted with unlimited power. 
 And it becomes less possible as a Nation increases in 
 extent and complexity of Interests. 
 
 The man who could be most trusted is he who 
 will use the wisdom of the mighty men whose wis- 
 dom set the bounds of government. And he who 
 can be least trusted is the man of such exalted self- 
 reliance as to chafe against the restraints of con- 
 
 91
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 stitutlonal limitations and declare that they must be 
 reversed " if they mean the people's wrongs." 
 
 Our Constitution should be reverenced like our 
 Bible, and if it is to be revised the revision must 
 be done by the authority of legally constituted re- 
 visers, by an authority created by the people who 
 create presidents and, therefore, as a people are 
 greater than presidents. No public servant of the 
 people should be permitted to trifle with the people's 
 authority in a clearly expressed mandate. Great em- 
 phasis should be placed upon this because of the ten- 
 dency of our times to substitute men for institutions, 
 the popular leader for ancient law. It is a time 
 when the bright man, the bold man, even the auda- 
 cious man with a following compels the right of way. 
 The question is not whether he is going according 
 to law. It Is enough and a better thing that he 
 goes, that he brings things to pass. That, unfortu- 
 nately, suits the American temperament. That may 
 do in given cases. The results may seem to justify 
 it. But it is perilous, as I have remarked, because 
 it comes to be a precedent which Is an unwritten law 
 for men whose liberty is attended by disaster. The 
 unwise man sometimes succeeds to office In our form 
 of government. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln, we are told, as an apology for re- 
 cent events, did an extraconstitutlonal thing with 
 a judicial decision upon a Civil War issue. It has 
 been justified by the result, but Its aftermath appeared 
 long years after in the impulsive and Injudicious re- 
 
 92
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 buke of Judge Humphrey under circumstances that 
 no judicial mind can uphold or excuse. 
 
 Can anyone tell the exceptions or extensions that 
 are to be made or how far afield we shall wander 
 if any liberty whatever is to be taken with the pre- 
 scribed bounds of an office? If any single liberty 
 can be taken, why not every liberty? What pre- 
 vents any other changes being made in the same way 
 that changes freely admitted have been made? Are 
 Presidents to change their official functions to suit 
 themselves? President Wilson tells us that the Pres- 
 ident is a leader of the people. Who made him a 
 leader of the people? There may properly be a 
 leader of a party and leaders of the people, but it 
 never was intended that a President should lead the 
 people. That is an office in which the incumbent 
 must be the servant of the people and take his com- 
 mands from the people and go no faster than the 
 people have declared their purpose. Even the terms 
 upon which he can advise them are prescribed. He 
 cannot rule them. It never was contemplated that 
 he should use the rewards or threats of his office 
 to enforce his advice upon Congress, or his re- 
 bukes to intimidate courts. He is to execute the 
 will of the people declared in constitutional and 
 statutory forms. The arena for a leader of the 
 whole people or any party of them is in the Congress 
 or the forum. 
 
 It is not possible for a President of the United 
 States to put his thousandfold reenforced personality 
 
 93
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 into the determination of causes, into investigations 
 of suspected evils of forms of business, and into con- 
 demnatory utterances upon private affairs without 
 doing great injustice, often precluding the possibility 
 of fair and judicial procedures. He is the one man 
 of the country who should remain silent upon ques- 
 tions to be adjudicated by the courts — as much so 
 as the Chief Justice. 
 
 The change which has taken our chief magis- 
 trate into the work of a chief detective with gigantic 
 bureaus of informers and a corps of special inves- 
 tigators is as amazing as it is unconstitutional. We 
 cannot believe that it is a change that was contem- 
 plated by the country's founders as a possibility of 
 the presidential office. It is not a change upward. 
 It is a change downward, a degeneracy undignified, 
 and disturbing in the nature of the case to all in- 
 terests that can be brought into executive purview. 
 Who next and what next is the text of common 
 conversation. Can it be best for the country? Is 
 this disquiet and unrest wholesome, bettering to the 
 conditions of business, and contributing to the hap- 
 piness and prosperity of the people? 
 
 Is there anything in present conditions that have 
 not always been, wherever human nature was in 
 control, to justify any such degeneracy of the presi- 
 dency into a detective agency? What a spectacle 
 to the nations of the earth! A people who have 
 been self-governing by constitutional processes, whose 
 credit has extended around the earth with their 
 
 94
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 commerce and manufacture, whose great corporate 
 business has been a marvel of genius, and whose In- 
 tegrity has been tested by financial credits in every 
 nation, whose aberrations and obliquities in com- 
 parison with their general character are as spots on 
 the sun — this people is being hunted along every 
 railway, into every corporation, over every highway 
 of trade by their President. In Heaven's name 
 what a spectacle in free constitutional America! It 
 would disgrace a South American Republic. With 
 a people with less sense of humor and a people less 
 optimistic it would cause a revolution. 
 
 The whole thing is obnoxious to a democratic 
 form of government. And of nothing Is this truer 
 than of the detective bureaus with which the presi- 
 dency has surrounded itself until it does the business 
 of the country practically independent of Congress. 
 
 The disturbing influence of perpetual agitators is 
 over the land. Organized bodies of men are at work 
 with attorneys and stenographers and a corps of 
 special agents and clerks for the express and specific 
 business of finding odors and bringing them to the 
 President to sample. And when the President would 
 vindicate himself for a personal assault upon a great 
 business of the country he has only to call upon a 
 commission or a special attorney to go out and find 
 accusing facts or make charges. When he would 
 discredit the railways struggling with their gigantic 
 problems, a commission is called upon to create a 
 sensation by the tale of some rascally jobbery alto- 
 
 95
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 gether exceptional, If true. What could be more 
 mischievous? 
 
 The President, any President, has only to grasp 
 one of these " big sticks " to menace any business 
 and throw the country into a panic. It is a start- 
 ling change that has furnished our presidency with 
 these subcabinets for the purpose of discovering 
 commercial wickedness — caves of Adullam for every 
 unsuccessful competitor, retainers of every political 
 brigand who makes his foray upon the constitutional 
 order of things and rides into power with a blazonry 
 of reform. 
 
 It certainly ought not to require much acumen for 
 one to appreciate the fact that the clamoring forces 
 have worked until we have put the government of 
 the people out of the hands of the people and in- 
 trenched it in the hands of a presidency more auto- 
 cratic and despotic than anything In Europe outside 
 of Russia. 
 
 And with these appalling changes have come cer- 
 tain tyrannical Influences which menace any man 
 who ventures a protest. The citizen who remembers 
 the days of a constitutional presidency, who finds 
 himself without a party, who finds himself demo- 
 cratic In a monarchy, and who dares to insist upon 
 return to first principles, and the only sound prin- 
 ciples. Is attacked with a venom of pretentious 
 loyalty that places the defenders of the Constitution 
 and the simple official life among the enemies of the 
 country! The socialistic anarchist Is rallying to the 
 
 96
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 defense of the changed form of the presidency and 
 charging the old-fashioned citizen with disloyalty. 
 The rioter who contended against government by 
 injunction Is pacified by commissions of his own for 
 the accomplishment of his tyrannical purposes in the 
 arbitration of labor and capital ! 
 
 Again we ask how far are these changes of the 
 presidency going? It Is no more unreasonable to 
 suppose that they will go on than that they are here. 
 They are here In opposition to the spirit of the age. 
 They are as undemocratic as a despotism. They are 
 Illogical. They are the cerements of a grave cen- 
 turies old. The present methods of discrediting per- 
 sons and business and sowing distrust throughout the 
 nation are musty with the odors of the seventeenth 
 century. A generation ago no mortal In America 
 would have believed this change to autocracy pos- 
 sible. Like every evil thing of the kind It mas- 
 querades under the pretense of renewing the earth 
 and regenerating mankind. It does some good 
 things and thereby writes Its own Indorsement and 
 pursues Its mischievous business. 
 
 It will continue until the people get the full 
 measure of the peril of this despotic change and Its 
 real relation to their Interests, which It pretends to 
 safeguard but destroys. 
 
 There can be no certain values nor secure proper- 
 ties, there can be no prosperous business and bold 
 enterprise In a nation where governmental paternalism 
 Is permitted to command special and crude laws of 
 
 97
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 commerce, and menace with Investigations and prose- 
 cutions the changing conditions of manufacture and 
 trade. The creation by business novices of laws 
 which cannot be applied to commerce, but which If 
 disobeyed are to be enforced by demagogues and 
 make our great business men criminals, must termi- 
 nate soon In either the awakening of the people and 
 the repeal of such laws, or the paralysis of business 
 now threatened, or the return of a reign of practical 
 sound sense upon the part of our executives. Values 
 hitherto have been down on some secure and appre- 
 ciable foundation. Now, every day they are blown 
 about by a new story of investigation from the White 
 House. 
 
 It was bad enough when the counter reports of 
 bulls and bears in Wall Street moved stocks up and 
 down the tape. People are not looking now to Wall 
 Street. What Is the last Interview with the Presi- 
 dent by one of his commissioners or secretaries? 
 
 Railroad men, manufacturers, shippers, m^er- 
 chants, bankers, Investors, all stand about anxiously 
 waiting for the last bulletin from the White House 
 and inquiring as to which commission Is in the field 
 to-day ! 
 
 The enormous businesses that have been built up 
 during the past half century upon the eternal prin- 
 ciples of commerce and that have made the United 
 States the richest and most powerful nation on earth 
 are humbly asking leave of the political Caesars to 
 continue according to the code of their fathers in 
 
 98
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 making their country great in the development of its 
 resources and industries. 
 
 And the Caesars are enthroned by the men who 
 have created no business, and by the other men whose 
 doctrine is destruction to all forms of success, and by 
 competitors who justify their failures by accusing 
 their successful rivals. 
 
 The business honor of our country is marvelous. 
 It is the world's highest range of commercial in- 
 tegrity. But some solitary low level of railway ma- 
 nipulation or some careless small meat packer or some 
 rebate justified by the practices of a generation is 
 seized upon as the measure of our honor and the type 
 of our character. 
 
 How much longer will the people submit to this 
 degradation? Is not the time at hand for a demand 
 that the excrescence shall be lopped off from the pres- 
 idency, that the changes which have been taken on 
 without law, without constitutional or statutory right, 
 shall be dropped as unlawful practices, and that 
 the President shall return within the limitations de- 
 fined by the instrument which describes his oflice 
 and be content with its proper administrative func- 
 tions? 
 
 Is not the time at hand for the people to return 
 to their self-respect and serve a notice upon all po- 
 litical aspirants that hereafter the men who serve this 
 land in high stations must be constructive and not 
 destructive; that we will tolerate no longer the Na- 
 tion's slanderers, we will submit no longer to the 
 
 99
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 discredit of business for demagogic purposes; that 
 hereafter the men Intrusted with political power must 
 make and execute laws to increase the mighty cur- 
 rents of commerce and show themselves as great as 
 the things they attempt to legislate and administer. 
 We want men as big as their office and as big as their 
 times. 
 
 But how shall we get back? Will some one tell 
 us how we are to change back from the changes that 
 the President has introduced Into his office? It can- 
 not be that they are to become permanent, that the 
 next Executive is to give us a new competitor for 
 original laurels and a champion with loftier plume in 
 the tournament with corporations. It cannot be that 
 men hereafter are to qualify for the presidency by 
 their ability to Investigate business and to agitate the 
 status of credits and to overthrow confidence. Is the 
 presidency to become the national menace and is 
 the mightiest menacer among candidates to be made 
 the popular candidate? 
 
 In former years the country had a refuge In the 
 opposite party. But to those of us who look anx- 
 iously to the only hope in political change there ap- 
 pears a worse fate. The party's idol declares that 
 the issue of agitation belongs to him of original right. 
 He nailed his flag to it as a discoverer. It was torn 
 down and the Republican flag displaced it. It was 
 plainly stealing the land he was about to Inherit, but 
 he accuses only of the theft and complains that the 
 thieves have not made more of their stealings. It 
 
 100
 
 STRETCHING THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 was his Issue and he proves It, but enough has not 
 been done with it. 
 
 It Is therefore useless to look to the Democrats 
 for a change back to the Constitution, Indeed, it 
 becomes a very interesting question as to what Mr. 
 Bryan would do that President Roosevelt has not 
 done. He evidently wishes It to be understood that 
 he would do more! Well may we pray: "Good 
 Lord, deliver us! " 
 
 After his Inaugural, four more years of distrust, 
 fear, and failure. Years In which no man can know 
 the values of properties or assume the stability of any 
 enterprise. The evils of watered stocks, of unprin- 
 cipled stock manipulators and an occasional railroad 
 wrecker are incomparably less to be dreaded. 
 
 There must be men enough in this country who 
 revere the ancient landmarks to rally to a constitu- 
 tional standard. It Is a duty of patriotism which 
 cannot be delayed. 
 
 Never has there been such broadcast sowing of 
 socialism in our country's history. A decade ago the 
 wildest enthusiasts of that doctrine could not have 
 hoped for the tremendous successes that have come 
 to them by the Indifference of the people to the Con- 
 stitution and by the liberty which Is being taken with 
 their rights which hitherto had been sacredly guarded 
 by the laws of the land. 
 
 This rampant doctrine of an elastic Constitution 
 now has advocates who boldly declare that the Con- 
 stitution is opposed to a democracy. They say that 
 8 lOI
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 it was born out of restraints of liberty and limited 
 by provisos which were class concessions. They for- 
 get that these expired more than a century ago by 
 time limit. But this is a congenial time for all 
 such teachings. They have received the fullest en- 
 couragement. The anarchist has put his rancorous 
 voice aside and a clergyman has given him the in- 
 dorsement of righteousness and peace ! 
 
 An easy way has been found for setting aside the 
 constitutional rights of men whom it is desired to 
 destroy. The old-time sense of solid security in the 
 Constitution has given way to apprehension and dis- 
 trust. The markets of the world no longer trust it. 
 It is no longer what saith the Constitution, but what 
 saith the President and what saith the commissioners.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 RIGHTS OF CORPORATE BUSINESS 
 
 GREAT cooperative interests are not the prod- 
 uct of human avarice nor of grinding in- 
 difference to popular rights. The very laws 
 of nature by which we use steam and lightning and 
 chemical and vital forces have made them. They are 
 the result and the movements of a law with phenom- 
 ena as unmistakable as any law in nature. 
 
 The application and control of these mighty 
 forces over such tremendous areas and for such amaz- 
 ing results is impossible to the individual. He may 
 discover them, but men of supreme executive ability 
 and capital must come in and develop them. The 
 inventor is helpless until these men come to his relief. 
 
 The economist of a century ago had no concep- 
 tion of times like these, and much of his philosophy 
 is not applicable to such magnitudes and their forces. 
 
 No one can study our country, to say nothing of 
 the world, to every part of which we now are vitally 
 and intimately related, and not see in vast corporate 
 endeavors a simple and plain proportion. They be- 
 long to the logic of events. Consider our vast ter- 
 
 103
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 ritory, Its tremendous resources, its natural obstacles 
 to be removed, the engineering to penetrate mountain 
 ranges and bridge impassable caverns, the machinery 
 of fabulous cost, the artisans and laborers massed In 
 single enterprises by tens of thousands, the executive 
 abihty employed In plans and their execution that 
 makes emperors and kings appear small In compari- 
 son, and It may occur to you that perhaps we have 
 problems in these things worthy of sober statesman- 
 ship. How could we have brought the iron from the 
 mountains of Pennsylvania, wrought Into the steel 
 of a thousand utilities, or the oil from our valleys, or 
 harvested the wheat and corn from Western prairies, 
 or put a tracery of railways across the continent in 
 every direction, or launched upon the seas steamships, 
 one of which costs millions of dollars, if men of 
 mighty executive ability had not combined their 
 genius and their fortunes in tremendous cooperative 
 endeavor? 
 
 When we curse combined capital, do we remem- 
 ber the fortunes lost In experiments and the millions 
 of people to whom employment has been given with 
 successful Investments, the conditions of thrift that 
 have been promoted, the comforts and necessities 
 which have been distributed at small cost among the 
 people, luxuries of the rich that have been brought 
 to the homes of the poor? 
 
 Instead of listening to the demagogue, read the 
 history of your own times, contrast our country homes 
 with rural England or rural America of fifty years 
 
 104
 
 RIGHTS OF CORPORATE BUSINESS 
 
 ago. The poor man owes more to the corporations 
 than to any other commercial force for his oppor- 
 tunity to work at good wages, or to work at all, for 
 that matter. 
 
 It is the corporation that has assembled the ma- 
 terial, furnished the capital in great banks, financial 
 trusts, and projected enterprises that make the thrift 
 of the country and give employment which individ- 
 uals or small companies could not have done. The 
 corporations which we sometimes thoughtlessly curse 
 are the workingman's best friends. 
 
 Let those who hate corporations go back to the 
 canal boat, the little railway, the stage coach, and a 
 dollar per day of wage. 
 
 The practical economics of all this massed cap- 
 ital managed by the mightiest combined executive 
 genius the world ever has seen In their application to 
 our homes and personal lives In common commodi- 
 ties, presents a striking justification of the present gen- 
 eral order of things. 
 
 That there are evils to be guarded and evils to be 
 corrected, that there are some Imperfect adjustments 
 that fail of the largest results to the greatest number 
 and that do Injustice to some Interests, no one will 
 dispute. But competition cannot be manufactured 
 by legislation. Its limits cannot be defined as an en- 
 gineer lays out streets and highways. 
 
 The wisdom that guides these vast concerns must 
 be as great as the age and the corporate Interests rep- 
 resented. Our tremendous industrial movements 
 
 105
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 have grown faster than our legislative wisdom. The 
 men who are undertaking the regulation of these 
 mighty energies, which are comparable to the move- 
 ments of the planets and the tides of the sea, 
 are making a spectacle of themselves such as the 
 schoolboys can find in the coming in of Stephen- 
 son's locomotive, the telegraph, and power ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 There must be statesmanship of the first magni- 
 tude, than which none has been greater than in our 
 country, which shall address Itself to most arduous 
 study of the most important physical and commercial 
 problems the world ever has known. 
 
 Interests of such vast extent which move by their, 
 momentum so irresistibly through long-established 
 conditions, in many cases overthrowing smaller enter- 
 prises with all of the deep personal interest, as well 
 as the commercial profit that attaches to them, are 
 sure to be thought tyrannical, ruthless, grasping — 
 the veritable octopus or pitiless dragon of av'arice. 
 The railway was oppressive when it set aside the stage 
 coach. But the stage driver became the train con- 
 ductor. 
 
 It must be our wisdom to guide such momentum 
 with the least harm in the changed commercial order 
 to both the greater and lesser interests. It should 
 be our first business to come to a just appreciation of 
 the place of corporations in this country, their pro- 
 portionate relation to the age, their logical necessity 
 to us, that we may not fight institutions in which the 
 
 1 06
 
 RIGHTS OF CORPORATE BUSINESS 
 
 material interests and welfare of all of the people are 
 invested. 
 
 Surely It must not be assumed that the hundreds 
 of thousands of men of this country who represent the 
 billions of investments and its corporate commerce 
 are traitors to mankind, upon whom war of extermi- 
 nation must be made. They are not buccaneers and 
 marauders. 
 
 And it is a thing altogether perilous at a time of 
 such disturbed conditions with regard to government 
 and property and social state to sow carelessly to a 
 whirlwind of suspicion and hate, the forming of 
 which is already far above the horizon. 
 
 As I have remarked upon the magnitude of a 
 time that calls for cooperative wisdom and power and 
 that demands a square justice and a confidence in 
 Providence and men, so I say we must cherish 
 with the most profound loyalty those institutions by 
 which the wisdom of our fathers has secured to us 
 the greatest nation on earth, as the only instruments 
 by which so mighty a nation can continue while time 
 lasts. 
 
 If we cannot govern ourselves intelligently by our 
 representatives, our government will follow the slip- 
 pery downward path of all oligarchies. Men who 
 represent us in the judiciary and in legislative halls 
 must be protected by public sentiment in absolute in- 
 dependence of the representative character which is 
 secured to them by law, accountable to no one except 
 those who have sent them to be their representatives. 
 
 107
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 And they must be protected in disagreement some- 
 times with the Executive and those whom they repre- 
 sent, as have been some of the notable men of the 
 past and the present, until such time as they may 
 be permitted to account to their constituents. A 
 thousand times better continue men in office who do 
 not represent you upon some matters but who have 
 the courage of their honest convictions, a courage 
 which compels them to differ and so to vote, than men 
 whose agreement is servile either to the Executive or 
 to you. 
 
 They are the representatives of the people and 
 not of the Executive, and by such representatives 
 alone do the people have a voice in the government. 
 When senators and representatives receive orders 
 from the Executive, when appeals to popular passion 
 are made to force them to action to which their sound 
 judgment and honest convictions are opposed, the 
 government by the people and for the people becomes 
 a misnomer and a deception. In that hour we are 
 a monarchy lacking only the name. 
 
 It is to be hoped that we are not so dazed and 
 daft by an office that has grown great with our great- 
 ness that it may be permitted to set aside courts, sen- 
 ates, and congresses. 
 
 If it be thought by some of you that conditions 
 do not justify our fears, I refer you to the threatened 
 and actual fate of congressmen who have dared to 
 be true and brave in their representative character. 
 A partisan paper defending the coercion of the Sen- 
 
 io8
 
 RIGHTS OF CORPORATE BUSINESS 
 
 ate upon a certain measure, said recently: "The 
 Senate on that occasion needed the strongest kind of 
 stimulus to cause it to take favorable action upon the 
 rate bill and the free alcohol bill." Why should our 
 senators be forced beyond their own convictions in a 
 given case? 
 
 A pressure was brought by a message, the purpose 
 of which the senators instantly understood and which 
 evidently was intended to appeal to long-prepared 
 prejudices of the people. If we are a Republic, why 
 should men of senatorial dignity and long experience 
 in both the House and Senate be coerced by the arous- 
 ing of popular passion, be forced to action which 
 many of them condemned, by throwing among them 
 the riotous shouts of unreasoning hate and prejudice? 
 This is a most dangerous stimulus. 
 
 Is this the method of legislation to which this 
 great nation has descended? Is this new way the 
 better way to make our laws? 
 
 We have drifted far from our moorings, so far 
 that men on both sides of the ocean are noting and 
 remarking the fact. The anchor chain has been run 
 out dangerously far. It has not been run out for 
 safety. It has been allowed to slip carelessly. It 
 must not be put to greater strain. 
 
 The people must awaken to the danger that 
 threatens representative government. Our courts 
 must be kept inviolate. Our senators and congress- 
 men must be respected in their representative char- 
 acter as embodying in themselves the people who 
 
 109
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 alone have the right to make laws without let or 
 hindrance, and all men must have the right of trial by 
 jury and must not be condemned upon ex parte state- 
 ments of commissions, abhorrent to every sense of jus- 
 tice and in violation of our civil liberties. 
 
 We need unshaken confidence and eternal vigi- 
 lance as never in any crises through which we have 
 passed. 
 
 College men must go out into the world to leaven 
 its passions with the leaven of a thinking that is as 
 wide in its generalization as it is strong and clear in 
 its processes. Our peril is men who attempt to hurry 
 the mighty laws of human progress by puerile med- 
 dling, who seem to take a rollicking delight in light- 
 ing the match and fanning the flame of a smoldering 
 discontent and prejudice. 
 
 It is a peril unspeakable to discredit the consti- 
 tutional order of things in a national life of such 
 complex and conflicting elements as comprise ours in 
 this generation. We need, therefore, as never be- 
 fore, men who are conservatives and conservators in 
 so much that they may have that statesman mind 
 which " hopeth all things " until such time as by 
 sound wisdom and discretion they may help to bring 
 to pass " that which is perfect." 
 
 There can be no greater honor and responsibility 
 than to be permitted to be a participant in the mighty 
 work of securing for our inheritance the greatest 
 things in their greatest efficiency to all citizens and the 
 assimilation into one mighty people of all of the races 
 
 no
 
 RIGHTS OF CORPORATE BUSINESS 
 
 now in contention within our shores, people who al- 
 ready are in such numbers and have taken to them- 
 selves such power and have been put in such inimical 
 attitude toward our institutions and our forms of 
 commerce as to be a most serious menace. 
 
 For this reason we should emphasize as a duty 
 of loyalty those principles of our government which 
 alone can secure stable conditions, and that moral 
 and religious force by which men may be drawn out 
 of the quicksands of an anarchism which is taking 
 on its most dangerous, insidious forms. 
 
 Both because of the magnitude of our country 
 with the new forces that have been put into our 
 hands for practical use which call for new propor- 
 tions and the continuation of executive genius and 
 enormous capital in business, and because govern- 
 ment by law and not by men is our only safety in a 
 land of such heterogeneous elements, we demand 
 conservative leadership and a calm public spirit. 
 
 Ours is a tremendous study of civic economics. 
 The new proportions have come in with a suddenness 
 that has alarmed us. Men of the old times of small 
 business firms, of the stage coach, of the hand loom, 
 of the hand-printing press, of days before the power 
 machinery which has revolutionized the earth, are 
 living among us. Should it be thought strange that 
 this new order should be feared and the happy old 
 times be recalled as the better way? 
 
 It has been a short time for readjustment. This 
 mighty rush of invention, of new forces, of expanded 
 
 III
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 opportunity, has swept us off our feet. We are pre- 
 pared to be told of dire and destructive things. It 
 is an easy task to arouse the people to the dan- 
 ger of corporate endeavor and with a few choice 
 phrases of " predatory wealth," " swollen fortunes," 
 " tainted money," and " the octopus " to prejudice 
 the proportions of a new age, the magnitudes of 
 which we have not grasped and the processes of 
 which are not generally appreciated. It will take 
 time for the people to settle themselves into the new 
 orbit which has been given by Divine Providence to 
 their little planet. It will take time to bring men to 
 appreciate the fact that electricity, steam in compound 
 forms, gravitation applied to transit business, the vast 
 proportions of industries, the conquest of prairies 
 and mountains and seas must be managed in different 
 proportions than wedge and windlass, screw and 
 lever, hand forge and hand loom, and the trade of 
 the corner grocery and the Industries of an infantile 
 time. 
 
 It is a singular fact that those minds which have 
 undertaken the regulation of this new order of hu- 
 man affairs In commerce and trade and to preserve the 
 independent and Individual forms that are Inadequate 
 and insufficient are the very men who are violating 
 every tradition of the country In government and con- 
 tending for greater elasticity In the Constitution with 
 an Impatience that cannot wait to submit amendments 
 to the people 1 
 
 We venture to say that no greater violence has 
 
 112
 
 RIGHTS OF CORPORATE BUSINESS 
 
 been done to the old style of business, to individual 
 competition by corporations, than is being done by the 
 political trusts in Washington to old-time methods of 
 government in liberties taken with the Constitution, 
 the courts, and the lawmaking bodies. And with 
 business the processes are made by laws of trade and 
 commerce and not arbitrarily in opposition to a fixed 
 order of things. It is an expansion beyond insuffi- 
 cient limitations by the force of an irresistible energy, 
 while our governing instrument in clearly defined 
 terms provides the exact and unchanging methods of 
 government and the changes in the same. 
 
 It is strange that men who are so righteously 
 wrathful against mighty changes in business and who 
 rush about with foaming mouths inveighing against 
 " predatory wealth " are a law unto themselves when 
 it comes to the application of government, which they 
 have adopted as a business, to the new times. It 
 is these men who talk of stretching the Constitution, 
 not amending it, but stretching it, because the times 
 are too big for it, who summon the courts and the 
 whole prosecuting machinery of the country to con- 
 tract business and to make all forms of it, beyond the 
 measure they set for it, odious! Men must not take 
 liberties with business. That high privilege of large 
 interpretations is the sole prerogative of politicians. 
 
 The one thing that is fixed in this country is gov- 
 ernment. It is by law, explicit and clearly defined 
 and not subject to discretion either in quantity or ap- 
 plication. The one thing that is not fixed and limited, 
 
 113
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 that cannot be set with bounds and held within nar- 
 row confines, is trade, invention, discovery, and the 
 extension of commerce. 
 
 The men who are using the machinery of gov- 
 ernment to regulate competition, to tell what its 
 rights and proportions shall be and to guard against 
 " the restraint of trade " and to dissolve the com- 
 bined endeavors of American citizens whose genius 
 has given our commerce Its mighty and amazing pro- 
 portions, will pass into history with the learned doc- 
 tors of Nuremberg who declared profoundly that a 
 close fence should be placed between the railroad 
 track and the pedestrians lest the speed of a train at 
 fifteen miles an hour should give them delirium 
 furiosum ! 
 
 To what strange uses are we putting our laws 
 and our executive prerogatives ! What a genius of 
 imagination that can find any such paternalism in the 
 purposes of our founders ! What framer of the Con- 
 stitution could have seen in these distant times a 
 President and his Cabinet engaged In arranging the 
 conditions of business competition by embarrassing 
 with prosecution and fines certain forms of business 
 and threatening practical confiscation by receivers 
 that other forms may replace them and establish 
 scales of prices and divide up the proceeds of their 
 independent business with sure returns of profit ! 
 Who in that unsophisticated time could have dreamed 
 that the production of steel and oil and sugar would 
 have to take a certain prescribed shape and the ability 
 
 114
 
 RIGHTS OF CORPORATE BUSINESS 
 
 and business methods of our citizens become subject 
 to statutes regulating competition? There is not the 
 remotest sign or syllable that anyone ever thought of 
 such interpretations of Interstate commerce as have 
 been read into the Constitution through the political 
 Influence of unsuccessful competitors In the business 
 which they have succeeded In making odious for a 
 time. To regulate trade between the States was to 
 facilitate it where it might be obstructed, to give it 
 equal facility In all of the States, to take from It any 
 embarrassment such as had been imposed in some of 
 the States, as between New York and New Jersey, 
 and to give trade and commerce the right of way 
 throughout the entire Union. 
 
 Men are being prosecuted to-day under an act 
 that is opposed to progress and that will so appear 
 if our mighty freedom ever emerges froiji under the 
 exigencies of politics; if It Is to stand under the 
 Magna Charta of the rights of men. 
 
 What is left of our boasted freedom if the laws 
 are to be construed so that a President through his 
 various commissions can take charge of any business 
 that may strike his fancy and change its values at his 
 caprice and supersede It with some other business that 
 may receive his favor — wood alcohol, for instance, 
 In place of kerosene ! 
 
 Plainly our old constitutional laws were made to 
 harmonize with these great times and to leave the 
 way open for the mightiest endeavor. They were 
 framed by a wisdom that was nearer prescient than 
 
 115
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 any human wisdom this world has known, and we 
 have a right to insist that they be executed with the 
 same large and generous wisdom, that they be not 
 reduced to petty, nagging, poHtical instruments, mak- 
 ing contemptible the mightiest nation created by 
 men. 
 
 There can be no large business under a narrow 
 and paternal interpretation of the commercial rights 
 of men and the enactment of meddlesome laws by 
 men of small commercial vision and less practical ex- 
 perience. How is it possible for men to have con- 
 fidence in any investments under such conditions? 
 
 It becomes a question as to what size of com- 
 mercial enterprise will receive approval at Washing- 
 ton, what standard measurement of capital and coop- 
 erative enterprise is to be issued by the respective 
 commissions, what guarantee can be secured by 
 patents that men will be permitted to use all of their 
 ability and resources, what assurance that they will 
 not become too big for some law, that some competi- 
 tion may trade through Congress or some commission 
 may be called upon to suppress by an autocratic Presi- 
 dent. 
 
 It is plain enough that laws must be as large 
 as business and executed by a large common sense if 
 we are to go on with the proportions of these mighty 
 times. 
 
 It is useless to have the forces, the inventions, the 
 business genius, the internal resources, if there is to 
 be thrown across them the obstruction of the preju- 
 
 n6
 
 RIGHTS OF CORPORATE BUSINESS 
 
 dices and timidity of a hundred years ago or the 
 machinations of legislators who are in Congress be- 
 cause too small for supreme success in the commercial 
 world which they fail to appreciate and adequately 
 interpret. 
 
 Right of way for the largest things by the largest 
 legislation must be our motto. We are not called 
 upon to slow down to the man who cannot keep up. 
 It is a prodigious blunder to attempt by legislation 
 to protect small forms of business. We do not want 
 to make small business nor small men. Every man 
 must take his chance and make his place. 
 
 To protect against " restraint of trade " sounds 
 just but it is the height of folly, for it proposes to leg- 
 islate against the restraint of trade that is serving the 
 country with the mightiest successes that the country 
 has known — small trade is at the demand of the 
 trader and not of the people. It is impossible to 
 guard against the restraint of trade. 
 
 The success of trade in one shape will restrain 
 or interfere with the same trade in another. That is 
 what enterprise is constantly doing. Competition 
 means the success of one and the failure of another. 
 
 It would have been as foolish to make laws to 
 slow down the locomotive in order to guard against 
 the restraint of the stage coach as it is to obstruct the 
 corporation with laws and commissions to enable 
 weaker men and small capital to carry on inefficiently 
 the same business. 
 
 We predict that every law that has for its pur- 
 9 117
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 pose the restraint of a large business to promote a 
 small one will be repealed at no distant day by a 
 wisdom that will laugh at the folly of our petty 
 interference with the mighty laws of human prog- 
 ress which we attempted to substitute with our 
 *' stretched " Constitution and our paternal statutes. 
 
 Men will look at the present craze to regulate 
 trade, to put commerce and manufacture into the anti- 
 quated boundaries of a time that is past, to make the 
 scale of activities for coming ages, with the curiosity 
 with which they look back upon the *' populism," the 
 " greenbackism," and the " free silverism " which in 
 their turn aroused them to such wild enthusiasm and 
 threatened the stable courses of our country in gov- 
 ernment and business Integrity, 
 
 The sooner we appreciate the magnitude of the 
 age, the less mischief we shall work to our country. 
 Our mighty prosperity has been after the order that 
 we now seek to embarrass and restrain. Its momen- 
 tum is so mighty that it goes on far, after the ob- 
 structions have been thrown upon the track. But the 
 very force of its momentum is the prime element of 
 danger. What is stopped with difficulty is started 
 with difficulty. Confidence can be destroyed much 
 sooner than it can be restored. 
 
 We aim at the rich and the powerful. The 
 American people are thrifty. They put their money 
 where the rich put theirs. The six billions of loss in 
 a year of insane agitation is not the property of 
 " predatory wealth." The man of a share or two, 
 
 ii8
 
 RIGHTS OF CORPORATE BUSINESS 
 
 or five or ten shares of stock In railways, oil, steel, 
 copper, etc., is numbered by the hundred thousand. 
 No great trade or manufacture of our utilities 
 can be legislated or prosecuted into embarrassment 
 and loss without suffering to the American people, 
 for the people are Investors. They have put their 
 faith in the large things of their times and it is their 
 property that is being attacked by the present fanati- 
 cal cry against the corporation.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 WE are in an age that compels the combina- 
 tion of mighty men with vast resources. 
 The individual in physical achievement, 
 except in some solitary places and exceptionally small 
 enterprises, passed the zenith of his independent en- 
 deavor a half century ago. To try to recover him and 
 to restore him to his place, as in the days of small 
 things, is to make a fatal mistake in reading the signs 
 of the times. 
 
 The forces of to-day are too mighty to be 
 directed by the prescience of one man — the forces 
 with which God built the universe have been put into 
 the hands of men. 
 
 It requires only the most superficial study to con- 
 vince one that the individual is not equal to the mighty 
 enterprises of an age like this, and that he must join 
 with other individuals and form with them a great 
 company or corporation in order to secure sufficient 
 capital and ability for the purposes of our railroads, 
 steamships, trolley lines, telegraphs, and telephones 
 and other common utilities. 
 
 120
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 The extent of our country, the new forces that 
 have come to the hand of man, the Increased and 
 multiplied modes of life have created conditions in 
 business which demand massed capital and men of 
 the mightiest administrative genius the world ever 
 has known. And the corporations of our railways, 
 steam and electric transit, of oil and sugar, of steel 
 and other great manufacturers are as logical and pro- 
 portionate in an age like this as were the mill, and 
 the single store that monopolized the business of 
 its village in the times of our grandfathers. Corpora- 
 tions not only belong here but we cannot get along 
 without them. We curse the railways, but if trains 
 are run indifferently we set up a great outcry which 
 proclaims our dependence. We have no way and 
 there Is no way that we can invent except the cor- 
 poration by which we can get promptly and at so 
 small a price our flour, our coal, our kerosene, our 
 sugar, and a thousand other necessities of life. No 
 individual could bring them to us. If he could, the 
 price would be multiplied from ten to one hundred 
 times. You may as well attempt to displace the sun 
 with a tallow dip as to substitute for these gigantic 
 commercial forces the puny methods of a time when 
 financial man was little and the wants of the people 
 were few and simple. 
 
 When man saw his opportunity, when he discov- 
 ered the resources of his earth, when he appreciated 
 the forces at hand, he began to plan large things and 
 seek for adequate agencies and power, and what he 
 
 121
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 could not do alone he sought to do by cooperation, 
 under a law of necessity as plain and practicable and 
 legitimate as the law of gravitation. 
 
 And that is all there is to a corporation. It is a 
 combination of men who are doing what a man can- 
 not do alone. No man ever has been rich enough or 
 great enough or could divide himself into a sufficient 
 number of executive parts to build and manage the 
 Pennsylvania Railway or the New York Central Sys- 
 tem, but a hundred men organized by law and pro- 
 tected by charter could do it, and that is a corpora- 
 tion. It is a body of men acting under the law as a 
 person, doing things which a person cannot do. It is 
 only a person combining and consolidating the wis- 
 dom and strength and efficient means of many indi- 
 viduals, and in nearly all cases of unusual individuals 
 in enterprise and ability. 
 
 Such a corporation will have the characteristics 
 of a person. It will not be strange if it makes a per- 
 son's mistakes, if it becomes selfish and grasping, if 
 sometimes it must be restrained by law as individuals 
 are. But it is not an octopus nor a monster. It is 
 not necessarily a criminal, nor does it reckon as an 
 asset its power to grind the poor. All of that talk 
 is the cheapest demagogy. 
 
 Many of these corporations have made vast 
 outlays and have enormous standing or permanent 
 charges and the returns are slow often, and there 
 are periods of accident and loss and mistakes of man- 
 agement, and the results are unfortunate to the cor- 
 
 122
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 porate body and to those employed by it. There is 
 sometimes inefficiency in executive control and the 
 public suffers for a time. But as the life of a corpo- 
 ration as well as its profits depends upon the service 
 of the people, these things are largely self-corrective. 
 
 That the corporation has been another name for 
 gambling manipulations in some instances no one de- 
 nies. But the great industries, the mighty utilities 
 have too much invested in the confidence of the peo- 
 ple and the sound development of their properties to 
 throw them into a gambling pool. When this is done 
 it is generally discovered, and the confidence of the 
 people, their most valuable asset, is forfeited. 
 
 Upon these exceptional instances and the misap- 
 prehension by the people of the principles and prac- 
 tical workings of corporate business and upon the 
 insistent antagonism of corporation competitors is 
 based the prejudice of the present time. 
 
 Reckless charges are brought against corporations 
 and trust methods of business without rhyme or rea- 
 son. Recently an honorable college president, at the 
 head of one of our best-known institutions, declared 
 under the excitement of Fourth of July oratory that 
 we should send some of the corporation managers to 
 prison, a thought echoed by the Attorney General. 
 It is reasonable to assume that a man of such stable 
 thinking and with a reputation for sober speaking 
 to maintain must be able to name the offenders. Has 
 anyone been convicted who is at liberty? Are the 
 cases of so pronounced a character, and are they so 
 
 123
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 many that such a general remark will stand without 
 specifications? Who are the men? Will the honor- 
 able college president name one of them? Such talk 
 is worse than foolish if he cannot. And he cannot 
 name a corporation board nor a member of such a 
 board who under the law should be in prison. We 
 do not send men to prison justly upon hate and preju- 
 dice created by frenzied magazines and a sensational 
 yellow press. That overheated Fourth of July ora- 
 tory was of a piece with the ranting against capital 
 that has become so popular among the unthinking, 
 and is astonishing from a man in such a position, 
 who ought to understand the incendiary effect of 
 such a remark among the dangerous elements of the 
 time. 
 
 It, however, emphasizes the fact that many of the 
 people have gone daft upon the subject of corpora- 
 tions, and the word has been adopted as a synonym 
 of everything that is bad, wicked, and oppressive. 
 
 The politician uses it in his canvass and is ap- 
 plauded, the unsuccessful manufacturer explains his 
 failure by it, the farmer who gets less for products 
 and pays more for groceries than he thinks equable 
 curses it, the laborer who compares his wages with 
 dividends hates it, the newspaper following the drift 
 of discontent lampoons it, human nature, always swift 
 to explain its failures, to adjust its accounts and secure 
 comparative credits, when it can condemn nothing else 
 thanks God that it is not like the corporation. We 
 must have something to curse. That is an essential 
 
 124
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 characteristic of mankind. And there seems nothing 
 quite so convenient for that purpose as the corpora- 
 tion. It is a rich field for the pharisaical casuist. It 
 is not likely to speak for itself; there is so much in 
 it that is mystical to the common mind; it does do 
 things so out of the usual experiences of men; it is 
 so indifferent to attacks by inferior minds that it af- 
 fords a most magnificent opportunity for men of 
 selfish interest to work their purpose. 
 
 The corporation is of such magnitude and its 
 processes are of such a gigantic character and it is 
 so new and with such startling possibilities that legis- 
 lators and executives are facile in their blunders of 
 law and administration in their attempts to regulate 
 it. It is a manifestation of the proportions of our 
 age that has grown great faster than the men who 
 assume the responsibility of guiding it. This has 
 given rise to confused legislation and a great babel 
 of tongues. It is simply too great for us. We need 
 to keep quiet and grow up to our age and to the 
 ability to comprehend the new order of things in 
 commerce and manufacture. 
 
 In nothing is this seen more clearly than in the 
 Sherman Act, which was harmless as a mere expres- 
 sion while it slept in " innocuous desuetude " but 
 which in impulsive and rash hands is working incal- 
 culable mischief; a law that was promulgated by a 
 man absolutely without economic instinct, knowledge, 
 genius, or experience, who threw at a venture a stick 
 of dynamite, the nature of which he did not know, 
 
 125
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 Into the crowded industries of an age which he could 
 not see; a law which if enforced literally and impar- 
 tially would stop every wheel and silence every ma- 
 chine and ruin every form of corporate business in 
 the land. 
 
 The fact of our imbecility is illustrated still further 
 by the helplessness with which we contemplate this 
 mischievous law and leave it in the hands of dema- 
 gogues to work their schemes at the expense of the 
 country's prosperity. We have not the courage to 
 set it aside. We think that something is required, 
 we do not know why or for what, nor do we know 
 what it is, and so we leave a law among our 
 statutes to be a disturbing element according to the 
 wisdom and folly of succeeding administrations. It 
 has lasted so long because, with men of the broad 
 statesmanship of Harrison, Cleveland, and Mc- 
 Kinley, it was not permitted to do any serious 
 harm. 
 
 Now seeing what it can do when used carelessly 
 and arbitrarily and strenuously we should get rid of 
 it. The next session of Congress should repeal it and 
 send home the commissions it has created that the 
 business of the country may resume its progress over 
 those highways of sound economics which commerce 
 makes for itself in all ages. 
 
 The special laws made by men who are mere 
 political tinkers, men who have had absolutely no 
 training in the mighty movements of corporate com- 
 merce, who are attempting to apply the inadequate 
 
 126
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 economics of past and Infantile centuries to these tre- 
 mendous times — these laws painfully born out of 
 much wrangling and voluble discussions should no 
 longer stand to disgrace the age in coming times when 
 men shall have become full grown again. 
 
 And the common law, those old foundations, 
 those plain and simple enactments which embody a 
 prescient judicial wisdom that anticipated this age, 
 will leave our land free to go on to the fulfillment 
 of its magnificently incomparable commercial su- 
 premacy. 
 
 The assumption that we could not be trusted to 
 obey the laws which are inherent in competitive trade 
 and work safely under the natural guidings of such 
 forces is a mistaken one. There is no safety in any 
 other way. Mischief, and mischief only, must come 
 out of meddling regulation. The government can- 
 not do the private business of the country and it 
 cannot successfully regulate It beyond the state- 
 ment of those broad principles set forth in the 
 Constitution and by the common-sense use of the 
 common law. 
 
 Not one of our recent regulating statutes can be 
 safely applied, not one that has been attempted has 
 accomplished anything constructive. For the most 
 part they have been a dead letter because impracti- 
 cable. Some of our soundest economists declare 
 that " they have been productive of the very evil of 
 unjust discrimination which it was intended to pre- 
 vent." 
 
 127
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 The Hon. Martin A. Knapp, Chairman of the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission, speaking upon 
 one of the proposed laws for regulation that require 
 publicity of capitalization, etc., said: "If then it is 
 for the public interest to keep up competition, if the 
 general welfare will be conserved by its active opera- 
 tion, I query whether the proposed legislation will 
 not enfeeble the very principle to which it is desired 
 to give new life and vigor. ... So far from accom- 
 plishing the purpose expected, in this regard, its 
 practical tendency in my judgment would be in the 
 contrary direction. Just as the Sherman anti-trust 
 law which is based upon an economic fallacy has in- 
 directly aided the very results it was designed to 
 prevent." 
 
 And such must be the results of laws promulgated 
 by men of partial and impracticable knowledge in 
 such matters. A steamship cannot be navigated by a 
 shore captain. 
 
 We must leave the construction and management 
 of corporations where we have left individual en- 
 deavor and plain partnerships. Our notion about 
 restraint of trade and all of that is puerile. All com- 
 petition is restraint of the other man's trade. The 
 people cannot be oppressed without ruin to the op- 
 pressor. The happiness of the people, their pros- 
 perity, the cheerful use of the manufacturer's articles 
 Is an asset of a money value. Good will Is bought 
 and sold in the market. 
 
 Must we assume that men of the corporations are 
 128
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 brigands and highwaymen? Is that what we mean 
 by " predatory wealth " ? These men are American 
 citizens of common intelligence, evidently more in- 
 telligent than the men who use such language. They 
 have their homes here, their children are growing up 
 among us, their investments for them are in values 
 which they are seeking to make permanent. They 
 have as much at stake as their neighbors have. They 
 seem to be as loyal and devoted citizens as their ac- 
 cusers. Their public spirit is proverbial. To listen 
 to those who deride and traduce them one would 
 get the impression that to incorporate men in 
 business is to make them villains. The independ- 
 ent are the good citizens. Sad if it is so, for the 
 corporations are doing about seventy per cent of 
 the business of the country. Fortunately, however, 
 business is not seventy per cent di,shonest and 
 fraudulent. 
 
 What is the crime of the corporation and the 
 iniquity of the trust? It found little enterprises 
 struggling with mighty problems. It put them to- 
 gether and made them when consolidated as great as 
 their problems. It found scattered capital and 
 ability working feebly at the task of developing in- 
 dustries and conquering this continent. It united 
 capital and men and astonished the world with the 
 results of the United States Steel and the Standard 
 Oil and other mighty developments. It put feeble 
 railroads together, a half dozen of them, and created 
 great trunk lines. It alone and nothing else is to be 
 
 129
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 credited with the creation of our new world of in- 
 dustries. 
 
 It has decreased consistently and persistently the 
 price of commodities while the individual has in- 
 creased them. 
 
 The late F. B. Thurber, in his " Basic Facts," 
 published by the United States Export Association, 
 which he kindly sent me, says: "As a rule the so- 
 called ' Trusts ' tend toward economy in production 
 and distribution, improved quality and lower prices 
 for consumers and increased employment and better 
 wages for labor. That while there may be excep- 
 tions to this rule they are always temporary and in 
 the end it prevails." 
 
 He makes this further statement which he follows 
 with indisputable comparative tables : " There is a 
 widespread impression, largely caused by sensational 
 journalism and sensational politics, that Trusts result 
 in unreasonable prices through which the many are 
 taxed for the few, and it may be interesting to in- 
 quire how far this impression is confirmed by the 
 facts — not single and sporadic facts but facts which 
 cover a sufficient time and a sufficient field to indicate 
 the general tendency." 
 
 I use two of these several tables, all of which 
 tell the same story. 
 
 " The first great organization of industry in the 
 United States was the consolidation of railway lines, 
 and its effect upon the prices of transportation is 
 shown in the following table : 
 
 130
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 Average Receipts per Ton per Mile of Leading Railroads 
 IN 1870, 1880, 1890, 1902 AND 1904 Inclusive 
 
 Railway Lines 
 
 1870 
 
 1880 
 
 1890 
 
 1902 
 
 1904 
 
 Lines East of Chicago 
 
 West and Northwest Lines. . 
 Southwest Lines 
 
 1. 61 
 
 2.61 
 2.95 
 2-39 
 450 
 
 0.87 
 1.44 
 1.65 
 1. 16 
 2.21 
 
 0.63 
 1 .00 
 1 .11 
 0.80 
 1.50 
 
 0.60 
 0.85 
 0.89 
 0.64 
 1.03 
 
 0.61 
 0.92 
 0.94 
 0.66 
 
 Southern Lines 
 
 Transcontinental Lines 
 
 0.99 
 
 Average 
 
 1.99 
 
 1. 17 
 
 0.91 
 
 0.75 
 
 0.77 
 
 
 " This result has been obtained largely through 
 combinations and consolidations, which, contrary to 
 the impression generally entertained, have not re- 
 sulted In abolishing competition, but rather in econ- 
 omies of operation and improvement in service, 
 accompanied by a steady reduction in rjites, with but 
 few exceptions, which prove the rule. During recent 
 years rates have slightly advanced owing to a much 
 greater advance in labor and materials. Railway 
 freight rates in the United States are, however, less 
 than one-half those of other principal countries. Our 
 railways carry our chief products one thousand miles 
 to our seaboard for less than the railroads of other 
 countries charge for carrying these products two hun- 
 dred miles inland from the seacoast after they have 
 crossed the ocean. 
 
 *' Passenger rates have not declined as largely as 
 freight rates, but there has been a material decline 
 in passenger rates also in the period covered by the 
 
 131
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 above statistics, while the quahty of the service has 
 been greatly improved, with a corresponding increase 
 in its cost to the railways. 
 
 " The railroad of twenty years ago, with its equip- 
 ment, would not be tolerated to-day. How many of 
 us appreciate the privilege of stepping into a palace 
 on wheels and being hurled through space at the 
 rate of forty or fifty miles an hour, with as much 
 safety as if we sat in our drawing-rooms or were 
 sleeping in our beds at home? 
 
 " The next great ' Trust ' was the Standard Oil 
 Company, and its influence on prices is evidenced by 
 the following export prices per gallon : 
 
 Year 
 
 1871. 
 
 1872. 
 
 1873- 
 1874. 
 1875. 
 1876. 
 1877. 
 1878. 
 1879. 
 1880. 
 1881. 
 1882. 
 
 Cents 
 
 Year 
 
 25.7 
 
 1883 
 
 24.9 
 
 1884 
 
 23 -5 
 
 1885 
 
 18. s 
 
 1886 
 
 .14.1 
 
 1887 
 
 .14.0 
 
 1888 
 
 .21.1 
 
 1889 
 
 .14.4 
 
 1890 
 
 .10.8 
 
 1891 
 
 . 8.6 
 
 1892 
 
 .10.3 
 . 9.1 
 
 1893 
 1894 
 
 Cents 
 
 Year 
 1895. 
 1896. 
 1897. 
 1898. 
 1899. 
 1900. 
 190I. 
 1902. 
 1903. 
 1904. 
 1905. 
 
 Cents 
 
 4-9 
 6.8 
 
 6.3 
 
 5-7 
 
 56 
 
 7-8 
 
 6.06 
 
 6.03 
 
 6.07 
 
 7.08 
 
 6.08 
 
 " This great decline in the price of oil is at- 
 tributable to the increase in production, but more 
 largely to improvements in manufacture and trans- 
 portation, which were only attainable through the 
 aggregation of capital and brains in this industry. 
 
 132
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 Refined oil Is now delivered to consumers in the 
 United States by Standard Oil tank wagons at from 
 fifteen to twenty cents per gallon, or about the cost 
 of mineral water," 
 
 Corporations have made a thousand things com- 
 mon blessings which otherwise would have remained 
 unknown to the world. They are the workingman's 
 greatest friend, giving him better wages and a 
 steadier and surer pay than any other employment 
 ever has done. They have established for him a 
 grade of promotion which encourages skill and faith- 
 fulness by sure reward. 
 
 The corporation has multiplied the production of 
 the useful arts and transformed the homes and mode 
 of life of the people from the spare and meager com* 
 forts of peasants and serfs to the abodes of a digni- 
 fied and powerful citizenship filled with the abun- 
 dance of the gifts of the arts and sciences and full 
 of self-reliance and worthy ambition. 
 
 The man who talks about the corporation grind- 
 ing the poor is blind and cannot discern the times 
 or he resorts to a demagogy too silly to deceive an 
 intelligent people. 
 
 It Is the corporation business that has developed 
 the resources of our country and for which further 
 development waits. It is the corporation that is 
 manufacturing the mighty machinery and applying 
 the power that Is giving this age its tremendous com- 
 mercial proportions. 
 
 The Hon. Carroll D. Wright tells us In his pub- 
 10 133
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 lished investigations: " A thousand paper bags could 
 formerly be made by hand in six hours and thirty 
 minutes: they are now made in forty minutes with 
 the aid of a machine. To rule ten reams of paper 
 on both sides by hand required 4,800 hours; with a 
 ruling machine the work is done in two hours and 
 thirty minutes of one man's time. In shelling corn 
 by hand sixty-six hours and forty minutes would be 
 required to shell a quantity which can be handled by 
 a machine in thirty-six minutes. A mowing machine 
 cuts seven times as much grass per hour as one man 
 can cut with a scythe. These examples could be ex- 
 tended Indefinitely, but a more forceful illustration 
 will be found by considering the total horse power 
 applied to machines in this country and calculating 
 how many men It would require to do the same work. 
 
 *' One horse power is equivalent to the power of 
 six men. Thus if the work of 63,48 1 men in the flour 
 mills of the United States Is supplemented by the use 
 of 752,365 horse power, the power is equivalent to 
 the work of 4,514,190 additional men. 
 
 " A still more striking illustration Is found in our 
 transportation system. In 1890 there were over 30,- 
 000 locomotives in this country. It would take 
 57,940,320 horses to do this work or 347,425,920 
 men. In countries like China nearly all the work of 
 transportation Is actually done by man power, and 
 no further explanation of the economic difference be- 
 tween Asia and America Is required. 
 
 " By the use of steam we are evoking aid from 
 134
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 the heat stored up in our coal beds equivalent to the 
 working efficiency of the population of the whole 
 earth, while the Chinaman lets his coal lie under- 
 ground, packs his load on his back, and does his man- 
 ufacturing largely by hand." But then he has no 
 monster octopus to " suck the last penny from the 
 poor and stifle competition and that compromises 
 conscience by endowing colleges of questionable 
 moral worth " ! Would the author of this tear- 
 stained sentence prefer to live in China ! 
 
 If there is anything in which we have shown the 
 power of our civilization it is in the massing of cap- 
 ital in the hands of consummate geniuses of manufac- 
 ture and trade by which the earth has yielded up her 
 infinite treasures and handed over for our practical 
 utilities the forces with which God built the universe. 
 
 And no class of people on earth has benefited so 
 largely and so conspicuously by this revolution in the 
 business of the world as the poor. 
 
 The very machines and forces with which cor- 
 porations have developed the earth's resources have 
 multiplied places of employment. 
 
 The shallow-thinking, chattering sensationalists, 
 who are bringing fuel to destroy the corporations and 
 trusts, are enemies of the poor and in so far as they 
 discredit these great and beneficent organizations 
 they obstruct the progress of our country. 
 
 General T. H. Hubbard in an address before the 
 Bowdoin College Alumni, in New York, the 26th 
 of January, 1907, said: " The oppressed are not the 
 
 "^35
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 people but the corporations. A mighty outcry is 
 raised against the large gas companies, the railroad 
 companies, and the insurance companies. Some 
 champion of the people, who spends his time in por- 
 ing over Poor's Manual, declares that gas companies 
 can and do manufacture their product for thirty or 
 thirty-five cents a thousand feet. The people listen 
 and forget that there are other expenses to be met by 
 the company aside from the actual cost of production. 
 They are not aware that electrolysis, of which they 
 know little or nothing, is constantly wearing out the 
 mains almost as soon as they can be Installed. They 
 do not realize that the company Is really supplying 
 its product at a price counting cost and only a mod- 
 erate profit. They forget that thousands of persons 
 are dependent for their Income upon the earnings 
 of a corporation In which their money Is Invested 
 and that these persons have a right to ask for a 
 reasonable return on the money Invested. 
 
 " Our railroads are surpassed by none In the world 
 except so far as regards loss of life through accident. 
 The remedy for that Is to permit the roads to earn 
 enough to pay for the Installation of expensive safety 
 systems. But Instead of aiding the roads some per- 
 son discovers that there are such things as secret 
 rebates and Immediately he cries aloud for an in- 
 vestigation, not waiting to learn that the roads them- 
 selves have been waiting to remedy this wrong." 
 
 On the same occasion the Hon. James Mc- 
 Keen, associated with Governor Hughes as counsel 
 
 136
 
 THE CORPORATIONS 
 
 for the Insurance Investigating Committee, said: 
 " Corporations have been a great instrument of 
 progress. Only through corporations can the man 
 of small means compete with swollen fortunes and 
 yet the people themselves are endangering their 
 own savior by their hysterical outcries against cor- 
 porations." 
 
 Has it ever occurred to these agitators that their 
 attack is not upon an organization or a management 
 simply, but that the mulcting of a corporation is the 
 depreciation of the property of those who own its 
 stocks and that thousands of them are in moderate 
 circumstances and cannot afford such losses? 
 
 To hear these fomenters of discontent one would 
 think that the corporations were owned by million- 
 aires who are a covey to be fired into by a flippant 
 prosecuting department. But the people are the 
 sufferers through loss of their property by these irra- 
 tional attacks. What reason is there in a law that 
 fines a stockholder who has no more to do with the 
 management than has the man in the moon? 
 
 By such reckless assaults as characterize this ad- 
 ministration the stocks are depreciated, small holders 
 casting them overboard, the rich buy them up and the 
 loss in the end is exclusively confined to the poor. 
 Attacks upon corporations is an admirable way to 
 destroy the savings of the humble. Let one note the 
 New York Central, held very largely by the com- 
 mon people, reduced from 150 to 993^ in a few 
 weeks by this panic-making prosecution for rebates 
 
 137
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 which it was adjusting with far greater wisdom than 
 could the government by the impracticable laws 
 which it is applying without regard to consequences. 
 The Attorney General in firing into his famous 
 covey is shooting too many small birds that ought 
 to be protected and not destroyed by the laws.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CORPORATIONS — Continued 
 
 ONE of the singular if not amusing phases of 
 the attack upon corporations is that many 
 of the larger city newspapers are in a 
 Newspaper Trust as thoroughly as any corporate 
 business which they condemn, and their methods of 
 business are not an iota different. This is conspicu- 
 ously so of the principal yellow papers which are 
 in competition by combine and cheap' rates to re- 
 strain the trade of other papers all over the conti- 
 nent. 
 
 More than one thousand reputable daily news- 
 papers in this country show by their hyphenated 
 names, such as Record-Herald, Times-Democrat, 
 Globe and Commercial Advertiser, Democrat and 
 Chronicle, Post-Standard, etc., etc., the absorption of 
 one paper by another in " restraint of trade " ! Any- 
 body who has given the matter any attention knows 
 how news is purveyed by a great trust for all of 
 the papers of New York or of Chicago and of other 
 large cities, and how it is the source of many of the 
 leaders of country newspapers and the bulk of their 
 
 139
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 outside news. This is so of the pictorial illustrations 
 of many papers. A corporation docs them. 
 
 Men are sent out from this trust to interview men 
 whose opinions are awakening public attention and 
 the letter is sent to every leading paper in the coun- 
 try and published as its special correspondence by its 
 own reporter or given as an interview direct to the 
 paper. I received a paper within a few days that I 
 never had heard of which stated that I had sent to It 
 a communication which to my certain knowledge had 
 appeared in scores of papers from a common news 
 center, prepared by its agent. 
 
 The editorial writing of the leading papers Is In- 
 dependent except when the partisan mandate is sent 
 out from the party bosses and headquarters. But the 
 business, the investments, the management Is like that 
 of Standard Oil, of United States Steel and the other 
 great corporations, and the news-gleaning is through 
 a combine. In Associated Press news awhile ago 
 there was an opposition started so that now we have 
 the Publishers Association, just as we have the Pure 
 Oil Co. opposed to the Standard Oil Co., In a suc- 
 cessful rivalry. When the press of this country 
 attacks trusts and corporations like the Standard Oil 
 and Sugar companies, etc., it seems a little like the 
 pot calling the kettle black. 
 
 Each political party has its papers which are as 
 subservient and manageable for party purposes as any 
 branches of trusts ever have been, and there is a cloud 
 of witnesses to the fact that independent thought or 
 
 140
 
 THE CORPORATIONS— Co«fi«w^^ 
 
 action is attacked in the restraint of thought with a 
 virulence that puts to blush any oppressive compe- 
 tition of a corporation with independent trade! 
 
 We do not mention the gigantic newspaper trusts 
 or the combination of one or two newspapers in 
 smaller cities to condemn it but simply to show an in- 
 consistency in the passing agitation which the people 
 are overlooking, and which ought to weigh against 
 such pretensions of loyalty to individual rights and 
 privileges by attacks upon corporations. 
 
 We have more news, more intelligently gathered, 
 more attractively presented, and more reliable than 
 we could possibly have by any independent, isolated 
 efforts to compass a country so vast with interests so 
 infinitely varied. The combination of two papers in 
 a second or third class city results almost invariably in 
 a much abler, larger, and every way more satisfactory 
 paper. 
 
 One of the most striking indications of the mod- 
 ern corporation is the astounding development of the 
 modern newspaper, now in all cases of any magni- 
 tude chartered as a corporation. It appears not only 
 in the great journalistic enterprises by which a week's 
 dailies are a library of important, if not indispen- 
 sable, matter upon all great current questions and a 
 survey of the world, but it has its strictly business side 
 in immense business buildings which are devoted to 
 rents and from which dividends are paid. The invest- 
 ments of the great newspapers are becoming a notice- 
 able asset of our country. Indeed, they begin to look 
 
 141
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 like " predatory wealth," and here and there the ten- 
 tacles of an octopus are showing through the inky 
 waters. 
 
 The entire movements of the age are toward the 
 corporations. Three fourths of the business of our 
 country is done by them. They are to be seen in the 
 way we hold our churches, our universities, and man- 
 age our hospitals and other charitable institutions 
 conducted by personal beneficence. In no form can 
 the business of men be cast that is so secure, that 
 is so little disturbed by death, and that is so safe to 
 widows and orphans suddenly bereft. The corpo- 
 ration is the result of man's highest wisdom in 
 commerce. 
 
 At this particular time It Is of vast concern In this 
 country in carrying our manufactures and opening 
 up our trade with all lands. When we discredit it 
 at home by Ill-considered attacks, the blow Is felt 
 upon our commerce to the ends of the earth. We 
 attacked In a reckless and needless way the meat 
 corporations of Chicago, which. If requiring the at- 
 tention of Washington under the new order of pa- 
 ternalism, could have been reached in a judicious and 
 quiet manner. We set the civilized world agog by 
 our loud trumpetlngs of horror over the odors of an 
 abattoir. It was a new experience for the Ameri- 
 can people. A fiction writer had seen a slaughter- 
 house and It startled him. It was a lair of horrid 
 dangers. We had our new excitement. Washington 
 led the frenzy. The great men who had made meat 
 
 142
 
 THE CORPORATIONS— Co«//«//^i 
 
 foods, clean and wholesome, accessible to the people 
 everywhere from the humble homes to the hospitals, 
 from the logging camps in the deep forest to the 
 palatial yacht of the millionaire, stood helpless and 
 stunned. They had left their doors open to the pub- 
 lic and invited the people in to note the purity of 
 their foods and the cleanliness with which they pre- 
 pared them, as an advertisement, well knowing the 
 value of the confidence of the people to their busi- 
 ness. Visiting tens of thousands had gone away 
 with words of enthusiastic praise, for they had no in- 
 vestment in a sensationalism. The blow fell with 
 all the violence that the prosecuting. Investigating 
 enginery of the government could put into it without 
 discrimination. The results were confusion to the 
 investigators, although a judge was rebuked for not 
 convicting the innocent. 
 
 But what were the results upon our meat com- 
 merce In which every ranch and every farm where 
 cattle are raised Is financially interested? Last 
 April the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of 
 Commerce and Labor issued a statement which 
 showed that the exports of canned beef for April 
 amounted to 893,017 pounds against 4,121,000 
 pounds in the same month last year. For the ten 
 months ending with April the exportations showed 
 13,032,703 pounds against 56,730,873 pounds dur- 
 ing a similar period last year. 
 
 It is stated by conservative and unprejudiced 
 authority that the total export sales for 1907 will 
 
 143
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 probably not exceed 15,000,000 pounds as against 
 64,500,000 pounds the year before. 
 
 The canned beef exports will not exceed $1,500,- 
 000 this year compared with $6,500,000 in each of 
 the past two years. In other words, $5,000,000 
 have been taken out of the pockets of meat pro- 
 ducers in foreign trade as the price of an excited 
 and loud attack upon one kind of corporate busi- 
 ness under the charge that it was poisoning the 
 people. If it had been true, there was no excuse 
 for the application of corrective methods in a 
 way to discredit the business before the civilized 
 world. 
 
 But there was not only a shrinkage of the total 
 of export but men in London, in Paris, and other 
 foreign cities, who had invested large fortunes in 
 establishing a great business which was making hon- 
 est lucrative returns were totally ruined. Places 
 that had been thronged with customers do not re- 
 ceive one order a week. How long it will take to 
 repair this confidence ruined by attacks as reckless as 
 they have proved expensive no one can tell. In the 
 meantime the foreign trade is finding other channels 
 and new adjustments are going on, to the great loss 
 of the agricultural class. It is not the meat corpora- 
 tions that suffer. They can protect themselves, but 
 the ranch owners, and even the smaller farmer who 
 raises a few cattle, sheep, and swine are the sufferers. 
 It is an object lesson. We will not learn it while 
 the agitators can beat their tom-toms and confuse 
 
 144
 
 THE CORFORATIONS— Continued 
 
 the facts, but in time the country will awake to the 
 peril of breaking down or seriously embarrassing 
 any great business by prosecution, which has its most 
 serious consequences in the disturbed if not ruined 
 confidence of a commerce that now interlocks all of 
 the nations of the earth. 
 
 Our boasted supremacy is not so secure that we 
 may safely trifle with it. We have made a magnifi- 
 cent initiative. But if we are to add our influence 
 to the obstruction and resistance of foreign competi- 
 tion which means limitless millions against our trade, 
 how long can we expect to hold our place in export 
 commerce? 
 
 Other nations are awakening. There are bound- 
 less extents of the earth's surface that only wait cap- 
 ital to yield many of our products and oppose to us 
 a serious competition. 
 
 The awakening of a people such as those of the 
 Republics south of us, and China, is sometimes ter- 
 rifically sudden, as we have seen in the case of Japan. 
 If this little people with resources scarcely more than 
 enough for home consumption can change the map 
 of the world in a decade, what may be expected when 
 the mightiest giant among nations arouses himself and 
 China takes up the forces which Japan brought out 
 of the West? 
 
 That we are to have a successful competition in 
 other nations is seen in the fact that five million dol- 
 lars which was coming to our shores for one product 
 has turned to other directions. The world could 
 
 145
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 live without us if we were blotted off the earth. We 
 can blot ourselves off. 
 
 Our place among the nations depends upon the 
 strength and breadth of our grasp of the times more 
 than upon our national resources. If we are greater 
 than other peoples, we shall be essential to them; we 
 shall produce things which they want and will have 
 at our price. If we discredit ourselves, we shall be 
 discredited by them. 
 
 No peoples of the world have made such mag- 
 nificent use of corporate strength as we have. We 
 have been forced to it by the extent of our country. 
 The genius of our economic endeavor has worked 
 naturally in that direction and until an Insane frenzy 
 attacked us we were the amazement of mankind 
 everywhere. Now it is proposed that we advertise 
 to the world that our business methods were all 
 wrong, that we have become frightened at ourselves 
 and distrustful of our powers, and that hereafter we 
 shall contract and curtail our business to the capacity 
 of our smallest men and send to prison or fine our 
 greatest men for restraining trade ! And the men 
 who are sending abroad oil, steel, meats, and drugs 
 and medicine are criminals who are sending out to 
 the world the fruits of " predatory " business. 
 
 A recent able editorial of the Manufacturers' Rec- 
 ord, of Baltimore, showing the competition with our 
 trade and the encouragement of our capital in the 
 South American States and other countries, concludes 
 with this timely warning: " Blessed by the Almighty 
 
 146
 
 THE CORPORATIONS— Co;///;/w^^ 
 
 with a country unequalled In natural advantages on 
 earth, blessed by a prosperity such as no other country 
 has ever enjoyed, we have permitted the political 
 agitator, the socialist, the anarchist, the demagogue, 
 who Is a demagogue from lack of knowledge, and 
 the demagogue who Is a demagogue for the pur- 
 pose of riding Into power on the passions and preju- 
 dices of the people, to so arouse the fears of capital 
 by adverse legislation, actual and threatened, that 
 we are In danger of seeing our own country forced to 
 a standstill, while the capital which would vivify 
 every avenue of trade seeks investment In other lands 
 to their enrichment as against us. These are not 
 fanciful sketches. The history of the world shows 
 that what Is here outlined as a possibility is, Indeed, 
 a tangible thing that may come to pass. Instead of 
 ranting against capital. Instead of denouncing the 
 railroads which are giving us freight rates not one 
 third as high on the average as the freight rates of 
 Great Britain, and not one half as high as the rates 
 of Germany, and but little more than one third as 
 high as France, Instead of heralding as though with 
 great joy every effort made to hamper the operations 
 of the great Industrial corporations which have helped 
 to create the wealth of which we boast, and have been 
 the leading agencies In the development of all of our 
 foreign trade In manufactured products, Instead of 
 following the lead of the agitator against the funda- 
 mental soundness of American business interests, has 
 not the time come for the people of this country to 
 
 147
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 take a saner view of things, and instead of joining 
 in the work of tearing down, take part in the upbuild- 
 ing of the great business development of this coun- 
 try? Unless poverty is to take the place of pros- 
 perity, unless idle men are to walk our streets seeking 
 in vain for employment as in 1893 to 1896, unless we 
 want to destroy the temple and carry ourselves down 
 in the ruins to business death, the thinking people of 
 this country must awake to their individual responsi- 
 bility to face the issue and stem the destructive tend- 
 encies of the times. In our madness we may destroy 
 the railroads and the great business interests of the 
 country, but we, the people, are the ones who shall 
 suffer most." 
 
 We repeat that the pretended friends of the peo- 
 ple who make the claims for that friendship by their 
 attacks upon the corporate business of the country 
 in their incendiary writings, speeches, and sermons, 
 are dangerous enemies of the country, and their 
 teachings and influence are harmful in the extreme to 
 men and women who by hundreds of thousands de- 
 pend upon such business for their daily wage. 
 
 They should know that in the nature of things 
 whatever they take out of the corporation by excit- 
 ing strikes and by inefficient service through discon- 
 tent and distrust they take from the people. 
 
 We are paying to-day for the recent great coal 
 strike, the unwisely conducted and highly damaging 
 meat investigation, and for such foolish, obstructive 
 and expensive legislation as is now embarrassing the 
 
 148
 
 THE CORPORATlON^y— Continued 
 
 business of the land to which our home interests are 
 so vitally related. 
 
 There is no possible escape from such conse- 
 quences. It is high time for well-meaning but mis- 
 guided men to look carefully into the consequences of 
 their attacks upon corporations and inquire how 
 widely their vast interests extend and how much they 
 involve. They should inquire what is to take their 
 place if these are destroyed and how they can expect to 
 hasten the correction of their wrongs by turning the 
 confidence of the people from them and making their 
 very name to stand for all kinds of iniquities. Sane 
 men will appreciate that the experiment with corpo- 
 rate business is extremely young. Men are living who 
 saw the first railway train run on this continent. All 
 of this tremendous machinery of commerce and trade 
 has been set in motion since men in control of cor- 
 porations were born, and because these men have not 
 infinite prescience and millennial perfection, we curse 
 them. Theirs is a miracle of achievement. They are 
 more marvelous than all human activities in all of the 
 centuries preceding them. They have Inspired in- 
 ventions and multiplied the arts and made science a 
 servant of daily toil. They have enriched us with 
 every good gift that they have compelled nature to 
 yield to them from mine and meadow and by the al- 
 chemic processes of manufacture. They have taken 
 the very refuse that ofi^ended the roadside and the 
 yards of the homes of the plain people and made it 
 into clothes for their persons and medicine to cure 
 11 149
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 their sickness. And they have placed us under in- 
 finite obligation of patience and confidence. Out of 
 such a brief history, what achievements are In the 
 future? 
 
 It is popular to-day to assail the corporation. It 
 is unpopular to defend it or to utter any plea for 
 impartial and fair examination of its merits by its 
 assailants who are deceiving the people by the vio- 
 lence of their vituperation. But there is coming a 
 reaction. 
 
 We shall after a time recognize it as a natural and 
 indispensable feature of our economy. The adjust- 
 ments will have been made In all particulars as they 
 are now In some. There Is no longer any competi- 
 tion between a stage route and a railway that dis- 
 turbs the people. The steamboat has drifted off the 
 Mississippi with as little friction as its fogs disappear. 
 There Is no clash between the hand looms and the 
 power looms. The brick and mortar lifts are not 
 cursed by the hod carriers. The machines that In 
 about every Instance have been opposed are recog- 
 nized and used as Invaluable adjuncts to labor. It 
 Is all plain, men have become as big as a loom and a 
 railroad. After a time we shall get great enough 
 and so used to great things In their application to 
 business as to accept them even against the protests 
 of men who are forced to give way before them and 
 even to abandon their business for some other kind of 
 enterprise. 
 
 While the adjustment Is going on there Is always 
 150
 
 THE CORPORATIONS— Cow/f«M^i 
 
 friction and loud complaint. New shoes gall the 
 feet sometimes because they do not fit and some- 
 times because the feet are not accustomed to shoes. 
 In great enterprises there always is much of pioneer- 
 ing to be done, many experiments to be made, many 
 points at which there is friction. But it is as costly 
 to the enterprise as to the people. Intelligence will 
 yield a mutual forbearance. 
 
 The astonishment in a land of our tremendous 
 area and resources is that the corporations have ac- 
 complished as much for the public as they have. 
 Nearly every invention has been displaced by a new 
 one. No sooner has steam been adopted and well 
 settled to its place as a motive power than electricity 
 comes along to contest its supremacy. No sooner is 
 one great engine invented than some one produces a 
 greater. One generator drives another" out of the 
 market in rapid succession. Enormous traffic calls 
 for new bridges, new rolling stock. The impatience 
 of an unreasonable traveling public demands short- 
 ened schedules and curves are straightened and tun- 
 nels are bored through mountains. Fabulous mil- 
 lions are put at the disposal of the people at a cost 
 astonishingly less than they could render the service 
 to themselves by any other means or than was pos- 
 sible by any means fifty years ago. 
 
 Commodities are cheapened again and again un- 
 til they cost less than the slowly hand-made packages 
 which conveyed them cost in the days of our fathers. 
 A small per cent on an immense trade Is the profit 
 
 151
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 we pay to corporations. A large profit on a small 
 business we used to pay the individual. 
 
 But we think of none of these things. The more 
 we have the more we clamor. It has been shown that 
 labor gets three or four dollars out of about every 
 business where capital gets one in profit, but because 
 we see the vast aggregate of the one and because the 
 other is distributed among the multitudes we cry out 
 against the grinding corporation. Because the man 
 who puts, by the genius of his mind or the savings 
 of investments of a generation or two or several gen- 
 erations, which in the latter case have descended to 
 him, into the work of a hundred or a thousand men, 
 the man who puts in the work of one man only, and 
 does not save that, thinks that the inequality of liv^- 
 ing Is due to the disjointed times which the dema- 
 gogue tells him can be cured if he himself can only 
 get into office. 
 
 And that is largely the secret of the present up- 
 roar against corporate business. Politics has made 
 it an issue and the politicians are tumbling over each 
 other with their economic nostrums which they offer 
 attractively to a public whose discontent they have 
 created, but whose discontent is magnified far beyond 
 the actual facts. 
 
 It is my opinion that the multitudes of our intel- 
 ligent people are not responsive to attacks upon rail- 
 ways which are enlarging their markets and bringing 
 them into connection with all the earth, nor to the 
 violent assaults upon corporate business which has 
 
 1^2
 
 THE CORPORATIONS— CoH//«tt^^ 
 
 made the most inland farm to have and enjoy those 
 things which a few decades ago were the exclusive 
 luxury of the rich. 
 
 The insistent charge that the people are victims 
 of corporate greed, that they are being crushed by 
 the merciless arms of the octopus, is as false as it is 
 insulting to the intelligence of the people. When 
 the facts are sifted out, when the self-interest has 
 been weighed and put over to its own account, when 
 the theorists and self-seekers who care not whether 
 a thing is true or false are silenced by indisputable 
 facts as they will be, we shall find that the public 
 debt to corporations is so great that their mistakes, 
 their wrongs are not appreciable by comparison. 
 
 It would be interesting to poll a community and 
 ask each man on every street: "Have you con- 
 sciously suffered by a railroad, have you' been ground 
 down by a trust, is your life less prosperous or happy 
 than that of your boyhood or that of your father or 
 grandfather? How came you in this comfortable 
 home, with a business that supports your home so lux- 
 uriously, if everything is going to pile up ' predatory 
 wealth ' ' out of the pockets of the common people,' 
 and how happens it that the conditions of the neigh- 
 borhood have been improving for a generation and 
 are now improving? How did you, a mechanic, get 
 this cottage and this green lawn and your savings-bank 
 account with your daily wage? Whom do you get 
 it all from and what is the kind of business that gives 
 it to you?" 
 
 ^53
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 The most gigantic piece of impertinence that ever 
 has been thrust into the faces of the American peo- 
 ple is the hourly and daily talk of their being ground 
 down by trusts and robbed by capital and run over 
 and run down by railways and other so-called util- 
 ities. It is an insult to our common intelligence that 
 ought to be rebuked. 
 
 If there is any man that should be relegated to 
 private life that the sphere of his influence may be 
 narrowed as much as possible, it is the agitator who 
 has neither statesmanship to discern the signs of the 
 times nor the common honesty to verify the un- 
 founded and untrue charges with which he assails the 
 business and social conditions of the people. 
 
 The burden of a fair criticism of these times 
 would not be the evils of our forms of business but 
 their amazing efficiency. The people are not op- 
 pressed by the corporations, but the corporations by 
 the people. And by the people I do not mean the 
 great masses of the people, but those forms of legisla- 
 tion and administration which we call the government 
 by the people — a government that is used to attack 
 anybody or anything in any way that may serve a 
 party, a government that is an amazement of strength 
 after being run now in this direction, now in that, 
 now for the Constitution, now against it, now for the 
 States and now against them, now with the tariff, now 
 without it, now chartering the great corporations, now 
 assailing them and persecuting them according to the 
 fortunes of conflicting parties and the issues which
 
 THE CORPORATIONS— Co«^i«M^^ 
 
 their ingenuity may devise to accomplish their ends. 
 With what lumber have we scaffolded the Constitu- 
 tion of the Nation and the Constitutions of the States 
 to secure the people against the corporations? Look 
 at our commissions with their trained olfactories, 
 mark the doings of the courts, note the frantic prose- 
 cuting officers with their subpoena servers. What as- 
 tonishment we should see in the eyes of the statesmen 
 whom we had in the days of statesmen when moral 
 convictions made wise and sound principles stable; 
 with what amazement a Washington, a Jefferson, a 
 Madison, and an Adams would look upon this scaf- 
 folding of the structure which they reared only a hun- 
 dred and twenty years ago. 
 
 Imagine what will be the astonishment of the 
 economic student of a hundred years to come as he 
 reviews the childish alarm of such a time as this. 
 
 Could there be anything more puerile than the ap- 
 pointing of men untrained. Inexperienced, and with- 
 out financial responsibility for their acts, to control 
 railways and to report upon the management of cor- 
 porations that would not Intrust them with a subor- 
 dinate executive position — that they cannot discuss 
 even intelligently, as has recently been shown in the 
 case of a certain report by one of these plainly preju- 
 diced commissioners! 
 
 Men of lifelong training, men who know that the 
 success of the business and the interests of the peo- 
 ple must coincide, men who must give an account of 
 their stewardship In dividends and a satisfactory serv- 
 
 155
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 ice to the public are subordinated to a body of men 
 conspicuous on the world's waiting iist for their lack 
 of expert knowledge, men chosen to give their at- 
 tention to a mighty business which never would have 
 dreamed of employing them for any efficient service 
 they could render it. 
 
 The railways are not to be owned by the people, 
 but they are to be managed by men who know noth- 
 ing about them. 
 
 But it is enough if they know the people and how 
 to manage them. Something must be done to 
 checkmate the ranting socialism of the other party 
 if we all become socialists and if our commerce is dis- 
 credited throughout the world.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY 
 
 THAT corporation which has been the sub- 
 ject of the fiercest attacks because in a 
 field of the sharpest competition has been 
 one of the greatest benefactors our country ever has 
 known, whether viewed as the laboring man's friend 
 from his day wage to the lamp in his cottage, or as 
 the producer of a civilizing force world-wide. 
 
 Until those men of genius who founded the Stand- 
 ard Oil Company came upon the ground and united 
 their consummate ability and capital, the oil industry 
 was feeble and aimless. But from that time its devel- 
 opment has kept pace with the demands of the mar- 
 kets of the world. The producer has found a market 
 for his oil as constant as that of the farmer for his 
 wheat and corn, and the consumer has purchased his 
 oil at a sum " about the cost of mineral water." 
 
 That mistakes have been made no one denies, but 
 for them its friends do not apologize any more than 
 they do for the mistakes of all kinds of business 
 which have progressed to success. In business prin- 
 ciples or in the application of business methods, its 
 
 157
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 men have been at least as fair as the independents 
 who have fought them and who, animated by trans- 
 parent motives, have succeeded through the press, 
 the magazines, the legislatures, and repeated prose- 
 cutions in creating the intense prejudice of the people. 
 The independent has done precisely the things which 
 he accuses the Standard Oil Company of doing, in re- 
 bates and in the use of competitive methods of busi- 
 ness, but strange as it is he has been honest and the 
 Standard Oil has been dishonest and oppressive ! 
 
 This mighty industry has grown up by the meth- 
 ods that have been recognized and used by all forms 
 of successful competition. It has succeeded because 
 of the combination of the leading experts in the oil in- 
 dustry at the beginning, and the use of an adequate 
 capital by men whose marvelous ability would have 
 carried them to supreme success in any field of activity 
 to which fortune might have assigned them. 
 
 The Standard Oil Company is an industrial and 
 commercial organization which from a modest begin- 
 ning thirty-seven years ago in the State of Ohio has 
 steadily grown to world-embracing proportions. It 
 is to be expected of all businesses which endure for 
 a like period that they will expand and increase In 
 volume, provided first of all they find room for ex- 
 pansion with adequate supply of commodities, and 
 secondly, that their leadership is active and intelli- 
 gent. Because the Standard Oil Company has had 
 these three favoring factors — supply, demand, and an 
 organization in continuous and progressive action — It 
 
 158
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY 
 
 has become extended and prosperous. In this It dif- 
 fers from no other business of stabihty. It has had 
 no patent of monopoly; it had no protective tariff 
 laws whatever for its main product. All it has 
 gained in the battle has been the result of hard, un- 
 intermittent work, sustained commercial integrity, and 
 effective management. Always its credit has been 
 sound and unquestioned; always it has had the con- 
 fidence of those with whom it did business and the 
 zeal of those who worked for it. Never has it had 
 difficulty with the consumers of its products. If its 
 affairs called for courage and commercial stamina, 
 it has always answered to the call. The heaviest de- 
 mand on its resources and the occasional call for 
 Titanic activity were met equally with the most 
 faithful and painstaking questioning of the smallest 
 details of the business. Such in simplest outline is 
 and has been the Standard Oil Company's machinery. 
 Its opportunities were open to all. Nature has 
 underlaid a portion of the surface of the earth with 
 petroleum. Despite manifold oozings of the fluid 
 to the surface, the records of which unmistakably dot 
 all historic periods and even show signs in the cre- 
 puscular or mythological period before history was 
 born, the secret of the great subsurface reservoirs 
 remained concealed until Colonel Edwin L. Drake's 
 drill on August 28, 1859, broke through the crust of 
 the ages near Titusville, Pa., and released the 
 long-pent streams of " rock oil." Excitement, ad- 
 venture, speculative investment and crude organi- 
 
 159
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 zation followed the discovery of petroleum. The 
 field of operations extended as new seekers after the 
 imprisoned rivers of oil pierced the surface with the 
 drill. It is enough for the immediate purpose to note 
 that from the little corner of Pennsylvania, field after 
 field has been discovered during the last half cen- 
 tury, and that to-day oil is found in sixteen States and 
 Territories of the Union and in a score of countries 
 throughout the world. 
 
 The business naturally fell into four divisions, 
 production, refining, transportation, and marketing. 
 For over ten years following the first discovery in 
 Pennsylvania the oil business was practically a go- 
 as-you-please affair. Prices were high but fluctu- 
 ated violently. Supply was growing, demand keep- 
 ing pace with it, yet the business that had such 
 grounds for prosperity was uncertain and ruined 
 many. Refineries large and small, mostly the latter, 
 sprang up in the vicinity of the oil wells. Failures 
 and fires were frequent. An Internal Revenue war 
 tax added to the difficulties of the refiners and dealers, 
 and many stills and refineries were seized by the Fed- 
 eral officials for nonpayment of the tax. Speculation 
 ran riot and continually destroyed its victims. 
 
 It was Inevitable In a community dowered with 
 such organizing qualities as Americans have always 
 possessed, that some strong hand should reduce the 
 ferment and chaos of the oil business to order. That 
 strong, sure hand was first seen when the Standard 
 Oil Company of Ohio was incorporated at Cleveland 
 
 1 60
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY 
 
 in 1870. The new company was equipped to begin 
 the work of standardizing the quality of oil and oil 
 products of the world — a most important thing from 
 the points of view of public service and safety — and 
 at the same time approaching a standardization of 
 prices to oil producers on one side and oil consumers 
 on the other, solving besides the problem of contin- 
 uous and economic transportation. The capital of 
 the new concern was only $1,000,000, but so attract- 
 ive proved the plans and operations of the Standard 
 Oil Company that rapid accessions of capital were 
 made as other concerns, in obedience to the modern 
 tendency to combination, came in, until in 1882, after 
 twelve years of existence, the greater step of organiza- 
 tion into a trust was made, when the combined capital 
 it represented was $70,000,000, afterwards increased 
 to $95,000,000, In attaining this growth in twelve 
 years it had gradually attracted to it the ablest and 
 most progressive brains in the business. The trans- 
 port problem had passed from the stage of horse- 
 drawn wagons and branch lines of railroads to pipe 
 lines and trunk railroads, with the pipe-line service 
 steadily growing. The refining problem had been 
 solved by the creation of mighty plants with enor- 
 mous capacity placed at strategic points for distribu- 
 tion. The utilization of by-products was pushed in 
 whatever direction science could direct them. The 
 export trade, organized with skill and success, took 
 a commanding position in the markets of the world. 
 American kerosene oil and all other products of the 
 
 i6i
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 crude oil were placed at the doors of consumers at 
 home and abroad. Nothing has been able to halt 
 this industrial and commercial progress. I'he organ- 
 ization of the Standard Oil Trust of 1882 was 
 simply an expedient for better and more intimate 
 management. At the end of ten years it was dis- 
 solved in obedience to the conflict of its organized 
 form with newly made laws, and after a period of 
 winding up its legal affairs, the business meanwhile 
 being steadily developed, it was reorganized in 1899 
 with a capital of $110,000,000 as the Standard Oil 
 Company of New Jersey. In this form and with this 
 minimum of capitalization it has remained to the 
 present. 
 
 As the Standard Oil Company began its opera- 
 tions surrounded by rivals in the growing oil business, 
 so it has since continued to have active competitors in 
 every branch. With the exception of those planned 
 in hopeless defiance of business principles and a few 
 absolutely fraudulent concerns, these rivals have 
 found the way to prosperity. Their business rating 
 has increased continuously for the last ten years, the 
 progressiv^e record of many of the existing plants go- 
 ing far back of that period. They have, too, been 
 most liberally capitalized. A recent examination of 
 this point reveals that one hundred oil refineries out 
 of the one hundred and twenty-five " outside," or 
 as they are sometimes called " independent," refiner- 
 ies in the United States show a total capitalization of 
 $110,000,000. This, of course, does not include the 
 
 162
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY 
 
 capitalization of the well-drilling and oil-producing 
 companies flourishing everywhere that oil is found. 
 
 The magnitude of the crude-oil output as the 
 years went on, showing the increased flow with which 
 the Standard Oil Company has had to deal, can be 
 briefly shown. From 1859 to 1876 American petro- 
 leum was produced in the original field radiating from 
 Oil Creek in Pennsylvania and crossing the near-by 
 border into New York State. In the latter year Ohio, 
 West Virginia, and California appeared as produc- 
 ers. Kentucky and Tennessee began in 1883 with 
 a light production, which is latterly increasing. Col- 
 orado followed in 1887. Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, 
 Texas, and Missouri came in in 1889. Indian Ter- 
 ritory began its oil history in 1891, and Wyoming's 
 first chapter was in 1895, while Louisiana first 
 gave sign in 1902. The original field, known 
 largely in the history to follow as the " Oil Region " 
 because it was foolishly thought to hold all the oil in 
 the oil world, has shown a falling off in production 
 from the maximum of 33,000,000 barrels it attained 
 in 1 89 1 . At present it produces but one third of that 
 high figure, and furnishes little more than one twelfth 
 of the total output of crude oil in the United States. 
 With each successive expansion of the actual oil-pro- 
 ducing territory new problems faced the Standard 
 Oil Company in dealing with the enormously increas- 
 ing production of crude oil. With what enterprise 
 and skill it solved these problems is told in the story of 
 the network of pipe lines, storage tanks, and strategi- 
 
 163
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 cally placed refineries promptly taking the increased 
 supply and as promptly meeting the growing demand. 
 
 In i860, the year following the first discovery of 
 oil, the output of petroleum in the United States was 
 27,300,000 gallons. In 1870, when the Standard 
 Oil Company was organized, the flow at the wells was 
 237,678,000 gallons. In 1906 it was 5,257,099,890 
 gallons, or over twenty-two times the production of 
 1870. 
 
 A brief examination of the physical side of the 
 company's operations will discover many matters of 
 interest. Although its business at the start, thirty- 
 seven years ago, was simply as a refiner and seller of 
 oil, it necessarily became a collector and transporter, 
 and subsequently, in a limited degree, a producer of 
 oil. Outside capital has generally found it profit- 
 able to undertake the work of drilling and operating 
 wells provided there was some organization at hand 
 to take the oil at a fair price. This the Standard 
 Oil Company was always willing to do, no matter 
 what the initial cost. As time passed, varying condi- 
 tions in new fields or slackening production in old 
 fields forced the company somewhat into the arena of 
 production, but it has never controlled over one third 
 of the flowing well capacity of the country. The 
 company's field force at the wells numbers 8,500 men. 
 
 But its task of collecting and transporting crude 
 oil from the wells to the refineries has been limited 
 only by the calls of the producers. Thus no less than 
 75,000 miles of two-inch pipe (known as feeders) 
 
 164
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COiMPANY 
 
 and three-Inch, four-inch and six-inch pipe (known 
 as trunk lines) are in operation to-day. These are 
 subsidiary to the trunk lines of six-inch, eight-inch, 
 and twelve-inch pipe, and of these there are 8,000 
 miles in operation. From the feeders and semi- 
 trunk lines the oil is collected in tanks holding 35,- 
 000 barrels each. A group of these, often of 100 
 and 200 tanks, set widely apart to avoid fire dangers, 
 is called a tank farm. From these tanks the oil is 
 drawn off to the trunk lines in charges of 350,000 
 barrels. Where the oil does not run by gravity 
 powerful pumps are necessary to force it over inter- 
 vening heights and hills. There are 70 pumping 
 stations for the trunk lines, calling for engines from 
 80 to 800 horse power. The total storage capacity 
 of the company (apart from the refinery tankage) is 
 over 82,000,000 barrels. Often in the company's 
 history, owing to sudden increase in the flowing oil 
 In new territory, it has been necessary to take and store 
 crude oil far In excess of the regular demand, involv- 
 ing months of continuous work as well as very great 
 expense and risk. At times as much as 23,000,000 
 barrels of oil has been held in storage. Over 10,000 
 men are required to man the feeders; over 3,000 men 
 are employed on the trunk lines. 
 
 The company operates 19 large refineries, some 
 of them like the one at Whiting, Ind., treating 
 as much as 30,000 barrels of crude oil a day and 
 turning out 15,000 to 20,000 barrels of refined oil, 
 according to the quality of the crude, with a corre- 
 13 165
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 spending amount of other products of petroleum, such 
 as gasoline and benzine, paraffine wax and candles, 
 lubricating oil, fuel oil, and more than 200 smaller 
 chemical by-products. Some refineries cover as much 
 as 200 acres of land with their stills, agitators, pans, 
 tanks, etc. In the early days refineries handled as 
 little as 25 to 30 barrels of crude oil a day. To 
 some of these modern refineries are attached barrel- 
 making, boxing, and tinning plants, sulphuric acid 
 works, etc. The refineries employ over 20,000 men. 
 
 For the selling and marketing of oil and oil 
 products the business naturally falls into two divi- 
 sions, one concerned in merchandising for the domes- 
 tic trade and one for the export trade. For the 
 domestic trade (including Canada) there are 3,900 
 stations, each equipped with at least one 35,000 bar- 
 rel tank, employing in addition 5,000 of the com- 
 pany's tank wagons; using also 8,800 railroad tank 
 cars, and employing 12,200 men. 
 
 In the export trade (which constitutes sixty per 
 cent of the company's business) the Standard Oil con- 
 trols or owns a fleet of 60 tank steamers for ocean 
 service, 12 tank steamers and tank barges for coast- 
 ing trade, 5 cargo steamers for cases of 10 gallons 
 each and 19 sailing vessels, chartering, besides, in 
 1906 tank steamers carrying 57 cargoes in bulk, or- 
 dinary steamers to carry 94 cargoes of case oil, and 
 sailing vessels to carry 50 cargoes of case oil. It is 
 not merely the question of supplying the great foreign 
 demand that occupies this branch of the company's 
 
 166
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY 
 
 business, but In meeting the opposition from the 
 products of the oil wells of Russia, Galicia, Rou- 
 manla, the Dutch East Indies, Burma, as well as the 
 Scotch shale oil. The trade calls for much tankage 
 and warehousing, office force and labor abroad, em- 
 ploying in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and 
 Oceanica over 12,000 men. In all, the labor army of 
 the company numbers over 65,700 men. 
 
 The perfecting of the necessary organization for 
 the company's purposes has been a great and continu- 
 ous labor. It is probably true that no other very large 
 concern in the industrial or commercial world has 
 had applied to its conduct an overseeing so constant 
 and critical on the part of its highest leaders. Here 
 is a directorate that directs, an organization that 
 from head to foot includes no drones. Daily its exec- 
 utives meet in an executive session and promptly de- 
 cide all questions of business policy and practice. 
 The condition of the business in all its parts is exam- 
 ined all the time with care; its court of appeals is 
 always open. 
 
 In the handling of this grand army of labor with 
 its chiefs, its subchiefs, its captains and subalterns, 
 together with the men under their command, the 
 method of promotion by merit is strictly observed, 
 furnishing a " civil-service " system antedating any- 
 thing of the kind in American civil life and continuing 
 in unbroken succession to this day. And never was 
 employer better served. The old idea that loyalty 
 in the employee was almost wholly dependent on the 
 
 167
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 personality at the top of the pyramid of labor has 
 been exploded. In the Standard Oil Company he has 
 found a corporate employer with a fixed policy of 
 friendly regard. Every employee is made to feel 
 that all the possibilities of rise in the scale of posi- 
 tion and remuneration are open to him. He has the 
 example all around him of men whose rise to places 
 of high emolument and responsibility has been con- 
 ditioned solely on their skill and loyalty. He knows 
 that a pension waits on faithful service. 
 
 What large share of the success of the company 
 is due to the solidarity and devotion of its employees 
 has never been properly estimated by the public. All 
 disputes as to wages whenever they have arisen have 
 been amicably adjusted. Freedom from strikes has 
 been one source of economy; a determination that no 
 day's task completed shall make a smaller showing 
 than that of any other day has been a continual 
 source of gain. And all this because the fellow-feel- 
 ing of man for man has never departed from it. At- 
 tacks from without have always drawn the ranks 
 closer together and the forward march has been con- 
 tinued shoulder to shoulder to a cheery tune at a 
 lively step. 
 
 Whatever share this democratic union of mutu- 
 ally respecting employers and employed has had in 
 the company's success, it is, however, second In place 
 to the record of its relation to the millions of the con- 
 sumers of Its products in thirty-seven years in every 
 quarter of the world. There is the supreme test of 
 
 i68
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY 
 
 abidingly honest quality in what is sold and what is 
 cheerfully paid for. That record stands undimmed. 
 In the conduct of its enterprises and its business 
 the company has been naturally brought in contact 
 with the business world all over the globe, yet its 
 share of differences with individuals or groups has 
 been exceedingly small, and its commercial litigation 
 infinitesimal. Consequently, in the commercial world 
 anywhere an agreement, bargain, or contract with the 
 Standard Oil Company in any of its branches stands 
 among the most desirable. In its career, the coming 
 to its side and entering its fold of men who began by 
 opposing it and ended by championing it, has been a 
 commonplace. Many of such men are in charge of 
 its fortunes to-day. When these things are con- 
 sidered it will be understood how complacently the 
 attacks, often bitter and malignant, of its rivals in 
 the oil trade have been endured. It has consoled the 
 company when the attacks were taken up by public 
 men and newspapers, for if the company was hon- 
 ored and trusted where most of its credit and reputa- 
 tion were at stake, namely in the sifting and search- 
 ing process of daily, weekly, year-in-and-year-out 
 dealing with the acute, unsentimental men of business, 
 it could withstand the assaults made in Ignorance and 
 malice. The magnitude of its concerns excited envy 
 perhaps; Its progress needlessly alarmed the theoret- 
 ical doctrinaires, when its honest purpose and con- 
 duct should have reassured anyone of open mind and 
 average intelligence taking the pains to Inform hlm- 
 
 169
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 self. Even when made the target of a law which the 
 President of the United States recently characterized 
 as " the road to business chaos if administered in Its 
 letter and spirit," the Standard Oil Company has gone 
 peaceably on its way, confident in the return of the 
 reign of good sense in the country. 
 
 The Standard Oil Company's advance has been 
 logical; its triumph over obstacles whether natural, 
 artificial, or merely revengeful, has been the result 
 of calm persistence in grappling upon strictly business 
 footing with whatever problem comes before it. 
 
 To every assault a proper response has been 
 given, and many untruths regarding the Standard Oil 
 Company have been refuted over and over again when 
 repeated at the Instance of business rivals and mis- 
 guided newspapers. But the steady growth of the 
 Standard Oil business Is the best answer to all who 
 calumniate It. A business which is not conducted 
 on the highest level of commercial morality never has 
 long survived. Commercial morality Is the Ideal of 
 civilized peoples. The necessary conclusion Is that 
 if the Standard Oil Company had failed to observe 
 the moral law It would, at the end of thirty-eight 
 years, have a story to tell differing widely from the 
 record of success, confidence, and esteem In the busi- 
 ness world of which It can proudly boast. 
 
 An examination of the United States Steel and 
 other great corporations would show results equally 
 astonishing In the upbuilding of our country and sug- 
 gest the question as to what possible gain Is to be 
 
 170
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY 
 
 realized by embarrassing or destroying such tremen- 
 dous interests. They are too important for malice 
 or revenge to trifle with, or for impulsively made 
 laws to invade with exactions which if successfully en- 
 forced would be destructive. 
 
 I have given a brief and imperfect outline of one 
 of the so-called trusts and the one most bitterly, as 
 it is most unjustly, assailed, to show the magnitude 
 to which modern business methods have grown, and 
 how utterly puerile is the thought of restraining them 
 and putting them under the supervision of the poli- 
 ticians' commissions or into the hands of their 
 receivers ! 
 
 The Standard Oil Company Is accused of receiv- 
 ing rebates from railways in its earlier history and 
 thereby crowding out competitors. And much is 
 made of rebates on its competitors' goods. In the 
 early days of the oil production every shipper by 
 rail got what rebates he could; it was the general 
 practice to give them by the railroads and accept them 
 by shippers. In 1877 an agreement was entered into 
 by the Standard Oil Company with the Pennsyl- 
 vania Railroad by which the Standard undertook 
 the duty of " evener " in a new freight arrangement 
 which apportioned the oil to be carried among the 
 interested railroads in certain agreed proportions, 
 and for this service (an onerous and exacting one) 
 the Standard Oil Company was to receive a commis- 
 sion of ten per cent on all such freight carried, the 
 terms to be open to all. This arrangement lasted 
 
 171
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 about two years. (See Montague on " The Rise and 
 Progress of the Standard Oil Company.") 
 
 This arrangement was not confined to the Stand- 
 ard Oil Company, but was one of those crude at- 
 tempts which characterized the experiments of the 
 railroads in efforts to adjust the competition between 
 themselves as railroads and between themselves and 
 their patrons who furnished different amounts of 
 patronage, thought at that time by all roads and by 
 about all business to call for discrimination. It took 
 the form of rebates all over the country with all 
 great shippers where there was any competition of 
 traffic. 
 
 Since rebates were made Illegal by the passage of 
 the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887 no rebates have 
 been asked or accepted by the Standard Oil Company. 
 The recent and pending lawsuits against the Standard, 
 as, for instance, the Chicago & Alton Railroad case be- 
 fore Judge Landis, have not charged rebating, as the 
 newspapers constantly fall Into the error of saying, 
 but aver the acceptance of rates not listed and lower 
 than what they term was the legal rate. The de- 
 fense naturally differs In the several cases, but in gen- 
 eral it is a denial that the rates were exclusive or 
 secret or Illegal, and all the cases turn on minute tech- 
 nicalities put forward by the government. This I 
 will take up more fully In another chapter. 
 
 The greatest crime alleged against the Standard 
 Oil Company seems to be Its gigantic success by the 
 genius of Its management and the marvelous resources 
 
 172
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY 
 
 and opportunities which it has discovered and utihzed 
 in the vast regions of its operations. 
 
 It has done a business which its accusers were try- 
 ing to do, and its great profits have been the reward 
 of enterprise demanded by a tremendous age. To 
 condemn such a commercial success is to oppose the 
 movements of a new age, which in all things, except 
 the capability of the agitators to appreciate it, is sup- 
 planting the passing one in nothing more startlingly 
 than in the magnitudes of business enterprise and en- 
 deavor. They are only proportional instruments and 
 results of new genius and forces. 
 
 If there are tremendous profits they are upon an 
 enormous business which has not been capitalized as 
 fast as it has accumulated and the increase of which is 
 due to peculiar conditions of the natural product, the 
 astounding developments of corporate business which 
 has legitimately succeeded the old forms of destructive 
 competition, and the remarkable genius of the men 
 who undertook the petroleum business when it was in 
 a state of chaos and neither producer nor manufac- 
 turer was receiving a profit and the consumer was 
 paying four times the present prices.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 STANDARD OIL DEFENDED BY ECONOMIC WRITERS 
 
 AS the Standard Oil Company has been the 
 victim of such a blind prejudice created by a 
 generation of venomous attack originating In 
 the most severely contested competition the business 
 world has known, it is only just that its methods 
 and practices should have a hearing from impartial 
 men competent to discuss them upon their merits. 
 
 All over the country there are editors, fair enough 
 upon other questions, to whom the very name of the 
 Standard Oil is the red rag. Upon seeing it, the 
 consequences immediately follow. They are thrown 
 into a rage and talk In superlatives. They know ab- 
 solutely nothing of the great corporation from the 
 inside or from unprejudiced sources. They speak 
 of honorable men as " monsters," men whose per- 
 sonal integrity no man can impeach, whose names are 
 unquestioned bonds around the globe, men who have 
 the profound respect of their neighbors as well as of 
 the business world. These editors talk of men who 
 are as Incapable of dishonest practices, and who are 
 
 174
 
 STANDARD OIL DEFENDED 
 
 as high-minded as they claim to be themselves, as 
 scoundrels to whom no terms of obloquy are ade- 
 quate. They condemn business methods which they 
 never have examined except in the statements of the 
 company's enemies. 
 
 Men with no other interest in this corporation 
 than to know the truth and examine the plain facts, 
 have studied its business methods earnestly and thor- 
 oughly, to come away convinced that the assaults 
 upon the company are without justice or reason. 
 They are the result of a gigantic misapprehension, 
 perhaps due to the fault of the company in not vig- 
 orously answering accusers who have assailed them 
 in malice or ignorance. 
 
 Certain well-known economic writers have exam- 
 ined some of the recent malignant charges against 
 this corporation. 
 
 " Jasper Jefferson," an editorial writer upon 
 finance and economics in Leslie's freekly, a paper 
 that cannot be accused of a partial leaning toward this 
 corporation, has lately written upon what he calls a 
 " New Light on the Standard Oil Company " the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 " Every attack on an American industry gives our 
 foreign competitors the ammunition they seek with 
 which to destroy American competition. At the risk 
 of being assailed as the defender of a defenseless 
 trust, we recall one instance: The natural-oil indus- 
 try of India is monopolized by the Burma Oil Com- 
 pany. Instead of being antagonized by the Indian 
 
 175
 
 TliE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 government, this monopoly has the latter's support to 
 such an extent that it has refused to the Standard Oil 
 Company the right to produce oil, and has even de- 
 nied to the American corporation the right to erect 
 tankage for storing oils. I his outrageous discrimi- 
 nation against a leading industrial corporation of the 
 United States by the government of India is based 
 on the intimation that the United States government 
 has classed the Standard Oil Company as an outlaw, 
 and therefore it is not entitled to consideration. The 
 result of this discrimination is felt by the people of 
 India, for it is well known that the quality of oil sold 
 in that country is the poorest, while the price is the 
 highest, to be found anywhere in the world. 
 
 " This is a good time to remind the American 
 people that the fight against the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany is not limited to the United States. It is going 
 on everywhere, because Its remarkable success makes 
 it a shining mark for all competitors. The produc- 
 tion of petroleum in Russia, Roumania, India, Ga- 
 licia, Sumatra, and Borneo, in the aggregate, is 
 greater than that in the United States; yet the Amer- 
 ican company has been able to meet this formidable 
 competition, and recently dispatches from London 
 have announced that it has finally succeeded in win- 
 ning the great struggle for the supremacy of Amer- 
 ican petroleum in the markets of Europe. This 
 triumph, in which every patriotic citizen of this coun- 
 try should rejoice, has compelled an arrangement with 
 the foreign producers by which a certain percentage 
 of the business has been conceded to American pe- 
 troleum by that most formidable opposition of for- 
 eign-oil producers, headed by the Rothschilds, the 
 Nobels, and the German banks, representing oil 
 companies with shares aggregating over $500,000,- 
 
 176
 
 STANDARD OIL DEFENDED 
 
 ooo in market value. Have the people of the 
 United States reason to be ashamed that an Amer- 
 ican corporation has been able to achieve such an 
 astonishing success abroad? What other set of men 
 or aggregation of capital has ever won anything like 
 such a victory in Europe for an American product 
 created by American labor? 
 
 " Attacks on the Standard Oil Company have 
 been instigated in nearly every instance by the greed 
 or envy of its competitors. Very recently, in a hearing 
 at Washington before the Interstate Commerce Com- 
 mission, an independent oil refiner, Mr. Byles, of Oil 
 City, while complaining against the Standard Oil 
 Company, admitted that when he started in business 
 he had a capital of only $10,000 and that he was 
 now worth $300,000. This does not look as if the 
 Standard Oil was driving its competitors out of 
 business. Mr. Byles, according to the press dis- 
 patches, while complaining of rebates given to the 
 Standard Oil Company, admitted that he had asked 
 for and obtained rebates for himself. 
 
 " The burden of complaint against the Standard 
 Oil Company has been that it was favored in its early 
 history by generous rebates by railroads which it 
 patronized. It is not charged that these rebates are 
 now being granted. The fact is that they were long 
 since discontinued. Their origin was not due to the 
 Standard Oil Company. This was made clear by 
 Secretary of State Root in his recent lecture at Yale 
 College, when he said truthfully, and no doubt to the 
 amazement of his hearers, that ' Thirty years ago all 
 railroads gave special rates to shippers. It was by 
 giving special rates that railroad companies induced 
 people to build factories, packing houses, and eleva- 
 tors, and a great variety of other business establish- 
 
 177
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 ments along the lines of their roads. That was the 
 way that they huilt up their business and built up the 
 country through which the roads ran.' Is the Stand- 
 ard Oil to be blamed that it took advantage of the 
 same opportunities that were given other industries 
 thus to build up its business? If not, what justifica- 
 tion is there for the statement In the recent report of 
 Commissioner of Corporations Smith that ' the scan- 
 dalous railway discriminations obtained by the Stand- 
 ard in its earlier years as against its competitors did 
 more than all the other causes together to establish 
 it in its controlling position ' ? 
 
 " This differs entirely from the analysis of the 
 situation which our astute Secretary of State lias 
 given. Nor did Secretary Root In his scholarly 
 speech at Yale hesitate to say that if the facilities of 
 transportation enabled combinations to be made, for 
 the purpose of overcoming competition, restricting 
 production, and reckoning prices, it must be borne in 
 mind that ' On the other hand, labor organizations, 
 designed for the just purpose of securing fair treat- 
 ment as to employment, wages and hours and condi- 
 tions of work, are, on their part, endeavoring to put 
 up prices, restrict production, and drive out competi- 
 tion by stringent rules which prohibit any member 
 from doing more than a specified amount of work 
 each day under penalty of expulsion, and which pro- 
 hibit the employment of anyone not a member of the 
 union, under penalty of a strike.' Has anything been 
 charged against any combination of capital that is 
 more monopolistic? 
 
 " Commissioner Smith admits that the Standard 
 Oil Company Is not a monopoly. He admits that the 
 system of railroad rebating has been substantially 
 abandoned, and he acknowledges that seventy-five In- 
 
 178
 
 STANDARD OIL DEFENDED 
 
 dependent companies are engaged in the refining of 
 crude oil in different parts of the country. Two of 
 these are large concerns, the Pure Oil Company and 
 the Tidewater Oil Company, both located at the sea- 
 board and both having their own pipe lines. The 
 other independent refineries are located in the oil 
 regions, where no pipe lines are needed, and they 
 enjoy many advantages because of this location; yet 
 Commissioner Smith denounces the Standard Oil 
 Company most particularly because of its pipe-line 
 system and the rates it charges for the transmission 
 of oil for independent refiners. The Standard Oil 
 Company has a number of pipe lines which are and 
 always have been common carriers. The rates estab- 
 lished hav^e been in proportion to the railroad rates. 
 Its pipe lines that are not common carriers are lo- 
 cated largely in the Indian Territor}% where the 
 rights of way were purchased by the company, and 
 where the pipe lines are, therefore, claimed by the 
 Standard Oil as its private property just as much as 
 the pipes laid to its refineries for carrying water. It 
 must be remembered that all of these pipe lines were 
 built by the company for the purpose of supplying 
 its own works, just as its competitors have built their 
 lines in this and foreign countries. 
 
 " The regulation of the production and sale of 
 petroleum and its products became necessary because 
 petroleum in this and in other countries was produced 
 in excess of the demand. The production of this 
 country alone to-day is about 400,000 barrels per 
 diem, while the consumption (that is, the part con- 
 verted into salable products) is only half of this, the 
 balance being wastefully used in some instances, as 
 in California for the making of roads, and in other 
 places as a substitute for fuel. It is to the advantage 
 
 179
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 of the producer to have a steady and reliable market, 
 and not a surplus and a declining market. 
 
 " The aim of the Standard Oil Company con- 
 stantly has been to cheapen the cost of oil to the 
 consumer, and to this end a most important factor 
 has been the cheapening of the cost of transporta- 
 tion by the construction of pipe lines. At first these 
 lines were experimental, and it was a serious question 
 for a time whether the large amount of money in- 
 vested in them would not be lost. It was this com- 
 pany which established delivery tanks in all parts of 
 the world, filling them by the use of tank cars, and 
 making distributions to the retailer by the assistance 
 of tank wagons, thus saving the cost of a smaller 
 package. It is an established fact that, with the de- 
 crease in the supply of timber available for the 
 manufacture of barrel staves, it would have been 
 impossible to-day to provide sufficient barrels for 
 transporting oil to the various markets of the world. 
 Hence the creation of the delivery tanks. 
 
 " It has been the constant aim of the Standard Oil 
 Company to increase the uses of petroleum so as to 
 utilize the surplus product. It undertook the manu- 
 facture of oil-consuming stoves, lamps, and even of 
 wicks for the lamps, so that it might supply these 
 at cost, and absolutely without profit, for the sole 
 purpose of stimulating the consumption of oil. It is 
 estimated that the sale of oil stoves, oil heaters, and 
 lamps amounts annually to hundreds of thousands of 
 dollars. The advertising of the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany naturally is for the benefit of not only the pro- 
 ducer of oil, but also for the benefit of its competitors, 
 as it makes an additional demand for the product. 
 The company is therefore doing pioneer work. In- 
 vestments made by the company in oil regions which 
 
 i8o
 
 STANDARD OIL DEFENDED 
 
 have become exhausted are an approximate loss. It 
 has empty tanks in the abandoned oil fields of the 
 two States of Pennsylvania and Ohio which, in the 
 prosperous tide of oil production, would contain the 
 enormous amount of 40,000,000 barrels of oil. 
 
 " The public has become so accustomed to at- 
 tacks upon our great industries, or those of them that 
 have been singled out for abuse, that it fails to give 
 fair consideration to both sides of the question. It 
 is accustomed to think of the Standard Oil Company 
 as the property of a few men. The Commissioner 
 of Corporations, Mr. Smith, in his report makes this 
 error. The stock of the Standard Oil Company is 
 owned by about 6,000 shareholders. The business 
 has been built up, it is true, by a few of the pioneers 
 in the oil industry, and its magnificent proportions 
 must be regarded as an evidence of their rare skill 
 and ability. If they have sought, by every legitimate 
 means in their power, to overcome competition, to 
 take advantage of every favorable circumstance to 
 develop their business (which though larger in the 
 aggregate is less in percentage than in past years), 
 and to secure as much of the world's trade as they 
 could, they have done only what every merchant who 
 succeeds has done, and must do, to achieve success. 
 As the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the Hon. 
 Oscar S. Straus, said before the Association of Manu- 
 facturers in New York recently : ' It is not within the 
 power or proper sphere of the government to equal- 
 ize competitors, but it is within the power and proper 
 sphere of the government to equalize the opportuni- 
 ties of competitors.' No one can find fault with this 
 broad statement by a Cabinet officer, himself one of 
 the most successful merchants of New York City, and 
 therefore well qualified to speak." 
 13 181
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 The Financial Chronicle, which cannot be ac- 
 cused of a bias toward the Standard Oil Company, 
 pubHshed May 25, 1907, the following editorial on 
 Commissioner Herbert Knox Smith's first report on 
 the petroleum industry, submitted at the beginning 
 of the Chicago trial: 
 
 " The report which the Commissioner of Corpo- 
 rations, Herbert Knox Smith, has just submitted to 
 the President on the petroleum industry, and par- 
 ticularly the Standard Oil Company's share in the 
 same, deals with some matters of wide interest. Of 
 still wider moment, however, are the Commissioner's 
 recommendations. These propose some novel rules 
 and principles. It is important to every man to know, 
 therefore, whether the proposals are founded in 
 equity and justice and would be in accordance with 
 that spirit of fair dealing under which enterprise in 
 trade and industry has so long flourished In this coun- 
 try. 
 
 " We are not concerned to defend the Standard 
 Oil Company. This much-criticised corporation ap- 
 parently has no friends, and to the student of affairs 
 it seems as if it did not desire any. What is more, it 
 does not appear to suffer much for the lack of friends. 
 Despite the attacks made upon it and which have 
 emanated from every quarter, its business continues 
 to thrive and prosper. The secret of this Is well un- 
 derstood by all those who have watched Its rise and 
 progress. Its unrivaled business methods are at the 
 bottom of it. 
 
 " The report of the Commissioner of Corpora- 
 tions, which is based on the investigation made by 
 Commissioner Garfield, sweepingly condemns the 
 
 182
 
 STANDARD OIL DEFENDED 
 
 company, and yet in the main is a tribute to the 
 keenness of its methods — all the more striking inas- 
 much as the Commissioner furnishes this tribute and 
 testimony unwittingly. 1 he popular supposition, no 
 doubt, has been that the company held a monopoly of 
 the oil lands in the United States. Not so. The re- 
 port tells us that out of a total production of crude 
 oil in the United States in 1905 of approximately 
 135,000,000 barrels, not over one sixth came from 
 wells owned by the Standard Company or affiliated 
 concerns; furthermore, that in no one of the great 
 fields did it produce over fifty per cent of the total. 
 Nevertheless, it is stated that in 1904 it ' refined over 
 eighty-four per cent of the crude oil run through re- 
 fineries; produced more than eighty-six per cent of the 
 country's total output of illuminating oil; maintained 
 a similar proportion of the export trade in illuminat- 
 ing oil, and transported through pipe lines nearly 
 nine tenths of the crude oil of the older fields and 
 ninety-eight per cent of the crude oil, of the mid- 
 continent or Kansas Territory field.' 
 
 " To what, then, does it owe its supremacy and 
 success? Commissioner Smith says 'that its growth 
 and present power rests primarily on the control of 
 the transportation facilities.' What are its trans- 
 portation advantages? Until within the last twelve 
 or fifteen months the average man, basing his opin- 
 ions upon the statements appearing in the newspapers 
 and made in legislative halls, would doubtless have 
 asserted that these advantages consisted of secret re- 
 bates and concessions in rates, which were withheld 
 from its competitors. The Commissioner's report 
 charges it with having been the recipient of railroad 
 favoritism in the past, but assigns its present advan- 
 tage to control of the pipe-line facilities. The pipe 
 
 183
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 lines are declared to be the only effective means of 
 marketing most of the oil, so that these give as com- 
 plete a control of crude production as by direct title 
 to the fields, with the result that the Standard is al- 
 most the sole purchaser and its daily quotations for 
 oil are the ' official price ' in most of these fields. 
 
 " The fact should be carefully noted that, accord- 
 ing to this official document, the company's advantage 
 comes, not from its influence or control over the rail- 
 roads, which are in every way public agencies, but 
 comes from its pipe lines, which are solely a private 
 investment incident to the development of its busi- 
 ness. In other words, it has its own private agencies, 
 built up and developed with much skill and foresight, 
 which it is using and which are giving It such a great 
 advantage. The report observes that the Standard's 
 pipe-line system in 1899 was stated by leading repre- 
 sentatives of the company to comprise 35,000 miles 
 of pipes of different sizes and to represent an invest- 
 ment of $50,000,000. This, it is remarked, was 
 probably an overstatement as to investment. Since 
 then the addition to the mileage and to the actual 
 investment, it is declared, has been probably not less 
 than thirty per cent. Through this immense pipe-line 
 system, oil is actually piped the full distance from In- 
 dian Territory to the Atlantic Ocean. It is added 
 that the lines are so connected that any refiner}^ of the 
 Standard from Kansas to the seaboard can be sup- 
 plied, if desired, with oil from any one of the four 
 great fields. Only one competitor of the Standard 
 has attained any importance in trunk-line transporta- 
 tion in any of the four fields, namely the Pure Oil 
 Company, and its length of trunk-line system of pipe 
 lines is given as less than 550 miles. 
 
 " The other charges and allegations against the 
 184
 
 STANDARD OIL DEFENDED 
 
 Standard Company are of much the same nature and 
 bear further testimony to Its unexcelled business 
 methods. Thus the company has taken advantage of 
 the opportunity offered by its pipe-line system to select 
 favorable refining localities. Whereas most of its 
 competitors, because of their inability to construct or 
 maintain similar pipe-line service or to use the Stand- 
 ard's pipe lines, are compelled to locate their re- 
 fineries near the oil fields, and then ship their refined 
 oil long distances by rail at heav^y cost; the Standard 
 Oil Company, on the other hand, has refineries at 'nu- 
 merous strategic points.' These last give it a very 
 advantageous position for the distribution of its 
 refined product to markets, not only in this country 
 but abroad as well. By means of its pipe-line system 
 it is able to get crude oil to its refineries at compara- 
 tively small cost, while the distribution of its refining 
 plants greatly reduces the average length of the rail 
 haul for its refined products, with consequent reduc- 
 tion in freight expense. 
 
 " Another expedient, it seems, of which the com- 
 pany avails itself is the tank system, whereby it is 
 enabled to handle its oil in bulk from the refinery to 
 the small dealer. Tank wagons, it is asserted, were 
 used by it in eighty-one per cent of the towns and by 
 the independents in only 38.6 per cent. The relative 
 greater use of the bulk system of delivery by the 
 Standard than by independent concerns has an impor- 
 tant bearing, it is declared, on the degree of monopoly 
 power enjoyed by the Standard Oil Company. In the 
 first place, the shipper of oil in barrels or other sniall 
 packages pays freight on the weight of the container 
 as well as on the contents, whereas a tank-car shipper 
 pays only on the weight of the oil. Again, freight 
 must be paid on the empty barrel when retained, or, 
 
 185
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 if sold without returning, there is often some loss. 
 Furthermore, the cost of teaming oil in barrels or 
 other packages after it has been delivered at railroad 
 stations is often greater than the corresponding cost 
 of local delivery in bulk. Finally, the bulk system is 
 greatly preferred by retail dealers as being cleaner 
 and safer. 
 
 " It furthermore appears that the Standard makes 
 direct sales to retail dealers, and this, in conjunction 
 with the advantage of bulk delivery, favors, it is ar- 
 gued, the practice of price discrimination so destruc- 
 tive of competition. If the Standard Oil Company 
 sold its oil through jobbers, the report says, it would 
 have to charge substantially the same net price for all 
 parts of its product, as the logical result of a large 
 wholesale business is to equalize prices after allow- 
 ing for cost of delivery. But we may be permitted 
 to ask, is the Standard Oil Company the only enter- 
 prise that is seeking to eliminate the jobber or middle- 
 man and thus get goods cheaper to the consumer? 
 
 " But what remedy is suggested for this condition 
 of things? Nothing less than depriving the company 
 of the fruits of its skill and enterprise. Commis- 
 sioner Smith would even go further than Congress 
 has gone in the attempt to regulate the matter. By 
 the Hepburn Rate Bill of last year, it will be recalled, 
 the pipe lines are brought under the provisions of the 
 Interstate Commerce Law and made subject to the 
 power and dominion of the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission. Commissioner Smith's suggestion goes 
 beyond this. He would not only make the Standard's 
 pipe lines available to all producers and shippers but 
 he would compel it to fix rates which would allow 
 little more than a bare return on its investment. 
 Here is what he has to say on this point: 
 
 i86
 
 STANDARD OIL DEFENDED 
 
 " ' The bureau estimates that the operating cost 
 of transporting crude oil from the several originating 
 points of the trunk-pipe lines in the Appalachian field 
 to the several tidewater termini — New York Harbor, 
 Philadelphia, Marcus Hook, and Baltimore — aver- 
 ages about 3^ cents per barrel of 42 gallons. Add- 
 ing an allowance of depreciation of five per cent on 
 the cost of reproducing the lines (which is sufficient, 
 with compound interest, to replace the entire plant in 
 fourteen years), the total cost of transportation be- 
 comes a little less than 65 cents per barrel. A 
 return of ten per cent on the estimated cost of repro- 
 ducing the lines would amount to about 5 cents per 
 barrel transported, which, added to the cost of trans- 
 portation, gives a total of about 1 1 cents per barrel. 
 The trunk-line rate from these points in the Appa- 
 lachian field to Philadelphia is 39 cents. 
 
 " * The operating expense of transporting crude 
 oil from Lima, Ohio — the center of the Lima-In- 
 diana field — through trunk lines to the seaboard is 
 estimated at about 5^ cents per barrel; adding an 
 allowance for depreciation at five per cent, the cost 
 of transportation becomes about 10 cents per barrel. 
 Interest on the estimated cost of reproduction at tent 
 per cent would be about the same amount, so that 
 a pipe-line charge of 20 cents per barrel from Lima 
 to the seaboard would cover the cost of transporta- 
 tion and give a return of about ten per cent on the 
 necessary investment. The pipe-line rate is 53^ 
 cents from Lima to Philadelphia.' 
 
 " The New York Times in an editorial article 
 recently pointed out that this announces a new prin- 
 ciple in transportation charges. Mr. Smith pro- 
 poses to base the rates on the cost of the service. The 
 Times well says : ' The nile with carrying corpora- 
 
 187
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 tions has been to establish the rate that will move 
 the traffic ' — that Is to say, a rate based upon the 
 market worth of the service, not upon its cost. 
 That is the law of trade the world over. But to 
 our mind this is by no means the only or even 
 the main objection to Mr. Smith's proposal. The 
 project if carried out in the way indicated would be 
 an appropriation of private property to general use 
 and the matter would be made worse by fixing the 
 compensation for such use at an absurdly low figure. 
 There are many persons who question whether Con- 
 gress did not exceed its power when It undertook to 
 bring the pipe lines within the provisions of the Inter- 
 state Commerce Law. But, waiving the constitutional 
 question, there can be no two opinions of the injus- 
 tice of an act that would compute compensation on any 
 such basis as that outlined in the foregoing extract. 
 " Except in the fact that the pipe lines constitute 
 continuous arteries for the carrying of a product, they 
 have nothing in common with the railways. The 
 latter manifestly should be open to all. They are 
 highways for the transportation of goods and passen- 
 gers, much in the same sense as the ordinary high- 
 ways exist for the benefit of common vehicles and 
 pedestrians. Then, also, the railroads are not limited 
 to the transportation of any single product or com- 
 modity, but perform a general transportation busi- 
 ness. Moreover, for the purpose of carr}nng on their 
 function as transportation agencies they have been 
 endowed with certain special powers which make it 
 appropriate that they should be available to all with- 
 out preference or fav'or. They are endowed, for 
 instance, with the power of eminent domain. Mr. 
 Smith, in speaking of the advisability of the inde- 
 pendent refineries constructing their own pipe lines, 
 
 i88
 
 STANDARD OIL DEFENDED 
 
 says that in certain of the States which would natu- 
 rally be crossed by independent pipe lines no law now 
 exists giving the right of eminent domain to pipe- 
 hne companies. It thus appears that the Standard's 
 pipe lines have not been built up to any extent, If 
 at all, through the exercise of the power of eminent 
 domain. Another point of distinction between the 
 railroad and the pipe line is that the former requires 
 an enormous amount of capital, the latter ver}' little 
 capital. The 224,000 miles of railroads in the 
 United States represent a capital investment of over 
 14,000 million dollars. We have already seen that 
 Mr. Smith thinks $50,000,000 was probably an over- 
 statement of the cost of the 35,000 miles of pipe line 
 which existed In 1899. As a matter of fact the pipe 
 lines simply consist of six- or eight-inch pipe and the 
 cost does not average much more than $1,200 to 
 $1,500 a mile. Finally, the pipes do not require any 
 special bed or place In which to rest. They can be 
 laid anywhere, since the oil Is pumped through them. 
 " The matter, therefore, comes to this. Special 
 facilities in a single department of industry have been 
 created through the Intelligence and foresight of the 
 managers of the enterprise. In the whole history of 
 the modern Industrial world this has always been held 
 as entitling those creating such facilities to the advan- 
 tages and profits attending their operation. Is it not 
 a most obnoxious doctrine to maintain that after these 
 special devices have been In existence twenty-five or 
 thirty years and their Indlspensableness and profit- 
 ableness incontrovertibly demonstrated and estab- 
 lished, the State should step In and say that com- 
 petitors and rivals must be allowed to share In the 
 benefits and offer a mere pittance by way of compen- 
 sation ? Note the effect. The creator of these special 
 
 189
 
 THE RAID OiN PROSPERITY 
 
 agencies is to be allowed no special reward for its 
 enterprise. All its labors are to count for nothing. 
 The fruits of its skill and energy are to be shared on 
 equal terms with the outsider who put no capital at 
 risk, but who is now to enjoy the fruits as if they 
 were the result of his own energy. Is it fair? Is 
 it right? And if an entering wedge for such a doc- 
 trine is once provided, how long will it be before 
 property rights everywhere will be subjected to a 
 similar scheme of spoliation? And what difference 
 is there between taking possession of property in this 
 way for common distribution and the Socialist scheme 
 of government? "
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 AS I have shown, no corporation in this coun- 
 try, or in any other for that matter, ever has 
 been the victim of such mahgnant hate and 
 tireless persecution as has the Standard Oil Company. 
 
 It has been pursued relentlessly by its unsuccessful 
 competitors, who, failing In court, have gone to the 
 public press. At last it has been assailed by the ad- 
 ministration of the general government for political 
 purposes, which the company, departing from a uni- 
 versal practice, ventured to answer. For this crime 
 of self-defense it has been prosecuted In courts of the 
 administration's own choosing, before judges which it 
 had appointed, and before appeals could be heard In 
 courts of law beyond the reach of spite and revenge, 
 it has been haled as guilty with a great clatter of ap- 
 proval by a certain portion of the partisan press 
 which has wished to vindicate itself for persistent 
 slanders of the company and one of its chief figures. 
 
 Certain preachers of the sensational type, short 
 of the gospel, and singularly forgetful of the man- 
 date against unjust judging, have made attacks upon 
 
 191
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 the company the subject of their pulpit deliverances 
 with nothing to support their slanders except the mar- 
 ketable sensational story of the magazine writer or 
 the assault of some person who holds a grievance 
 which is adroitly covered under specious pretenses of 
 fairness and candor. 
 
 The most preposterous things are charged with 
 regard to the Increase at different times of the price 
 of kerosene, charges which discredit the common in- 
 telligence of those who make them, if they believe 
 such things, and their common honesty if they do not. 
 
 These things, because of the mistaken policy of 
 the company in remaining silent, have been permitted 
 to go on for a generation, gathering force, until they 
 have created a public sentiment which shields un- 
 just decisions of courts, as in recent notorious cases, 
 and which makes it almost impossible to secure un- 
 biased juries, especially when these preposterous ac- 
 cusations are given weight by a prosecuting admin- 
 istration. 
 
 Prejudice Is excited by another mistaken policy 
 of the company in the matter of its capitalization. 
 Much Is said in these days of overcapitalization. 
 The fault of the Standard Oil Company is in the op- 
 posite direction. Its capital remains at a little over one 
 hundred millions, although its property, like that of 
 many other great businesses, has increased tenfold or 
 more. Its dividends, therefore, are given out as forty 
 per cent and at once there is a shout from the agita- 
 tor that the enormous profit Is obtained by grinding 
 
 192
 
 STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 the poor, when the actual profit on the total invest- 
 ment is far below those figures. 
 
 The statements are voluminous that this Trust 
 has been convicted in nearly every State in the Union. 
 Until the recent prosecutions, which more justly 
 should be termed persecutions, no one of the convic- 
 tions has taken place, while those of the past few 
 weeks are appealed to the higher courts and, therefore, 
 are not final convictions. The public owes it to Itself 
 to divest itself of prejudice and examine the facts. 
 
 In our country jury cases are tried so in the open 
 that men not in the jury panel can judge as com- 
 petently and often more so than the jurymen, for it 
 sometimes happens, as In the Chicago case, that the 
 public hears things kept from the jury. 
 
 Take the Chicago & Alton case against the 
 Standard Oil Company as an example of the way 
 cases are being managed to secure a verdict against 
 the great corporations. 
 
 In that case, before the United States Judge K. 
 M. Landls, the Standard Oil Company of Indiana 
 was found guilty under the Interstate Commerce 
 Law, on 1,463 counts, of using an Illegal rate over the 
 Chicago & Alton Railroad from Whiting, Ind., to 
 East St. Louis, 111. 
 
 The case turned on the question of the legality 
 of the freight rate paid on oil, which was 6 cents 
 per cwt. In carload lots. The government contended 
 that the legal rate was 18 cents; so great a differ- 
 ence that It seemed a monstrous discrimination, if the 
 
 193
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 government's contentions were true. But they were 
 not true. It was never asserted that anyone had paid 
 1 8 cents for carrying oil over that route. No other 
 oil company had been charged that rate. In 1889 
 the roads running between Chicago and East St. 
 Louis made a classification of rates, which was en- 
 tered at Washington. In this, petroleum was put in 
 the fifth class at 18 cents. All the great staples, 
 however, were at once excepted from this " class " 
 rating, and were put under what is known as " com- 
 modity " rating at very reduced charges, as will be 
 seen farther on, petroleum among the rest. 
 
 Three railroads were available for the service of 
 carrying the oil to East St. Louis; namely, the Chi- 
 cago & Alton Railroad, the Chicago, Burlington & 
 Quincy Railroad, and the Chicago & Eastern Illinois 
 Railroad. Among these three railroads the Standard 
 Oil Company divided its carload shipments in about 
 equal shares. The three roads had made a " commod- 
 ity " rate on petroleum of 6 cents, which was used 
 openly and without discrimination for fourteen years 
 ( 1 891-1905) by the Chicago & Alton and the Chica- 
 go, Burlington & Quincy, while for ten years ( 1895- 
 1905) the rate of 6^ cents (the equivalent of 6 cents, 
 because it included a switching charge of one fourth 
 of a cent) was used by the Chicago & Eastern Illinois. 
 
 Of these three roads the Chicago & Eastern 
 Illinois was the only one that filed the rate with the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington. 
 By so doing it made the rate legal under the Federal 
 
 194
 
 STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 law. The Chicago & Alton failed to file the 6-cent 
 rate at Washington, though It used It for fourteen 
 years, and on this neglect or omission by the railroad 
 the entire case of the government against the Stand- 
 ard Oil Company stands. The judge declared that 
 the Standard OH Company or any other shipper was 
 bound to know that a rate had been made legal before 
 accepting It! 
 
 It must appear at once to the impartial mind that 
 a shipper would not enter Into a criminal arrange- 
 ment with the possibility of heavy fines with one road 
 (the Chicago & Alton) from Whiting to East St. 
 Louis when it could have shipped all its oil at the 
 same rate over another road (the Chicago & East- 
 ern Illinois) which had complied with all the legal 
 requirements. This one fact proves conclusively a 
 lack of criminal intent. The Standard Oil had ab- 
 solutely no reason, financial or otherwise, for entering 
 Into a secret arrangement with the Chicago & Alton 
 Railroad, or for giving that road any of its business, 
 even had it known or thought that the Chicago & 
 Alton as a common carrier had not complied with 
 all the legal requirements. What possible advantage 
 did the Standard Oil obtain? What trade of a com 
 petitor did it restrain? 
 
 In the course of the trial the question of allow 
 Ing the Standard OH Company to prove the absence of 
 illegal Intent was discussed at length for three days, 
 the court finally and reluctantly deciding that evidence 
 to establish Innocence of criminal intention was com- 
 
 195
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 petent and admissible. It proved a delusive decision, 
 however, for when the Standard Oil Company's coun- 
 sel offered to prove the state of affairs set forth above, 
 which would plainly show no intent to violate the law, 
 the court decided that it was inadmissible and re- 
 fused to allow the jury to learn that the 6-cent rate 
 was legal over another road besides the Chicago & 
 Alton; namely, the Chicago & Eastern Illinois. This 
 latter decision governed the entire case, making coun- 
 sel for the defendants feel that they had been vic- 
 timized. The court refused to allow the 6-cent In- 
 terstate Commerce rate between the same points over 
 the Chicago & Eastern Illinois to be made part of 
 the record. How could the jury act intelligently 
 without it? To rule that the company could show 
 intent and then refuse to allow counsel to present the 
 common tariff of 6 cents placed the company in a 
 worse light before the jury than it would have been 
 in had the intent been refused entirely. It was a 
 seeming justice that was unjust. 
 
 The man who was General Freight Agent of the 
 Chicago & Alton Railroad during the period covered 
 by the indictment was not allowed to interpret his own 
 tariffs and say what the rate was, but an ordinary 
 clerk from the Interstate Commerce Commission was 
 put up to testify as an expert and maintain that i8 
 cents was the only possible legal rate. In the face 
 of these rulings and exclusions it was not extraor- 
 dinary that the jury should have found as it did, but 
 he who could contend that the equities were observed 
 
 196
 
 STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 in the trial would have difficulty to prove his con- 
 tention. 
 
 When packing-house products are carried under 
 the "commodity" rate for lO cents, malt 7 cents, 
 brick 5 cents, corn meal 7 cents, rosin 6^7 cents, starch 
 8 cents, peas, beans, popcorn 8 cents, linseed oil in 
 tank cars 8 cents, lard oil 10 cents, glycerine 8 cents, 
 and so on, what a draft it is on human credulity for 
 a government prosecution to bring forward an offi- 
 cial to assert that 18 cents was the only possible 
 rate on petroleum which had been carried by the 
 three roads for from ten to fourteen years for 
 6 cents. 
 
 It has been a case founded throughout on the gov- 
 ernment's side of minute technicalities and presented 
 with a ruthless exclusion of such contributory and ex- 
 planatory relations as would have established the fact 
 that the Standard Oil Company had paid no less than 
 a fair rate of freight, and had paid it with perfect be- 
 lief in its legality as well as its sufficiency. 
 
 To show that this opinion is shared by some of 
 the most astute minds in the country, I present an edi- 
 torial from the Brooklyn Eagle, well known for its 
 independence and candor. 
 
 BARKED UP THE WRONG TREE 
 
 " It took a Chicago jury about two hours to 
 
 bring in a verdict of guilty against the Standard 
 
 Oil Company, charged with having sent oil from 
 
 Whiting, Ind., to East St. Louis, at 6 cents a hun- 
 
 14 197
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 dred, the legal rate being i8. There was one 
 indictment but many counts — 1,463. For each of- 
 fense, otherwise called a count, a fine must be Im- 
 posed. When sentence has been pronounced the 
 company may find $29,260,000 added to Its list of 
 contingent liabilities. There Is a large margin, how- 
 ever, between maximum and minimum, $1,463,000 
 being the lowest figure at which the trial judge 
 can mulct the corporation. His honor specifically 
 charged that the jury must find intent on the part of 
 the defendant to violate the law. 
 
 " Naturally, the verdict was hailed as a signal 
 victory for the people. Culpability, not to say crim- 
 inahty, is assumed as a matter of course, when the 
 defendant happens to be a great corporation, which 
 is held to be synonymous with a grinding monopoly. 
 Still, the fact remains that law is not presumed to 
 differentiate, that it Is protective as well as punitive, 
 that it Is defensive as well as offensive. Also the fact 
 remains that injustice can be done to none without 
 peril to all, rich and poor alike being in the same 
 boat. And there are facts In the case against the 
 Standard Oil Company, account of which can well be 
 taken. 
 
 " There is railroad competition between the 
 points alluded to above. The Chicago & Alton 
 asked for part of the Standard Oil business, offering 
 transportation at prevailing rates, 6 cents a hundred. 
 The offer was accepted and the business divided. It 
 appears, however, that the Chicago & Alton was a 
 reorganized road and that Its predecessor had pub- 
 lished 18 cents a hundred as its oil rate. It also ap- 
 pears that this rate had gone Into desuetude, being 
 superseded in everything but the matter of publica- 
 tion, which little legal formality had been overlooked. 
 
 198
 
 STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 Armed with this technicality, the government invoked 
 the pains and penalties of the law. 
 
 " Statutes have been described as common sense 
 crystallized. The defendant diverted to the Chicago 
 & Alton part of the patronage two other roads en- 
 joyed. As no other manufacturer ships oil between 
 the points, there could, of course, be no effort to grind 
 a competitor. And as neither more nor less was paid 
 to one line than to each of the two others, it was a 
 clear case of share and share alike as far as the 
 carrying corporations were concerned. So, nothing 
 can be clearer than that there was no motive for vio- 
 lating law, the one thing clear being the absence of 
 inducement. Nor, finally, could any harm come to 
 the consumer, the company's rule being to make the 
 selling price plus the freight. 
 
 " For what, therefore, is the company to be 
 fined? Certainly not for restraining trade, because 
 there was no competition. Certainly not for aiding 
 and abetting a railroad monopoly, because it dis- 
 tributed its patronage. Certainly not for conspiring 
 and plotting to rob the consumer, because the afore- 
 said distribution cost him nothing. As a matter of 
 fact, damage was done to literally nobody, neither 
 public nor private interests being either injured or 
 menaced. The head and front of the company's of- 
 fending is that it did not pay a rate not only ob- 
 solete, but ridiculous. It only remains to be added 
 that it is not more ridiculous than the law which 
 in such circumstances is carried to enforcement. As to 
 the government lawyers, they were barking up the 
 wrong tree." 
 
 But added to this astonishing procedure which it 
 would seem cannot stand before a court of law unless 
 
 199
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 we have become reduced to the arbitrary will of the 
 executive branch of the government, which no one 
 believes who recalls the history of our superior courts, 
 is the equally astonishing demand of the Chicago 
 judge that the company declare whether it had been 
 convicted before! The reply of the Standard Oil 
 Company's counsel upon that point is a clear and 
 absolute denial of the company's offending at any 
 time. 
 
 Of a piece with the other proceedings was the 
 rounding up of men and dragging them halfway 
 across the country under the pretense of ascertaining 
 facts which never have been concealed and which are 
 of such common fame that they are current among 
 schoolboys. 
 
 This is the way we vindicate law in these days. 
 This is the spectacular parade we make of it to show 
 how impartial it Is. We want the common people to 
 know how impartial the law is if we have to harass 
 some of our citizens to show it. 
 
 This in a nutshell is the case which justified the 
 judge in pronouncing a fine of about $30,000,000 
 upon the Standard Oil Company, with a vehemence of 
 words and vindictiveness of manner, as represented 
 by the press, which indicated resentment and other 
 personal feelings that we do not expect in exact jus- 
 tice. That a judge pronouncing such an enormously 
 disproportioned sentence should express regret that 
 he could not make It greater shows the danger that 
 popular agitation and excitement may reach our 
 
 200
 
 STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 courts of justice as has happened in other periods of 
 the world's history. 
 
 That such a fine can be imposed upon a great 
 business or industry under any commercial law also 
 shows the looseness and recklessness of these recent 
 acts of Congress for the regulation of trade. Could 
 there be a more forcible illustration of the President's 
 remark concerning another such law, that its enforce- 
 ment would ruin the business of the country? It is 
 a good time to recall General Grant's remark that 
 the way to repeal a bad law is to enforce it. 
 
 But there are some Interesting incidents attend- 
 ing this case aside from the deep interest which the 
 administration has taken in it and its trial before an 
 appointee of the President. 
 
 It will be remembered that at the beginning of 
 the case and at a singularly suggestive point in it, 
 Commissioner H. K. Smith sent forth a report at- 
 tacking the Standard Oil Company vehemently. His 
 report was so unjust that it was contradicted even by 
 the critics of the company. Immediately upon the 
 heels of the confiscating fine of the judge, a fine fifty 
 times greater than all the oil transported, Mr. Smith 
 appears with another assault upon the company, which 
 the New York Times, never overfriendly to the 
 Standard Oil Company, pronounces in an exceedingly 
 able and fair editorial, as " in many substantial re- 
 spects unfair and not sustained by the evidence." 
 
 At the same time another commissioner who had 
 attacked the company in a former report gave forth 
 
 20I
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 his voice in public that the Standard Oil Company 
 would have to pay the fine. And this in the face of 
 the fact that the company's case was to be heard in the 
 highest court of the land. What shall be said for the 
 judicial character of these men representing the ad- 
 ministration, what of their sense of fairness and their 
 good taste? Is it true that there is a well-laid scheme 
 to secure the conviction of this corporation ? Is this 
 remarkable report timed to steady the public mind 
 against a verdict so manifestly unjust that it is feared 
 the people will resent it and make their protest? 
 Probably not ! It is only a coincidence ! It is one 
 which could have been easily prevented, however. 
 And it is such a striking coincidence, taken in con- 
 nection with the other report which was so startlingly 
 timed, in connection with the trial, that people in this 
 age, when there are so many interested in psychic cur- 
 rents and other such phenomena, are sure to remark 
 upon it. Without drawing any inferences or suggest- 
 ing anything dishonorable or that anyone had any 
 personal interest in the unjust sentence, I take the lib- 
 erty of referring the coincidences to the Psychic As- 
 sociation of Boston with a request that it give an 
 explanation, the absence of which is an embarrass- 
 ment to fair-minded persons who look at such things 
 upon the surface through only the eyes of plain com- 
 mon sense. 
 
 As Mr. Smith's report seems to be a supplemen- 
 tary part of the Chicago court proceedings against the 
 Standard Oil Company, I venture under this head to 
 
 202
 
 STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 make one or two more references to it. He presents 
 an array of statistics which in some hands are rather 
 dangerous things to handle, and says: "The claim 
 of the Standard Oil Company that its control of 
 the business is due to its ability to maintain low 
 prices because of superior efficiency is a complete 
 misrepresentation of facts." To this the New York 
 Times replies: "We do not think that experienced 
 business men accustomed to the examination of trade 
 statistics and familiar with economic facts and princi- 
 ples would concur in the conclusions of this report." 
 " It seems to us that the picture presented by statistical 
 tables and diagrammatic representations of the his- 
 tory of prices in the petroleum industry is that of a 
 business carried on substantially under the conditions 
 that govern most businesses intelligently managed in a 
 modern way. They seem to us further to show that 
 the chief, the dominating influence in lowering the 
 price of illuminating oil to consumers during the past 
 forty years has been that very ' efficiency ' of the 
 Standard Oil Company from which Mr. Smith with- 
 holds all credit." And the Times remarks further: 
 " It cannot be doubted, we think, that if Mr. 
 Rockefeller and the men about him had never been 
 born and if no other men of equal capacity had 
 organized and built up the great Standard Oil busi- 
 ness and had normal competition always existed in 
 the industry through the strife one with another of 
 many companies with a few millions of capital, 
 the price paid by consumers in this country for 
 
 203
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 illuminating oil would now be much higher than 
 the actual quoted prices. That is what the price 
 tables and diagrams not only of the reports of the 
 Bureau of Corporations but of Miss Tarbell's book 
 appear to show and demonstrate when interpreted in 
 an unbiased way by the light of human reason and 
 business experience." " Commissioner of Corpora- 
 tions Smith is unable convincingly to interpret the 
 facts he sets forth, which is the same thing as saying 
 that his conclusions are not demonstrated." 
 
 I have quoted from the Times because it is not 
 possible for anyone who knows the history of that 
 great paper to say that It has ever shown any bias 
 toward the Standard Oil Company. 
 
 The last sentence quoted is most suggestive. It 
 is a side light of very intense rays upon my conten- 
 tion that these immense questions of manufacture, 
 industry, and commerce, of such vast interest to the 
 people, have been handed over to incompetents who 
 are doing the country enormous mischief. They 
 would not have been tolerated an hour in times be- 
 fore these Insane agitations upon questions Infinitely 
 beyond the agitators. 
 
 What a spectacle is this of a commissioner who 
 cannot discuss with common intelligence the subject 
 for which he is made responsible and whose un- 
 friendly animus blinds him to common fairness and to 
 common propriety. 
 
 Should not the men who are set to guide the 
 country's thought in such matters have something of 
 
 204
 
 STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 the ability and experience and practical knowledge in 
 a business of those whom they propose to arraign and 
 condemn? Where is the common justice of permit- 
 ting such feeble-minded and puerile presentations to 
 prejudice a mighty business in the public mind and 
 to obstruct it in foreign lands to which our export 
 trade is extending? 
 
 One of the features of these wild prosecutions is 
 most interesting as showing the incitement to activity 
 upon the part of courts and prosecuting officers, in- 
 vestigating committees, etc. It ought to awaken a 
 little sober reflection, I refer to the nomination of 
 a judge who imposes an extravagant sentence or an 
 attorney who runs down some corporation, for some 
 high office. In less than twenty-four hours after the 
 Chicago judge had pronounced his bizarre sentence 
 upon the Standard Oil Company the politicians were 
 proclaiming his name for Governor of Illinois! 
 
 Comment is unnecessary. We are in peculiar 
 times. Anyone prosecuted may have the satisfaction 
 of knowing that so it may happen to his neighbor 
 if it can serve the new cause. Even the decisions of 
 courts, however extreme, are not satisfactory. Mr. 
 Bryan wails that the company will raise the price of 
 oil and pay the fine. There is no satisfying the 
 demagogy of the times. 
 
 But what Commissioner Smith calls his Part Two 
 of Standard Oil investigation is still more interest- 
 ing and suggestive. We have discovered that the 
 commissioner's facts are disputed by men apparently 
 
 205
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 of as much personal integrity and of far more 
 experience than he can claim for himself. But 
 the logic of the report is sufficient for our 
 purpose. 
 
 He says: "Meeting competition abroad it [the 
 Standard Oil] has given the foreign consumer enor- 
 mously low prices and it has used the profits made 
 at home to maintain its position abroad so that the 
 American consumer has been severely discriminated 
 against," with other such charges! The only infer- 
 ence is that the Standard has been so anxious to do 
 foreign business that it has used exorbitant profits ex- 
 torted from the American public to help it do a busi- 
 ness that it could not have done without putting Into 
 it home-made profits. Why did it desire to do such a 
 losing business? This can only be explained in one of 
 two ways, either the company is incompetent to do 
 business or it is a case of abounding and astonishing 
 benevolence to foreign nations ! The plain statement 
 of the commissioner is that it is taking profits from 
 Americans and giving them to foreigners. If it is 
 said that it is for a temporary purpose to overcome 
 an enormous competition abroad, supported by the 
 Rothschilds and others, then the complaint falls to 
 the ground, for the establishing of such a great per- 
 manent foreign trade upon a sound basis is in the 
 interest of the American public. But is the Standard 
 Oil the only exporter that sells abroad for less than 
 the home price? If not, why was not the commis- 
 sioner fair and square enough to say so? Was he 
 
 206
 
 STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 trying to prejudice the public against the Standard? 
 He ought to have known that steel rails, farm im- 
 plements, carpenters' tools, and other such articles, 
 are in the same class. Why are the sins of the 
 Standard the only sins that shock Mr. Smith? Every 
 novice knows that such export practices are often 
 of the highest public value and no robbery of the 
 public. 
 
 Another statement of this Part Two is, " It [the 
 Standard] has pocketed all the advantages of its 
 economics instead of sharing them with the public " ! 
 How long since a private business was required to take 
 the public into partnership and do business for it? 
 What other business shares its advantages, which, of 
 course, means its profits, from its economics, with the 
 public? It pays the public its taxes, it gives the pub- 
 lic the best product it can produce at a price that 
 pays only about five per cent on the total investments 
 in its enormous plants. What more does any busi- 
 ness owe to the public? And what more has the 
 public a right to expect? 
 
 The logic seems to be that the Standard must do 
 business at a profit to be determined by the Commis- 
 sioner of Corporations, and all above that must be 
 divided with the public. No balder socialism ever 
 stalked through this country. It is no wonder that 
 a leading socialist authority has said that socialists 
 do not need to do anything more to advance their 
 cause, for the present administration Is doing it for 
 them! 
 
 207
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 Another wail of this Part Two which emphasizes 
 still further, as the Times charges, the incompetency 
 of the commissioner to discuss a question of such 
 magnitude, is the statement that the company " is 
 adding monopoly profits and charging more than 
 smaller and less economical concerns could sell for if 
 the Standard allowed them the chance " ! Are we 
 to understand that these smaller concerns could do 
 business for the public more satisfactorily because 
 they are less economical? Or is the profit so great 
 that it may be used to encourage the less economical? 
 If they were more economical, could they compete 
 more successfully? Then they and not the Standard 
 are at fault. Is it the doctrine of economists that a 
 business is to manage its affairs so as to aid its com- 
 petitors and help them to a share of its trade and 
 profits, or is this some more of the beauties of 
 socialism? 
 
 Why is the obligation on the Standard Oil and 
 not upon the Independents as well? If it is true that 
 the latter have forced the Standard to charge more in 
 some places that it may retain its place at a fair profit 
 in others, why is the Standard the sinner In this com- 
 petition and its rivals the saints? The wrong seems 
 to be in the success. There is not a thing charged 
 to the Standard that has not been done by the Inde- 
 pendents and there is not a thing done by either that 
 has not been recognized as legitimate in competitive 
 trade since the world began. The same things have 
 been done in various degrees in different places and 
 
 208
 
 STANDARD OIL COMPANY IN COURT 
 
 times by every form of business known to men both 
 private and corporate. 
 
 But what is to come of all this agitation by im- 
 practical men who discuss business in an academic and 
 oracular manner? The only thing that will come out 
 of It will be to show the world the stupendous folly 
 of it all at the expense of billions of money and the 
 ruin of a great multitude of people. Not a natural 
 and rational law of commerce will be changed. The 
 business millennium will be as far away as ever, if 
 not farther. 
 
 Who have applauded the unjust and persecuting 
 attacks of the administration on this great corpora- 
 tion? The administration, the demagogues who de- 
 ceiv'e the misled and impulsive voters by claiming a 
 great reform, the vindictive competitors who would 
 have exacted greater prices, certain revengeful ene- 
 mies, the socialists and anarchists, some writers for 
 frenzied magazines, some slanderous yellow journals, 
 and many honest people misinformed by persistent 
 libel — these people rejoice. 
 
 Who have been injured by the attack upon this 
 vast business and upon other corporations that history 
 will give a place among the beneficent agencies of 
 these times? Six thousand people who own the 
 Standard Oil Company, and hundreds of thousands 
 who own the other corporations, and all men who are 
 concerned in well-paid labor or in Investment or other- 
 wise in the business of the country and its good name, 
 have been Injured, 
 
 209
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 Time will prove that the present administration 
 was the most enormously expensive to business that 
 our country ever has known, and there will be no 
 compensating results to excuse or palliate the ruin 
 which it wrought in its blind raid against a condition 
 of prosperity which was the astonishment of man- 
 kind.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 THE foundation of every permanent govern- 
 ment is justice. Whatever it may secure 
 to people in resources of wealth, whatever 
 of wage-earning labor, whatever of liberty of fran- 
 chise, If injustice can be done Its citizens by insuffi- 
 cient law or too much law or by perversion of law by 
 the arbitrary acts of administrators and the judges of 
 courts, the government cannot endure. It is sure to 
 perish If It cannot be reformed. 
 
 It has been the struggle of man in all ages to 
 secure justice, and it Is strange that those who have 
 ruled him have refused It. These rulers have seemed 
 to place justice among their prerogatives and to in- 
 terpret it by their selfish interests and prejudices. It 
 has been asserted as a divine right. But men have 
 not submitted; they have made their protests all down 
 the centuries. In most instances it has been upon such 
 broad and plain definitions that " he who runs can 
 read." But there have been subtle and insidious forms 
 of Injustice to which the people have been slow to 
 awake. You find them in a Republic where the peo- 
 
 21 I
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 pie make their own laws and carelessly leave the 
 interpretation of them to those who administer them. 
 There is not a State of the Union where the laws 
 which are administered are the exact laws on statute 
 books. Large liberty of construction and adminis- 
 tration is taken by executives, from governors to 
 sheriffs; in some instances men have been appointed 
 by the legislatures to compel men to administer the 
 laws as enacted. 
 
 The theory of our government is for the most 
 part sound. The practice in many cases is not so. 
 
 One source of serious evil is in the appointment 
 of judges of courts by persons who are likely to have 
 a political interest in the verdicts of those judges. 
 This, which was foreseen by Thomas Jefferson, has 
 been fully realized. There never has been a time 
 when it was so prevalent and apparent as now. It 
 has become a disgrace to the country, which will not 
 be tolerated much longer if we are worthy of self- 
 government. 
 
 The judges of the Supreme Court are appointed 
 by the President of the United States. The consent 
 of the Senate is usually honored in the breach. 
 If an appointment is turned down, the President 
 makes another, and in the end the will of the Presi- 
 dent is accomplished. Within the two terms of a 
 President the majority of the Supreme Court judges 
 may become his appointees. Federal Courts are more 
 easily controlled and made the instruments of the 
 President's pleasure. There are Federal Courts to- 
 
 212
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 day in our country In which the majority of the 
 judges have been appointed by Mr. Roosevelt and 
 there are men who are waiting his pleasure for 
 every vacancy. Every one of these courts can be 
 changed by a President to his liking at any time 
 that there is a vacancy by death or resignation, for 
 he has the making of such judges in his own hands. 
 It is a remarkable fact that in this country to-day a 
 number of the Supreme Court judges are appointees 
 of the President now in office. Over half of the 
 judges of the District Court, nearly half of the judges 
 of the Circuit Courts, and a third of the Supreme 
 Court judges have been appointed by President 
 Roosevelt. 
 
 There would be no serious danger threatening 
 from this fact, notwithstanding the fears of Mr. Jef- 
 ferson, if the President of the United States would 
 always keep himself strictly within the plain intent 
 of the Constitution and keep his personal prejudices 
 out of all cases before the courts. If the use of such 
 power were taken from him, a President might be 
 less tempted to influence the courts and dictate to 
 them his will and pleasure. 
 
 Passing events may lead to amendment of the 
 Constitution so that the President shall not have the 
 power to appoint judges. It certainly is anomalous 
 and plainly it is capable of great abuse. Why in our 
 threefold coordinate government should the making 
 of one branch be subject to the will of the other two, 
 and practically to the will of one of the other two? 
 15 213
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 Why is it not more important to elect judges than 
 to elect presidents and legislators? If the people 
 cannot be trusted to elect judges, they cannot be 
 trusted to elect Congress, the President, and Legisla- 
 tures. If any men should be absolutely free from 
 the pleasure of the executive branch of the govern- 
 ment, they are our judges. 
 
 That the President may come to feel that he is 
 not only responsible for the selection of judges but 
 their opinions as well appears in the notable case of 
 Judge Humphrey, whose recent opinion was displeas- 
 ing to the President and who received a presidential 
 rebuke for it; who was told, as the whole country 
 was, that it probably would not be sustained by other 
 judges! The emphasis of the incident is upon the 
 assumption of a President of the United States that 
 he had the right and privilege of meddling with the 
 Judicial Department as though it represented him, 
 and that he could discredit by public utterance the 
 verdict of a court. What are courts worth if this is 
 tolerated? Why then may not judges give the 
 weight of their criticism against executive acts? Was 
 there anything which our founders sought to guard 
 more sacredly than the independence of the coordinate 
 departments of our government? If an appeal is 
 to be taken from a court, it is not to be taken to 
 the President, but to a higher court. If a court is 
 corrupt, impeachment is possible; if in error, an ap- 
 peal can be taken — executive rebuke never. 
 
 Other incidents point to abuse of justice in the 
 214
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 use of courts for cases in which the President Is In- 
 terested if they have any meaning whatever. If that 
 is not the meaning of such incidents, they are unfor- 
 tunate coincidences. It may be replied perhaps that 
 such a charge impeaches the honor of the judges and, 
 therefore, is unworthy. But there should be no sys- 
 tem of appointment by which such suspicion could be 
 possible. Human nature is not infallible. If the 
 judges were elected, the attempt to use particular 
 courts would not be possible. It is well known that 
 as soon as the processes were begun against the Stand- 
 ard Oil Company the newspapers began to weigh the 
 respective courts and reckon up the probabilities of 
 conviction in them. They even predicted the court in 
 which cases would be tried and their predictions came 
 true ! A prominent New York paper said : " Right 
 at the start the wise men who know what is going 
 on in the Department of Justice [God save the 
 mark!] came to the conclusion that it would be filed 
 in the Eighth Circuit. It was a cool calculation of the 
 chances of winning that determined the trust breakers 
 to take St. Louis in preference to any other circuit. 
 The court In that circuit is composed of four judges, 
 three of whom were appointed by Roosevelt." 
 
 No one can deny that this was a very common 
 thought among men who followed the case. Where 
 was the justice? The region was known to be no- 
 toriously hostile to the Oil Company, and the ma- 
 jority of the judges in the circuit were appointed by 
 the President, who began the case against the com- 
 
 215
 
 THE RAID ON PR(3SPERn Y 
 
 pany by an extraordinary attack presented to Con- 
 gress. Is there an instance like it among a free 
 people? 
 
 These men were dragged fifteen hundred miles 
 away from their central offices into a State that had 
 been prosecuting them. For what purpose? Exact 
 justice ? 
 
 There are other instances in this administration. 
 Several of them could be named, like the General Pa- 
 per Company, the Sugar Trust, the Drug Trust, etc., 
 etc., cases which might have been tried in other courts 
 and which in common fairness and equity ought to 
 have been, were arraigned in courts the judges of 
 which were appointed by the President and with full 
 knowledge of his declared interest in the prosecution 
 of them. What hope of exact justice can there be under 
 such circumstances and what hope in appealed cases if 
 the courts are to be created by the chief prosecutor? 
 
 And it is at this point of the prosecution that the 
 case becomes more startling. How unevenly are the 
 balances of justice weighted when a President of the 
 United States becomes the prosecutor! Can anyone 
 doubt the influence upon his judges and upon jurors? 
 Is there anything in judicial proceedings more amaz- 
 ing in the annals of our country? Under what 
 provision of the Constitution shall the President be- 
 come the prosecuting officer of the land? Is this 
 the way the Constitution intended that he should see 
 that the laws are enforced? It may be popular with 
 a certain prejudiced and excited class. But is it safe? 
 
 216
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 Is It law? Is it justice? The Constitution says: 
 " He shall from time to time give to Congress in- 
 formation of the state of the country and recom- 
 mend to their consideration such measures as he shall 
 judge necessary and expedient." 
 
 Does it require anything more than common in- 
 telligence to understand that that does not mean 
 presidential attacks upon business by name or upon 
 citizens characterizing them in the absence of indict- 
 ment as criminal or dangerous or undesirable? 
 
 How long since the American people put them- 
 selves in the attitude by which their respective busi- 
 nesses or their persons may be held up to execration 
 before the civilized world by the President of the 
 United States? Does the ex parte report of a 
 commission justify such a course? Then it is an em- 
 phatic reason why there should be no such commis- 
 sions. Are cases to be known in this country as 
 President's cases, brought to him by his commissions 
 to vindicate some hasty and ill-considered utterance? 
 If so, how will such cases stand in the courts? 
 
 We have just had an example of a man acquitted 
 against such tremendous influence. In what light 
 does it place the Chief Executive who condemned 
 him before he was tried? Suppose he had been con- 
 victed, as it is remarkable that he was not with such 
 influence against him, how would it leave the case? 
 There would ever rest upon it a doubt of the jus- 
 tice of the verdict because of influences from the head 
 of the government. 
 
 217
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 Cases of so-called trusts are being decided. They 
 are weighted with the strongest influences that can 
 be brought to bear against them, influences that have 
 given authority to sensational fiction, to hate of com- 
 petitors, to prejudices of the uninformed. What is to 
 be said for such a travesty of justice? Will convic- 
 tions in the cases be untainted? Can acquittal be 
 expected? 
 
 Can the American people view such a state of 
 things with indifference? Does it not matter how 
 we get at the merits of causes? Have we aban- 
 doned all interest in the processes of the courts and 
 turned them over to men who seek to usurp them ? 
 
 It seems to me that we should begin a work of 
 restitution. When men at the executive head of 
 States or the Nation force legislation to please them- 
 selv^es and insist that the representatives of the people 
 shall renounce their rights and obey executive author- 
 ity, when courts are told that decisions are not 
 acceptable, when citizens are condemned by executive 
 edict without judge or jury, when the business of citi- 
 zens is arraigned and accused as violation of law 
 on ex parte reports, when a subservient prosecuting 
 machinery is set in motion and its actions are haled 
 to courts so conspicuously representative of the prose- 
 cution as to be matter of common remark, it is time 
 for the people of this country to rub their eyes open 
 and look about themselv^es and make some very sharp 
 inquiries. 
 
 It does not make any difference what the charac- 
 2i8
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 ter of the accused may be. He may be all that he 
 is painted. We do not help matters by prostituting 
 the order of government to secure a preconceived 
 verdict. The only safety of the innocent is in exact 
 justice to the guilty. 
 
 Justice is a matter in which there must be no sus- 
 picion. The arbitrary acts of men may be ap- 
 plauded to-day by the parties in interest through 
 prejudice, but they pass into history. There are acts 
 which certain classes, and especially those of intense 
 partisan feeling, are applauding that will be read in 
 the history of this time with incredible amazement by 
 students of the progress of republics. And they will 
 not be applauded as wisdom and justice in that calm 
 hour. The popular frenzies, the popularity, the 
 glamour will have gone out of them and the only 
 thing left will be a scale with no man's' hand in the 
 balance to tip it either way. 
 
 We must not only protect our courts, the final 
 and only infallible resort in contentions among men, 
 the only interpretation of legislation and executive 
 prerogative, but we must insist that designing clamor- 
 ous men shall not refuse or pervert justice by the 
 creation of inimical prejudices and sentiment. 
 
 It has happened that persistent misrepresentation 
 excites unreasoning hate which is Incapable of listen- 
 ing to justice, and which often is made furious by a 
 defense and becomes moblike in temper. When this 
 state of things is general among the people; when it 
 is allowed — even by the disdain of Innocence — to in- 
 
 219
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 tensify into blinding passion, it becomes difficult to 
 secure from courts, which are miniatures of communi- 
 ties, jury verdicts of exact justice. 
 
 We are addicted to the trial of causes by the 
 press and common fame. Even professors in our uni- 
 versities, although happily very exceptionally, have 
 been known to analyze the testimony of a witness and 
 before a plea was made or the judge had charged 
 the jury render through the newspapers an opinion 
 absolute and infallible as to his credibility — an opin- 
 ion which finally was not accepted by the jury. 
 
 It is only a few months since a judge presiding in 
 Herkimer County, in New York State, felt obliged to 
 vindicate the honor of his court by summoning to the 
 bar certain reporters who took it upon themselves to 
 decide the merits of the case on trial before him and 
 to render their verdict in an offensive correspondence. 
 
 During the prevalent agitation against the cor- 
 porate business of the country the feelings of a mis- 
 led public have taken shape in a verdict of guilty upon 
 the very announcement of an indictment. 
 
 The promulgating of certain strange doctrines of 
 liability shows the tendency toward the substitution of 
 popular clamor for the courts. We are told that if 
 an employee is injured in a factory the law made to 
 cover such cases should take no account of contribu- 
 tory negligence, but the employer should be compelled 
 to pay without contention. The utterly dafr dema- 
 gogy that seeks to capture the popular following 
 flings justice to the winds and invites negligence and 
 
 220
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 carelessness. Ninety-five per cent of injuries to em- 
 ployees from machines is due to the ignorance and 
 carelessness with which they run them. The em- 
 ployee spoils the machine. The employer has no re- 
 dress if the employee chips off a finger when he does 
 it. He violates express and particular orders in mix- 
 ing cement and as a result a floor falls and destroys 
 tens of thousands of dollars of property, but in addi- 
 tion to that loss the employer must pay the widow the 
 price of a criminally careless man's life. 
 
 The man who furnishes his fellow-men with op- 
 portunity for livelihood is to have no rights that any 
 man who can rob him is bound to respect. And this 
 pernicious doctrine is sanctioned by the highest 
 authority in the land. There can be no exact justice 
 until all men, without regard to estate, condition, or 
 race, stand alike on terms of absolute equity before 
 the courts. A court of justice can favor no one ex- 
 cept as it favors everyone by exact justice. It can 
 have no friends and it can have no enemies, and the 
 public sentiment that calls for the attention of the 
 courts must call for nothing but justice. 
 
 Probably no people in the country to-day are 
 more subject to injustice and more likely to be op- 
 pressed in jury courts than the capitalists, and 
 especially those who are at the head of our great 
 utilities. They are the men who have need of our 
 solicitude. They are the men who are being denied 
 justice. 
 
 The claims of the people are being overworked 
 
 221
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 and are distorted out of all proportion to the just 
 conditions of things in our body politic. It has be- 
 come the fashion to champion them and to hand out 
 a groveling, coddling sympathy to the oppressed 
 people until there is danger that we lose all self- 
 respect and manhood. We have overlooked the 
 great and just demand of men who are putting their 
 lives, their fortunes, and their reputations into the 
 gigantic endeavors that are the opportunities of the 
 people. 
 
 In view of the injustice of our mulctings and our 
 thousand forms of obstructive laws, it is remarkable 
 that productive investments that offer, first of all, 
 generous wage to mechanics and laborers are made 
 at all. 
 
 Were the spirit of oppression as general as would 
 appear from the explosive attacks of the agitators, 
 business would find a discouraging field in this free 
 country. But, fortunately, the overwhelming thou- 
 sands of workingmen are on terms of confidence with 
 their employers and extend them a just and honor- 
 able cooperation. They are contented and happy, 
 and to-day the surest source of exact justice is found 
 by the manufacturers and commercial interests of the 
 land in the thousands of cooperators who are not 
 swayed from their steadfast loyalty by ignorant, 
 malevolent, and unjust agitators. 
 
 The solid common sense of this country' is our 
 secure hope. That western jury that has just ren- 
 dered its verdict in the most notable criminal case of 
 
 222
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 many years was far enough removed from the reach 
 of a foolish sympathetic threat on the one hand 
 and unfriendly accusations on the other to give 
 us an example of justice uninfluenced by fear or 
 favor. 
 
 When we can place a cause in this country in the 
 hands of the average man who has no prejudices 
 excited by popular clamor, the instinct of justice may 
 be trusted. God has planted it deep in our natures. 
 And this is shown in the revulsion of feeling that 
 often overtakes the application of injustice to men 
 and causes. The animus is discovered and the re- 
 sentment becomes as strong as were the former 
 prejudices. 
 
 Upon that instinct of justice and the common fair- 
 ness of the American people may be predicted an 
 entire change of sentiment within a short time with 
 regard to the forms of business and the use of cap- 
 ital cooperatively which now are used so adroitly by 
 men who have no investments in the prosperity of 
 the country, nor any concern as to the consequences 
 of attacks upon capital if only such attacks can be 
 made to serve their personal ambitions. 
 
 That wisest man since Solomon estimated the 
 American character correctly when he said : " You 
 cannot deceive all the people all the time." 
 
 While the voice of the agitator is in the land 
 and is so loud that it seems to be all the voice there 
 is, the thousands of Americans on the farms and in 
 the trades quietly at work with their hands are work- 
 
 223
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 ing out these problems of the hour and will come 
 to their solution. And the conclusions if long de- 
 layed because of the magnitude of the questions will 
 be sound and safe. 
 
 We shall find that our difficulty is with the fact 
 that we have something on hand that has anticipated 
 us and that is out of proportion to our accustomed 
 thought, but as a people we have always shown in 
 our thoughtful and final considerations appreciation 
 of justice and fairness. This has caused us some- 
 times to give place to causes that had not vindicated 
 their right to a place in our confidence, but they ap- 
 pealed for fair play. 
 
 That is the strongest appeal that can be made to 
 American people. It sometimes deceives them for 
 the time by being made a political shibboleth, but it 
 does not blind nor distort their sense of justice very 
 long, however insincerely it may be used by men who 
 know its potent influence with the average mind. 
 
 All that any man needs or should have in this 
 country is exact justice. With that he will accomplish 
 success if it can be done. Justice is a legacy that 
 makes any man richer than money can make him. 
 There is more happiness in it than there is in mercy. 
 No real man with a manhood worthy of the name 
 will ask to share another man's property or fame, 
 nor covet anything he has. Give him the liberty that 
 justice opens to a man and his chief happiness will 
 be in his own achievement. 
 
 Nothing is more degrading as an economic doc- 
 224
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 trine than the assertion of a claim upon the fruits of 
 other men's enterprise and toil, whether it be the 
 labor of their minds or of their hands. What a 
 loathsome sight is that man who whimpers over the 
 successes of other men and fills the air with his feeble- 
 minded plaint that others have much and he has 
 little and they should give of their much to him ! 
 Were there a grain of a sense of justice in him, were 
 there any moral sense, he would arouse himself and 
 say: " I ask nothing of any man but the justice of 
 my opportunity, which is my inalienable right and 
 with that I will make my way in the world." 
 
 It is no wonder that murder is a cardinal doc- 
 trine with the anarchistic socialist, whose code of 
 justice recognizes the right of no one to be more 
 prosperous than himself. Justice condemns the self- 
 ish and lazy. Justice brands with a scarlet inefface- 
 able mark of shame the face of modern socialism. It 
 accuses it of weakness and degradation and points it 
 with a finger of scorn to an open door which it has 
 set before every man. 
 
 In those places high and low where effete theories 
 of economics have filled the air with their fetid 
 vapors we must let the inalienable rights which 
 we boast in our Declaration of Independence shine 
 through and reveal the just principles upon which 
 all men must strive for their own successes. 
 
 For the executive administration of justice we 
 need statesmanship and not frenzied demagogy to 
 arouse a personal following; men who can see more 
 
 225
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 than one side of a proposition, men who discern that 
 progress has its laws and do not try to make it with 
 hammer and nails and a glue pot, men who have 
 faith in men and who do not assume that all men 
 are actuated by unworthy motives in proportion to 
 their accumulated wealth. We want a few plain, 
 simple laws that help men in all kinds of business to 
 remember honesty, that will compel properties to 
 show their true values, bonds to have beneath them 
 full value secured against fluctuation in business, 
 property to be worth as much as the stocks that 
 represent it, the exact value of every stock on the 
 market as compared with the condition and earnings 
 of the property to protect poor men in their modest 
 investments, protection of the people against unjust 
 and oppressive cornering of foods for purposes of 
 extravagant profit — a few plain laws to protect cap- 
 ital against the despotism of labor organizations and 
 the worklngmen against the careless or purposed op- 
 pression of the employer in those exceptional cases 
 that always will exist. 
 
 We need as little law as possible and as great 
 good will as possible in all human endeavor. We 
 need to Incorporate Into practical life the Golden 
 Rule. With these simple principles of exact justice, 
 give us men to make our laws who are not fright- 
 ened by the dreams of Indigestion, but who, clear- 
 brained and calm, see a mighty future of which they 
 are not afraid. 
 
 We can safely defraud no man, neither the la- 
 226
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 borer out of his wage nor the capltahst out of his 
 investment. We cannot injure one without equal or 
 greater injury to the other. We have nothing that 
 we can give to either except justice. There is noth- 
 ing that we should take from either but injustice. 
 Whatever is unjust both must give up. With their 
 just rights both will prosper and their united pros- 
 perity will make ours the greatest country in the 
 world. Upon these principles it will endure for- 
 ever. 
 
 Nothing is plainer than that the application of 
 exact justice does not consist in a hunt for cases for 
 purposes of prosecution. If absolute perfection is 
 enforced, all men would go to prison and all busi- 
 ness would be estopped. We are having the extreme 
 of folly in corporation prosecutions by the adminis- 
 tration. The Attorney General gives out that all 
 cases will be prosecuted in which there is hope of 
 conviction. Men are to be sent to prison if possible. 
 Think of such procedure in the face of a universal 
 business practice permitted by the government and 
 common to all commerce until within a few years, 
 and forbidden now chiefly by a law which the 
 President has said would ruin all businesses if en- 
 forced. 
 
 Would It not seem like a just wisdom, the com- 
 mon sense of justice, to wait the new adjustment of 
 railroads and corporations to the present peculiar, 
 and in some of their features impracticable and con- 
 fusing, laws and prosecute as few cases and disturb 
 
 227
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 the business of the country as little as possible? 
 The laws which we have and with which we are 
 convicting corporations are so monstrous, so sugges- 
 tive of the dark ages of the administration of courts, 
 so confiscatory of property, so opposed to our Consti- 
 tution and all common equity that their enforcement 
 is the very acme of injustice. 
 
 One finds himself dazed by the proceedings of the 
 hour and asks himself: " Is this 1907 and is this 
 America ? " He recalls other epochs and other scenes 
 similar, embalmed in history, in ages from which we 
 congratulate ourselves that we have emerged, and he 
 wonders how such history can repeat itself among 
 a free people in such times as these. 
 
 The scales of justice carried by the outstretched 
 arm of demagogic spite and political competition are 
 being rattled defiantly, with loud threats, in the face 
 of the railway and other corporations to excite certain 
 of the people and gratify their misguided prejudices. 
 Until the millions of our sober and rational people in 
 an intelligent and loyal uprising bring those scales 
 back and place them in the temple of justice and 
 guard that temple's mighty doors against the entrance 
 of everything but truth and reason, there can be no 
 safety in this country to any man, high or low, or to 
 any business, great or small. 
 
 Our peril is extreme when a court audience and 
 the public press applaud visible and unmistakable 
 prejudices and revengeful anger in any judicial ver- 
 dict. With just pride hitherto in the exact fairness 
 
 228
 
 EXACT JUSTICE 
 
 and calm judicial dignity of our judges and the his- 
 toric justice of our country, we should guard against 
 any degeneracy to gallery play by a judge with in- 
 stant and vigorous resentment and rebuke. We 
 should brand such a judge with infamy as the safest 
 protection of the courts. Any judge who harangues 
 the public from his bench with accusations of de- 
 fendants by the use of false and libelous charges 
 brought into the case from outside of his court or 
 in a case which he knows is to be still further ad- 
 judicated by upper courts and therefore is not settled, 
 smirches the ermine of justice. There is one thing 
 that must be absolutely above suspicion of personal 
 feeling or party strife or purchase, and that is 
 justice. 
 
 Let any judge who uses his bench to gratify a 
 spiteful feeling against lawyers of a cause [a cowardly 
 act] or to slander and libel the cause he is adjudicat- 
 ing, in terms not contained in either the indictment 
 or the verdict, know that he will be discredited, dis- 
 trusted, and condemned as far as his name is known 
 and history is read, when judicial calm shall have 
 come and passion and self-interest have gone out of 
 the case and left it to its merits only. 
 
 That thing which will call us back to a judicial 
 temperament is a serious contemplation of the coming 
 times with their infallible and impartial judgment of 
 our acts. 
 
 There is nothing that can injure us, that can ob- 
 struct our progress as a country, but injustice to any 
 16 229
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 class of our citizens. We have every physical ele- 
 ment of success, every condition of civilization at its 
 very summit. Justice is as free as light. We should 
 allow no vapors distilled from selfish passion and 
 personal resentment, nor the fogs of ignorant preju- 
 dice, to pass across the face of it.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SWOLLEN FORTUNES 
 
 WE are a people given to indulging in 
 spasms ! They are intense while they 
 last. They are so unreasonable and un- 
 reasoning that they present a fine opportunity for the 
 adroit demagogue. For some time we have been in 
 the grip of a mighty spasm over " corporate wealth " 
 and " swollen fortunes." These are coined and cur- 
 rent phrases. All of our national ills are being stated 
 in this formula. It has become the political shib- 
 boleth. All political parties and all socialistic classes 
 use it and the people applaud. Down with the rich ! 
 Puncture the swollen fortunes ! Make the rich 
 poor and all the poor will be rich ! Destroy the cor- 
 porations, hamper them, obstruct them ! Sue them in 
 the courts! Blackmail them in the press! Tie the 
 strings of the Lilliputians to them in Congress and 
 bind them and the individual can have a chance! 
 
 Make the returns of great business sufficiently 
 small and uncertain by petty legislative restrictions 
 and we shall not be troubled by the genius of a 
 Rockefeller, a Morgan, a Carnegie. 
 
 231
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 The little fellows will be big enough for the lit- 
 tle things to be done. The age, the land, the dis- 
 coveries are not suited to the gigantic things which 
 embarrass little men. Such great enterprises take 
 away the rights of the people, especially of the in- 
 dividual. Such great men discourage common men. 
 They are a menace. 
 
 It is a crime for several men to have developed 
 the power of giving employment to 75,000 or 150,- 
 000 men, provided the promoters are to get anything 
 themselves at all commensurate with the things they 
 have invested or have done for their fellow-men. 
 Their millions are swollen fortunes ! 
 
 Strange how fortunes are the only thing that has 
 swollen. At any rate they seem to be the only swell- 
 ing that we are anxious to doctor. How about 
 salaries and wages ? Have they not swollen ? From 
 the President's salary which has swollen to four times 
 its former size in a generation, with $25,000 added 
 for housekeeping, to all other salaries of the country, 
 including the salary of congressmen, all salaries 
 everywhere have swollen. But there is nothing bad 
 about it. It does not worry our mighty regulators 
 who have the swollen salaries. It is only fortunes 
 that have dangerously swollen ! 
 
 Wages have swollen. They have swollen from 
 a dollar and a half to four and six dollars a day. 
 Every little while they are taken with a danger- 
 ous swelling, a kind of goiter that refuses to de- 
 crease. And the only thing that shrinks is the hours 
 
 232
 
 SWOLLEN FORTUNES 
 
 of labor, which is another way of swelling the 
 wages. 
 
 But nobody seems alarmed at swollen salaries or 
 swollen wages. It is swollen fortunes that worry 
 us — especially those got by corporation dividends ! 
 
 Oh, it will be a great world to live in when we get 
 great wages for everybody and nobody has anything 
 to pay them with! It will be the acme of statesman- 
 ship of which neither our fathers nor any economist 
 ever dreamed when we shall have so discredited busi- 
 ness, especially the greatest forms of business, by 
 regulating them, that men of commercial genius will 
 be filled with fear and distrust and refuse to put the 
 utmost of their powers into the development of our 
 resources and the making of our innumerable forms 
 of industry and labor. 
 
 To be sure the world never has witnessed such 
 marvelous prosperity of every kind, such increase of 
 happy homes, such savings in banks, such farmsteads, 
 such wage for mechanic and laborer, such thrift of 
 every kind, such facility of transportation, such in- 
 vention of labor-saving machines, such schools, such 
 wealth of periodical and daily literature, such expan- 
 sion of territory, all under the law of common sense 
 and common interest and competition; but then we 
 must slow up now as we cross the line into the new 
 century and run upon a switch and stand there on a 
 siding regulated until those who want to run on the 
 main line with their pony engines can go by the men 
 whose powers have made the right of way. 
 
 233
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 It is discovered that progress is not progressing 
 safely. It must be supervised and controlled by the 
 President and Congress. Men who vt'ant to sell their 
 goods as cheaply as the corporations do have proved 
 voiceful and rend the air with their plaint, and they 
 have the votes 1 " The great corporations, the great 
 fortunes generally that are used in business shall be 
 so used as to be in the interest of and not against 
 the interests of (these) ordinary people! " 
 
 The men who sell a hundred thousand barrels 
 of flour can sell me my barrel for $4.00, but the man 
 who sells a thousand barrels must have his chance to 
 sell me my barrel for $4.50. You see it makes small 
 difference with a hundred thousand people who save 
 fifty cents apiece and one man gets fifty cents each 
 from one hundred thousand men. It promotes in- 
 dividual trade and changes the ownership of the 
 swollen fortune. It is a great scheme. Perhaps 
 it will stop fortunes from swelling altogether ! 
 
 You see it is wrong for several men to put to- 
 gether their ability and their fortunes and secure to 
 the people the development of industries and bring 
 to their doors everywhere the necessities and com- 
 forts of life at a compensation with which men act- 
 ing alone cannot compete and they should be stopped ! 
 They should ask as great a price as the individual 
 with his little facilities or the small company would 
 have to ask. 
 
 You know a railroad can carry a trainload of 
 fifty cars of western steers at half the rate of one 
 
 234
 
 SWOLLEN FORTUNES 
 
 carload in a train. And the same is true of train- 
 loads of flour or oil tanks, but it is dangerous 
 because it is done with swollen fortunes. The 
 bonum publicum is threatened by such service if the 
 originators of vast schemes, Yike. refrigerator cars for 
 instance, get by a small per cent a great aggregate 
 out of the immense capital invested. 
 
 It should be stopped. It is too big for an age of 
 steam and lightning and a miracle of machinery. 
 These things are getting too big. They are swollen. 
 Reduce them. Of course, if the trouble is a swell- 
 ing, you must reduce it. You don't want to regulate 
 a swollen fortune. You must determine what a 
 normal twentieth-century fortune is and put on the 
 political leeches and get the big one down to the 
 standard size. There is not much danger that the 
 little ones will get too big after the process of reduc- 
 tion is started. 
 
 But what if it is true that the most swollen for- 
 tunes are only in harmonious proportion to the re- 
 sources of the country and to all of the gigantic 
 movements of human endeavor. We have seen how 
 the salaries of men in business and men in Congress 
 and the salary of the President of the United States 
 have vastly swollen, and we certainly cannot have 
 overlooked the enormous increase of the volume 
 of manufacture and trade in a brief generation. 
 Are the swollen fortunes outrunning the mighty 
 strides of commerce and becoming disproportionate? 
 If they are, it would not follow that there Is ground 
 
 235
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 for fear in the mere bulk unless we can show that 
 they are taken out of the people of humbler circum- 
 stances and are misused to pervert government and 
 obstruct the liberties of the people. If we find that 
 they not only have been made by a gigantic com- 
 merce but have also made the present proportions of 
 business and furnished the land with its industries and 
 made the luxuries of the rich the common blessings 
 of the poor, if we find that they are constantly re- 
 turning whence they came and passing through the 
 hands of the common people, who must always de- 
 pend upon the capitalists for their profitable and 
 happy industry, then it may occur to us that we are 
 fighting a law and a proportion which we have failed 
 to study and appreciate. 
 
 A mountain height or peak overawes us stand- 
 ing out of the plain. The highest point of the 
 Rockies is modified by the mighty range of which it 
 Is a part. 
 
 We measure up from the poor to the man of 
 swollen fortunes and become alarmed by the compari- 
 son. What are we coming to by such a tremendous 
 disparity? It were better reasoning and less dis- 
 quieting to compare the laborer of to-day with the 
 laborers of a century ago and the swollen fortunes 
 with the whole flood tide of commerce and prosperity. 
 Shall we turn back these tides? We must if we stop 
 the swollen fortunes at a sum agreed upon. Agreed 
 by whose authority — the socialists of the country? 
 
 In 1870 the total wealth of our country was 
 236
 
 SWOLLEN FORTUNES 
 
 $30,068,518,507; In 1906 it was $110,000,000,000. 
 In 1870 the per capita distribution of wealth was cal- 
 culated at $772.51; in 1906 it is set down as $1,- 
 292.13. The railroads of the country have grown 
 from a mileage of 52,922 miles in 1870 to 212,624 
 miles in 1906, with 88,707 miles of second tracks 
 and sidings. The capitalization of the railroads in 
 1870 (stocks and bonds) was $2,664,627,645; In 
 1905 it was $14,167,218,546. What these na- 
 tional figures tell of growth can be made equally 
 clear by a glance at any one of the great businesses. 
 None can be more significant than iron and steel. In 
 1870 the Nation's output of pig iron was 1,665,179 
 tons, and of steel 68,750 tons. In 1905 our furnaces 
 gave forth 22,992,380 tons of pig iron and in 1906 
 were manufactured 23,365,000 tons of steel. In capi- 
 talization the United States Steel Company stands fdr 
 $950,000,000, while ten other plants out of the vast 
 number of Iron mills and steel concerns show a cap- 
 italization of $357,000,000. The coal mined in 
 1870 was 33,000,000 tons; In 1905 It had risen to 
 393,000,000 tons. The consumption of such a staple 
 as sugar has grown from 607,834 tons in 1870 to 
 2,632,216 tons In 1905. The wheat crop of 1870 
 was 235,884,700 bushels; In 1905 It was 692,979,- 
 489 bushels. The entire electric lighting and electro- 
 motive industries and the entire telephone business 
 have been added during this period to the Nation's 
 wealth. The entire automobile industry has been 
 evolved. Multiply by hundreds the figures given of 
 
 237
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 a few Industries and you will still fall of grasping 
 that tremendous power which Is exerted in the direc- 
 tion of growth in the United States, where the so- 
 called industrial " trusts " number over 500 and 
 cover every branch of trade, transport, and manufac- 
 ture. What a percentage of general expansion is 
 implied in the fact that between 1900 and 1907 the 
 increase in the value of farm land property has been 
 $8,000,000,000, or nearly forty per cent. 
 
 Is it not astonishing that men with these figures 
 before them, for they are accessible to everyone who 
 will turn to the United States Census, will raise an 
 alarm about swollen fortunes? 
 
 The alarm must go back to business itself. Per- 
 haps this is what is meant by the savage attacks that 
 are being made upon corporate business. Are we 
 taking too much wheat off our fields, too much iron 
 from our mountains, too much oil out of our valleys, 
 and setting too many thousands of wheels of ma- 
 chinery in motion ? Surely we cannot do these things 
 and use the business genius and forces of such an 
 age and not increase the fortunes of men. 
 
 The " swollen fortune " is not swollen but only 
 in healthy proportion to a tremendous time, when by 
 the sciences and the arts the earth is yielding re- 
 munerations in proportion to the ability of men, the 
 combined power of men to dev^elop and use them. 
 
 One hundred million dollars is no more a 
 swollen fortune to-day than one hundred thousand 
 dollars was at the beginning of the last century. Swol- 
 
 238
 
 SWOLLEN FORTUNES 
 
 len salaries and swollen wage are the proportionate 
 pay that vast enterprises are giving to skilled labor 
 and service. 
 
 Strange that the mighty progress which has come 
 on so splendidly for these many decades has all at 
 once become a menace to the body politic. 
 
 But what are we going to do with swollen for- 
 tunes? Are we going to steal them because it is 
 wicked for men to have them? Are we going to 
 sequestrate them by a class taxation, by a tax upon 
 men's ability and enterprise? Why not send a file 
 of soldiers and take them for the public good? 
 There are examples in the world's history to justify 
 it. To be sure, we claim a higher form of civiliza- 
 tion, but it is never difficult to drop back, and at the 
 rate we have been going in that direction lately it 
 soon will not be far for us to go. 
 
 In the meantime having conferred further with 
 the socialists as to how much of a fortune is per- 
 missible to a man, what a healthy unswollen fortune 
 is, let us take all above that sum for the State. The 
 little point of difference which might arise as to where 
 the swelling begins or where we should begin the pre- 
 vention of the same can be compromised and settled 
 if we do not embarrass the question by conferring 
 with the swollen fortune owner. 
 
 There might be some further difficulty, because 
 what would be a swollen fortune in a place like Syra- 
 cuse would not be a swollen fortune in New York, 
 and what would be a swollen fortune with one man 
 
 239
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 would not be with another, and a swollen fortune 
 would be invested and made a greater swelling with 
 some men, and would be quickly dissipated and 
 scattered, if the government would be only a little 
 patient, with other men. 
 
 But then all of that could be easily adjusted by 
 another commission to investigate and to study care- 
 fully these things or perhaps the receivers proposed 
 by the Attorney General could have their functions 
 enlarged to cover such intricacies ! 
 
 There would come up another embarrassment, 
 perhaps. Indeed, there are almost as many of them 
 and they prove about as expensive to the country as 
 it would be to let men do business up to the full 
 measure of their capacity. The embarrassment to 
 which I refer is the disposition of the per cent of 
 these fortunes which it is wicked for Individuals to 
 retain in their possession and which the government 
 must take to the end of righteousness. 
 
 We have an embarrassing surplus of revenue now 
 and the prospect Is that it is to increase with our 
 population and the development of our country, yet 
 in its infancy. What will our revenues be when, as 
 Emerson said of England, our country Is cultivated 
 with a lead pencil ? What shall we do with the swol- 
 len part of the fortunes we have taken away from 
 our enterprising and successful citizens? They are 
 sure to Increase. They are becoming quite common. 
 The income to the government will become consid- 
 erable. What shall we do with it? Shall we hoard 
 
 240
 
 SWOLLEN FORTUNES 
 
 it and keep it religiously from doing harm and op- 
 pressing the people by circulating it in wages and pur- 
 chases and trade and manufacture with its octopus 
 tentacles? Who will keep it and guard it? Shall 
 we distribute it per capita to the poor? Possibly we 
 could, for that seems to be the doctrine now in vogue. 
 But why not assign a pro rata of this benevolence 
 to all men who are rich above a certain amount and 
 enforce the obligation by a commission? That is 
 easy — it is only a little step farther in paternalism. 
 
 Possibly, however, the government would take 
 these swollen fortunes which it has stolen and invest 
 them in public works or in a thousand forms of busi- 
 ness which would bless the people, business from 
 which would be eliminated all of the wickedness of 
 trusts and corporations, with the management placed 
 in the hands of truly good men. 
 
 The success of such governmental business has 
 been so signal in all lands and times that it is strange 
 that the thought did not occur to some mighty 
 economist long ago to do the world's business, on 
 from the danger point of wealth, by a Commercial 
 Commission of the government. That such a simple 
 solution of guarding the interests of the people from 
 predatory wealth and securing a perfectly fair and 
 equable adjustment of business rights and privileges 
 should have been overlooked and left to the discovery 
 of men who never had even a business training, 
 greatly detracts from the reputation of an Alexander 
 Hamilton and a James Madison and the men of the 
 
 241
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 past, trained in the schools of both governmental and 
 commercial economy. So are the wisest sometimes 
 humiliated and their fame blighted by the discoverers 
 who, passing over the ground after them, pick up 
 from the very surface the wisdom which they failed 
 to find in weary searchings. 
 
 It is not strange that it is so with regard to for- 
 tunes, for it always has been easier to dispose of for- 
 tunes than to make them, and men everywhere have 
 had a fondness for managing other men's business. 
 
 But a very curious thing is that the men who 
 would reduce the swelling of swollen fortunes never 
 have had anything to do with swelling them ! The 
 men who would regulate them probably could not 
 manage them so as to keep them if they had them. 
 
 They have what they have by legacy or the fruits 
 of an age the prosperity of which has been made 
 by men who, it is discovered all at once, need regu- 
 lating! How would such men regulate their own 
 fortunes if they had them? 
 
 Does anyone imagine that the men who are chat- 
 tering about " predatory wealth " and " corporation 
 peril " or " swollen fortunes " would refuse from 
 purely altruistic motives to take over the stock of 
 corporations, in Rockefeller swollen proportions even, 
 and manage them privately? 
 
 If we are to have the regulation in such destruc- 
 tive forms, the logical and consistent thing is for the 
 managers to own them. Mr. Bryan is right. Let 
 us own the property we propose to regulate or 
 
 242
 
 SWOLLEN FORTUNES 
 
 supervise, then we can take the consequences of our 
 blundering. That would be honorable. But to de- 
 stroy commerce and trade for which we have an aca- 
 demic responsibility only — as we began to do a year 
 and a half ago — is unfair, however easy and safe it 
 may be. The consequences are so distributed and dif- 
 fused among 85,000,000 people that the regulators 
 experience no personal loss. If we owned the business 
 it would have a different logic. We would argue It 
 on more conservative and cautious premises. We 
 would be careful how we regulate and control. 
 
 The people do their own spelling ! They seem 
 to have a different interest in the control of it. It 
 does not regulate. Let them be common stockholders 
 and what of business requires regulating would be 
 done with cautious wisdom with reference to the 
 profits and the losses and not recklessly, and foolishly. 
 
 Probably no men in this country are more dis- 
 qualified for the control and supervision of the cor- 
 porations or swollen fortunes than the majority 
 of legislators and congressmen. Any attempts from 
 that source can only result In disaster. Any proposi- 
 tion from that source to supervise and control the 
 wealth of the land is a gigantic piece of imperti- 
 nence that to coming generations will be incredible 
 of an age of intelligence like this. 
 
 It cannot be replied that such men reflect the 
 ability of the business world or. Indeed, that they 
 reflect the average intelligence of the people who 
 choose them. That were not sufl'iclent. The work 
 
 243
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 is not average, but extraordinary. And the Congress 
 is not the choice of the people, but of the members 
 themselves in probably a majority of cases. And if 
 we are to attempt adjustments of the commercial 
 rights of men it should be by trained men, mighty 
 in ability and schooled in experience. 
 
 The whole assault upon corporate business to-day 
 is at the bidding of politics, which is throwing its tub 
 to divert the socialistic whale. Nothing could be 
 more crude, impulsive, and frivolous than most of 
 the utterances that are being sent out about wealth 
 and the magnitude and processes of business. The 
 frantic effort at lawmaking and the plunging about for 
 violators of law to punish and the riotous accusations 
 against everything and every man that represents the 
 magnitude of our times show the confusion of the 
 public mind under the leadership of men who fail to 
 grasp the age or who are using its fevered excitement 
 for selfish purposes. 
 
 We have laws enough without special legislation 
 to protect the rights of every man and guard all com- 
 merce and all business against dishonesty. And hon- 
 esty is the only thing we have any right to insist 
 upon. We have no right to oppress or protect or 
 control or supervise any form of business by legis- 
 lation or executive proclamation in the Interest of any 
 class of men, rich or poor, corporate or individual. 
 
 Swollen fortunes are a thousandfold less dan- 
 gerous to our land and people than swollen dem- 
 agogy! 
 
 244
 
 SWOLLEN FORTUNES 
 
 The swelling of fortunes is healthy and an In- 
 finite blessing to the " ordinary people." It is the 
 push of a vital force. It is the earth yielding her 
 Increase under the cultivation of men who have 
 learned the secrets of her power. It is natural. It 
 alarms only those who have not learned to think in 
 the proportions of our tremendous age. When men 
 come to positions of mighty legislative and executive 
 power with unequal thought power and without ap- 
 preciation of the forces and proportions of their age, 
 great mischief is done. They set the dial hands back 
 against the sun. The trouble with these times is 
 that they have outgrown the men who are making 
 our laws and administering them. That has been ap- 
 parent to any mind which has critically studied the 
 trend of the past two decades. The disproportion 
 between the forces of the age — the awe-Inspiring 
 energies In possible appliances, the magnitudes of 
 things to be done, and the men who have been 
 sent to legislative halls to adopt governing and con- 
 trolling machinery to do them — is startling and 
 depressing. They have discharged their mighty 
 responsibility by an attempt to decrease the capability 
 of men who are using swollen fortunes to extend 
 the world's commerce. They have applied them- 
 selves to reduce the swelling of a mighty normal and 
 healthy growth as though it were the swelling of 
 disease or some sudden inflammation. They cannot 
 account for the expansion of an age, into which they 
 have come by being born out of season, upon any 
 17 245
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 other principle than a perilous disorder, a diseased 
 swelling! No one can tell, therefore, what new ab- 
 surdities will be projected into the statutes by Con- 
 gress or the Legislature. 
 
 Men have kept silent who ought to have spoken 
 long ago. There is a minority in Congress that 
 should control — minority in numbers, but a mighty 
 majority in ability and character. Their mission is 
 not to secure the perpetuity of a party. The plain- 
 est and most sacred principles fundamental to the 
 commonest rights of the " ordinary people," who are 
 the great people, are being thrown aside as worth- 
 less and useless, with startling contempt for usage 
 and law. Courts of justice are dragooned into a 
 practical subserviency to executive authority, to the 
 peril of justice between men and men; arbitrary 
 authority is being asserted promiscuously, regardless 
 of the guilt or innocence of the individual, men being 
 condemned without conviction and told to clear them- 
 selves after they are condemned. If they want mercy. 
 Commerce, traffic, transportation, manufactures are 
 placed under espionage, haled before the courts and 
 threatened with regulation by socialistic law until 
 men no longer know what property is or what are 
 the rights of business as once Interpreted by those 
 principles which were supposed to have been estab- 
 lished by the wisdom of the centuries. And the 
 answer to It all Is a socialism as rank and de- 
 structive as anything that Fourier taught or the com- 
 munism which sprang out of his teachings. 
 
 246
 
 SWOLLEN FORTUNES 
 
 " Corporation," " swollen fortune," " million- 
 aire " have become synonymous with commercial 
 tyranny and heartless selfishness, cartooned as beasts 
 preying upon the ordinary people. This process of 
 education has been going on until men hide every fal- 
 lacy behind these words. If a man damns a corpora- 
 tion, he is a friend of the ordinary people ; if he sneers 
 at millionaires and warns of the danger threatening 
 from swollen fortunes, he will be elected to Congress. 
 The political leaders of both great parties have played 
 into the hands of a dangerous socialism, condemned 
 by all sober-thinking people a decade ago. Swollen 
 fortunes are a menace only when they are withheld 
 from the people and are used on the limited wants of 
 miserly owners. Millionaires have made our age pos- 
 sible by lavish inv^estment in all manner of develop- 
 ment. The millionaire could have blocked every 
 great endeavor that has blessed the race. His wealth 
 has been made and risked and often lost In the service 
 of the ordinary people.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 CHARITABLE TRUSTS 
 
 AGGREGATIONS of money for purposes of 
 education and chanty are as Indispensable 
 as the accumulations of natural force in 
 vast kilowatts of electricity or tens of thousands of 
 horse power of steam for purposes of manufacture 
 or transit. But the general alarm and agitation sug- 
 gests a fear of such trusts. 
 
 There always have been minds that can see noth- 
 ing but the evils and peril in unusual things. The 
 proportions must be kept down to the present effi- 
 ciency of management. Nothing must be done that 
 is beyond what we know to be man's present capac- 
 ity. And we demonstrate this by proving how he 
 was unable to do similar things when he was much 
 smaller and with infinitely less experience than he 
 now has. By showing what men in a crude age, with 
 few appliances and less practical knowledge, could 
 not do, we prove plainly that men of a later time in 
 conditions of favoring education and experience must 
 fail also. 
 
 If you show that the church of the Middle Ages 
 248
 
 CHARITABLE TRUSTS 
 
 misused charitable funds and filled the land with 
 worthless mendicants, you demonstrate that the Sage 
 Fund, the Rockefeller Fund, and the Carnegie Fund 
 for investigation of conditions of living among the 
 poor, research and scientific study and the promotion 
 of educational facilities respectively must be attended 
 with like danger and result in a general corruption 
 of the public morals. 
 
 There is nothing like comparisons. You can use 
 them to prove anything. You have only to leave out 
 an element or two or change the relation of a fact 
 or two and you can get any result you start for in an 
 argument. 
 
 There is no force in a precedent or an historic 
 fact unless the conditions are the same. And there 
 were no conditions in any of the periods usually cited 
 that remotely resemble the present state of things 
 in the forms of charity, the safeguards that are 
 thrown around the use of trust funds to keep them 
 to their true intent, or the intelligent and discrimi- 
 nating use of moneys for the improvement of man- 
 kind. It is strange reasoning that goes back to such 
 crude conditions for a warning to an age like this. 
 
 We have been going back to the fall of Rome 
 for ominous warnings in civil government for cen- 
 turies. The French Revolution is a standing proph- 
 ecy of our bloody downfall — things that do not 
 duplicate, unfortunately for the prophets but fortu- 
 nately for the people. The state of things of the 
 past ages from which we are warned of the danger 
 
 249
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 of charitable trusts will not be repeated until we put 
 the times back there and make men as ignorant and 
 make their religion as solely ecclesiastical, and our 
 charity as indiscriminate a hand-to-mouth affair, and 
 the ministers of mercy and philanthropy like the 
 herd feeding at the common crib. 
 
 The sun shadow does not go back on the dial. 
 What we have learned by the world's blunders we 
 shall not unlearn or throw away. It is simply a 
 question of whether this age is enough bigger than 
 those ages which have gone to carry responsibilities 
 with which they failed. 
 
 The fact that we see their errors, that we criti- 
 cise them, and that we have made laws to prevent 
 their repetition is sufficient demonstration. In argu- 
 ing our danger we show our ability to avoid the dan- 
 ger. Using Paul's method, who on one occasion 
 said: " I protest by your rejoicing," we say: " I pro- 
 test by your fears ! " 
 
 The trouble with men in reasoning concerning un- 
 usual things is that they have no perspective. They 
 can only compare the great things of their age with 
 the lesser great things of a smaller age. 
 
 The attempts, therefore, to legislate for the fu- 
 ture or to make warning predictions of things not 
 seen are often more foolish than wise. Our own at- 
 tempt at reconstruction after the Civil War is a dis- 
 mal instance. There probably is not an intelligent 
 citizen of our country who does not see now where 
 great blunders were made and who does not wonder 
 
 250
 
 CHARITABLE TRUSTS 
 
 that men of forty years ago did not see the future 
 more clearly. The only man who did see it was 
 killed by the assassin and escaped the assassination 
 for that time of his reputation as a statesman. 
 
 No age has legislated successfully for itself or 
 for the future in all things. Every age is repairing 
 constantly the mistakes of the preceding ages which 
 have been made by men who assumed the wisdom 
 of the future. The Magna Charta and the Amer- 
 ican Constitution did not come out of the proph- 
 ecies and revelations. They are gigantic corrections 
 of legislative blunders and executive abuses. And 
 there are many subsequent amendments revealed as 
 time goes by. 
 
 As seers we have made small progress. We 
 gather the disproportioned stones quarried for plans 
 only partially understood by our forefathers and 
 with them build imperfectly our own times. 
 
 It will be proved in the next generation that we 
 have understood our problem no better than our 
 fathers understood theirs. We are making a worse 
 showing, all things considered, in our adjustment of 
 the proportion of things than has any age preceding 
 us. We are showing our puerility in our fright and 
 alarmed confusion over trusts which we are trying to 
 regulate for all time. 
 
 We have undertaken to secure the future against 
 those things which are too great for us in our own 
 age. We can safely dismiss our fears, for what we 
 fail to do, wise men, following in generations ever in- 
 
 251
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 creasing in the stature of their minds, will do. If we 
 cannot see how Marshall Field's fifty-year-entailed 
 fortune is to accumulate without swallowing up the 
 capital of the continent, we need not worry. Other 
 men are coming — men who will see to those things 
 with the greater ease because of their wisdom and 
 ours. Five billions will not seem so great a sum in 
 fifty years as it does now, and the values with which 
 it is to be compared will increase in a half century 
 enormously. A nation that is increasing in wealth 
 ten millions a day need not worry lest some one or 
 some two or three possess five billions. We shall 
 change the proportions in the next century faster 
 and more vastly than we have in the past five cen- 
 turies. 
 
 And men of great minds magnificently furnished 
 from the schools and trained in the use of the forces 
 out of which the universe was built will be in charge. 
 They will be the common people. If there is any- 
 thing to frighten us, it is that we are to be dwarfed 
 in comparison with the men who are to be created 
 by trusts in education, in charity, and in commerce. 
 Our danger is that the march of God's great move- 
 ments sweep over us and bury us in oblivion. 
 
 We are cave dwellers discussing modern sky- 
 scrapers. We are coolies with jinrikishas afraid of 
 the Twentieth Century Limited. 
 
 With all of our conceit of things, we shall be off 
 the stage less than a generation when other men will 
 be undoing our wisdom with a greater wisdom, and 
 
 252
 
 CHARITABLE TRUSTS 
 
 doing the things multiplied a hundredfold which 
 we feel so sure are to bring the world to an end. 
 
 Our safest way Is to plan immense things, as great 
 as we can, and leave the perfection of them to men 
 who will piece out the years which fail us. 
 
 The great charitable and educational trust funds 
 are not large. They are relatively small. One hun- 
 dred millions of last year's gifts was a drop in the 
 bucket. It was swallowed by thirsty causes as the 
 dry earth drinks a summer shower. A billion dol- 
 lars In fourteen years when distributed through our 
 vast country, Its hundreds of universities, colleges, 
 professional and technical schools, its hospitals, asy- 
 lums, and other charities, Is far from an " enormous 
 total." It Is a fund so small that not a dollar of It 
 has reached hundreds of most worthy causes. And, 
 besides. It is not what it appears to be to some nervous 
 minds In Its vast aggregation, for it Is In hundreds of 
 different sums. It goes In no great sum to any one 
 cause. 
 
 It will have to reach many more billions than are 
 at all likely before the currents flowing out into thou- 
 sands of beneficences become stagnant and subject 
 to misuse and perversion. 
 
 We are startled by the " enormous total " sim- 
 ply because we have not seen the world giving Its 
 tenths to God's great charities. If the Hebrew 
 tithe were applied there would " not be room to con- 
 tain It." We are too far away from that to begin to 
 put on the brakes and reverse the engine. 
 
 253
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 We have but to look about ourselves and see the 
 enormous desert waiting to be irrigated education- 
 ally, the thousands of towns without hospital or dis- 
 pensary, the millions living in vice or disease-breed- 
 ing conditions calling for sanitation, the intemperance 
 and licentiousness, fetid miasmic swamps waiting mil- 
 lions of money to construct moral drainage canals. 
 
 How strange it sounds in such an age when there 
 are such tremendous exigencies in the varied estate 
 of mankind demanding money — money to furnish 
 men, money to change the face of nature, money to 
 apply healthful, natural, and moral laws, money to 
 inspire self-respect and courage, money to supply our 
 nation, appallingly increasing in immigrated igno- 
 rance, with educated citizens. How passing strange 
 in such a land and age for an intelligent man to be- 
 come alarmed at permanent gifts of five billions in 
 fourteen years to all of these causes. 
 
 The danger is greater that men may be misled 
 by the sophistries against charity trusts and that the 
 healthful movement toward such endowments be 
 turned backward. 
 
 As an illustration of the demand, take any con- 
 siderable university. It has twenty departments in 
 the college proper and a couple of hundred courses 
 including the different electives forced upon us by the 
 clamor for practical education, besides more or less 
 graduate or upper degree work. There is often the 
 coordinate group of professional and technical col- 
 leges and schools. It requires more money to-day to 
 
 254
 
 CHARITABLE TRUSTS 
 
 found worthily one department of the academic col- 
 lege than it was thought could be profitably used in 
 an entire college less than a century ago, and the in- 
 stitution is but moderately endowed with $10,000,- 
 000. That provides but a modest salary for men 
 of great ability and leaves nothing for pensions to 
 men who have been denied the privilege and hope 
 of securing their homes against the rainy day. 
 
 Institutions such as Harvard was fifty years ago 
 would not be tolerated to-day. The smallest college 
 must aspire to the best books, the best apparatus, the 
 best laboratories, and the best teachers. The de- 
 mand has been created by the discovery of new worlds 
 of research and activity — boundless possibilities in 
 the realm of life and force. 
 
 Take surgery and medicine as another illustra- 
 tion. Their schools surpass the dreams- of past gen- 
 erations. They are young yet. 
 
 Charity is no longer simply feeding the hungry 
 and clothing the naked. It searches for causes and 
 removes them. It furnishes self-reliance and self- 
 support. It builds model houses and teaches cooking 
 and garment-making in the homes, and shows the 
 workingman the things that can be done with the 
 money that makes the saloonkeeper's family comfort- 
 able, leaving his own family miserable and degraded. 
 It rescues the children from ignorance and crime and 
 regenerates habits while feeding the hungry. And 
 can anyone see through this problem and tell the 
 time when it will not be an expensive study? " The 
 
 2SS
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 poor ye have with you always." And the sick will 
 be here to the end of time. There is no danger that 
 time will last long enough to " extinguish these spe- 
 cific objects." Men always will have to be taught 
 in schools. Their number has increased a hundred- 
 fold within a comparatively short time. The increase 
 in the higher forms will be a thousandfold before 
 the charitable trusts have become a shadow of a men- 
 ace. Sickness and poverty will not become " extin- 
 guished objects." Human nature has a long run of 
 those appetites and passions which create crime, and 
 crime will not be an extinguished object until it 
 has extinguished the trust funds that are applied for 
 its correction. 
 
 The general application will save us from the two 
 specific results by which such funds shall exhaust 
 their usefulness and lie idle, tempting the cupidity of 
 men. And the fact that these funds are to be vested 
 in separate institutions of a healthful emulation and 
 rivalry will prove a safeguard. 
 
 If it were possible for all great funds to be 
 merged into one and partiality to be used in applying 
 it, the danger of oppression and unjust discrimina- 
 tion would be serious. 
 
 There is something of this possibility in the Car- 
 negie Pension Fund for college workers. If con- 
 ditions are made impossible to some of the colleges, 
 there will be imposed upon them a burden, because 
 discontent will be created in the faculties and men will 
 be attracted to colleges favored by the administra- 
 
 256
 
 CHARITABLE TRUSTS 
 
 tion of this fund. But the remedy will be not in 
 overthrowing the fund but in creating more funds of 
 the kind, so that no college shall be discriminated 
 against. 
 
 The best answer to the danger of which we are 
 warned is in the working of certain church and chari- 
 table trusts of sufficient age to give certain testimony. 
 The Trinity endowments and the Reformed Collegi- 
 ate also extend into many millions. The result is 
 seen in the strongest possible propaganda in New 
 York City. 
 
 The whole denomination is quickened. Churches 
 have seized the finest locations. Hospitals have an- 
 ticipated the trend of population and education has 
 received reenforcement that the tardy gifts of the con- 
 stituency were dangerously delaying. The market 
 has not suffered a straw by investments, withheld or 
 made. 
 
 A similar illustration may be found in the church 
 extension trusts of the great churches. No harm has 
 come to any interest, but great aggressiveness has 
 vindicated the wisdom of these mighty loan funds. 
 There is a vast difference between the things that 
 might be and the things that are likely to be, between 
 possibilities and probabilities. The things that are 
 not probable need not worry us. 
 
 The argument drawn from the imperhnn in im- 
 perio it seems to me does not hold. If great chari- 
 table trusts were for the purpose of creating a class 
 with enormous holdings, or if educational foundations 
 
 257
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 were in common and had for their possibility the es- 
 tablishing of an educated class with an immense total 
 of millions, perhaps billions, as a political lever, there 
 might be some force in the reference to a " secular 
 nobility of feudal lords," etc. 
 
 But, as we have shown, we are not threatened by 
 one fund in even any one cause, and there are many 
 funds making up the aggregate in persons stimulated 
 by a healthy emulation. 
 
 The greatest conservator is in the fact that these 
 funds are used not to increase the power and influence 
 of their trustees but to improve the conditions of the 
 State by removing those distinctive elements of pov- 
 erty, ignorance, and vice which always are a menace. 
 So that instead of being of dangerous tendency, they 
 are working continually to secure more safely the 
 foundations of the State. And the more such money 
 is expended the better it is for every citizen. 
 
 We are a self-governing nation and therefore the 
 education of every voter is of vast Importance, for 
 every voter Is a ruler. Educational trust funds or 
 endowments, therefore, are moneys held by trustees 
 for the direct purposes of the State. The same is 
 true of the other charities, and in nothing more than 
 in the Intelligent study of " living conditions " con- 
 templated by the Sage Fund as set forth by the far- 
 sighted scheme of Mr. Robert W. De Forest. 
 
 The charitable trust is the very opposite of a men- 
 ace. If It were to build up a sect — any sect — It would 
 be different, for It is a serious question whether any 
 
 258
 
 CHARITABLE TRUSTS 
 
 sect could withstand unlimited endowment — or of 
 a billion or any great sum in excess of its practical 
 religious wants. A sect could change to the Ethio- 
 pian's skin or take on the leopard's spots. But it is 
 not so in the use of immense sums to change condi- 
 tions which threaten the very life of the nation. 
 
 The illustrations given frequently have reference 
 more to certain forms. Sometimes these obstruct the 
 end proposed, but they do not touch the integrity of 
 such trusts in charity as these under discussion. 
 
 It is a healthful sign that the donors of these im- 
 mense sums place little emphasis upon the mere 
 " how " of doing things. Certain conditions obtain 
 which long have been discussed by sociologists and 
 economists. They are well-recognized perils if not 
 corrected. They are more than the misery of to-day's 
 victims of poverty and vice. They are of the nerve and 
 sinew of the nation. Men of gigantic wealth, appre- 
 ciating their obligation according to the measure of 
 their wealth, with a true and noble patriotism give 
 their millions to serve their country at such points as 
 seem to them most important and practicable. They 
 do not expect anything in return. They learned long 
 ago that their present reward would be personal abuse 
 and distrust of their motives. This makes their 
 patriotism the greater. 
 
 The trustees of their funds In trust for the causes 
 named In them are citizens of varying estates, with 
 scarcely the possibility of an unworthy combination 
 for selfish purposes in the use of these great funds. 
 
 259
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 The brevity of human life makes frequent succession 
 a necessity. 
 
 Were it possible for men to misuse trusts so con- 
 stantly active and so under the eye of jealous benefi- 
 ciaries, such betrayal of trust is self-corrective by cer- 
 tain exposure. 
 
 If ever trust funds outlived their purpose and 
 their specific objects no longer called for their divi- 
 dends, it is entirely competent for the State to 
 give them a direction by which they would go on 
 serving the State and thus fulfilling the prime pur- 
 pose of their donors. But that time is so remote 
 in the millennium that it is not a matter of practical 
 consideration. 
 
 The last element of danger seems to be the 
 least. It is true that large funds could be used 
 " as a determining influence in financial opera- 
 tions." But this could hardly be true when there 
 are many of these great funds with a common 
 interest in a stable financial condition. They would 
 operate, if at all, to hold a safe equilibrium in 
 the commercial world. They would not be in the 
 hand of the speculator. And it is not true that the 
 great secular interests " wield their power in a way 
 to resist any extension even the most reasonable of 
 public control over corporate or other privileged ac- 
 tivity." The great corporations have insisted for 
 years upon a general law and federal supervision cre- 
 ated by statesmen and not by demagogues or politi- 
 cal novices. 
 
 260
 
 CHARITABLE TRUSTS 
 
 The fear that has been expressed that the trustees 
 of these great funds might possibly be " fine old gen- 
 tlemen selected for their probity, but overtrustful and 
 not disposed to take too active an interest in the con- 
 cerns which they are supposed to watch," suggests 
 an abnormal sensitiveness to danger which goes far 
 to discredit the contention. 
 
 One of the most assuring features of these great 
 trust funds for purposes of education and charity is 
 the selection of the men for trustees to whom they 
 have been committed. Men like Dr. Pritchett, of 
 the Carnegie Fund, the great president of the Mas- 
 sachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dr. Butt- 
 rick, of the Rockefeller Fund, give ample assurance 
 that their trusts will not fall victims to Wall Street 
 or to any other evil money genius. 
 
 It is an unspeakable joy to educators and philan- 
 thropists that the millions are being made an offering 
 to humanity. 
 
 Since men have differed from the foundations of 
 the earth and always will differ in the faculty of ac- 
 quisitiveness, and since there will be a perpetual dif- 
 ference in opportunity, health, and other circum- 
 stances, the great trust funds that promote conditions 
 and that do not foster mendicancy are the wisest 
 promise for equalizing the most essential circum- 
 stances of human life. 
 
 The demand for such sources of helpful provi- 
 sions is so enormous and increasingly so in these times 
 that they cannot be trusted to the mutations of 
 18 261
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 business prosperity and the incidents of impulsive 
 giving. 
 
 One need only to lift up his eyes to fields whiter 
 and wider than those which Christ showed His dis- 
 ciples to appreciate the extent to which fortunes may 
 be devoted to a thousand kinds of philanthropy, and 
 how little is the danger that such treasuries will be- 
 come the envy or the prey of mercenary minds. They 
 will be ever empty If always filled. The outlet will 
 be many fold larger than the inlet. 
 
 We are touching only the edge of the world. 
 There are several mighty peoples that have not yet 
 passed out of their crudest conditions; a thousand 
 years will see some of them in the pupa state. 
 
 Our peculiar relation to the world, placed in its 
 very center, endowed with the equivalent of its com- 
 bined wealth, awakened to the magnitude of universe 
 forces, summoning to our invention and practical sci- 
 ence the genius of all ages, puts upon us the respon- 
 sibility and the privilege of leading the thought and 
 ethical ideals of all men who are lower than our- 
 selves upward to man's final summit. Our money 
 will some day come to have its chief value, as it has 
 to some minds now, in the leverage it will put un- 
 der the conditions of mankind. 
 
 As it is accumulated in great trust funds, intel- 
 ligence and sympathy will increase also and its ad- 
 ministration will become increasingly wise. 
 
 The mistakes of the past will be avoided not by 
 leaving the world to the hopeless gropings of a blind 
 
 262
 
 CHARITABLE TRUSTS 
 
 evolution, to return ever helpless upon itself like one 
 lost in a forest, but by a clear discernment of the de- 
 mands of sane conditions out of which may be cre- 
 ated self-confidence, self-reliance, self-support, with 
 self-respect. 
 
 And the activities of an intensified civilization 
 will prevent the most generous, the very largest bene- 
 factions of increasing wealth from stagnating in 
 miasmic pools. They will be sent forth daily in broad 
 rivers and streams to refresh and make fruitful the 
 whole earth.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 ANEW Pharisaism has come among us. Phar- 
 isaism is a persistent moral disease. It so 
 takes on the shape of righteous protest 
 against sin; it is such a garment of hght that it usu- 
 ally gets a well-intrenched position before its true 
 character is discovered. It condemns what is and 
 boasts superior things. Its most successful modern 
 pretensions are along the paths of the poor, where 
 it firmly lays claim to superior sympathy with 
 the weak, who are oppressed by the strong and the 
 rich. 
 
 Its shibboleth, which for the time seems effective 
 and gives it a cordial welcome, is " Tainted Money." 
 It is an original invention. It is a home-made and 
 a ready-made commodity. It is made up out of an 
 assumption pure and simple. Like all pharisaism 
 It is an assault upon the character of other men's 
 works and it is indiscriminate and sweeping. It has 
 undertaken to say what has not been in the power of 
 courts to say. It is a discerner of spirits. Where it 
 cannot separate the good and the bad in individual 
 
 264
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 acts It does the easier thing of putting the whole un- 
 der the broad label of its taint accusation. 
 
 Because men are in business which certain little 
 novelists and retaliating competitors condemn as dis- 
 honest, because their particular form of business is 
 of unusual proportions and supplants, as the railroad 
 did the stage coach, smaller proportions which make 
 a violent protest, the new pharlsaism comes in to 
 bring the offenders to judgment by condemning the 
 proceeds of the business as unclean and tainted and 
 therefore not to be used by good people for good 
 causes. 
 
 But the new pharlsee is considerate. He does 
 not carry his logic to the condemning of all busmess 
 that Is not certified and thereby shutting us out of the 
 use of everything because It may have In It some dis- 
 honest weight or measure, but only such as has grown 
 big enough to become the subject of the frenzied 
 magazine story, great enough to be easily seen be- 
 cause incorporated and large In dividends. 
 
 It would involve too much detail to examine every 
 dollar and It is sufficient for the purpose of the new 
 pharlsaism to condemn the big dollar. But such 
 trifling Inconsistency never has embarrassed the pharl- 
 see in the remotest or most recent time. 
 
 This latest kind is sure of a following, for If there 
 is anything that appeals to men it is money. It is a 
 subject of constant discussion whether we have it or 
 do not have It. 
 
 The dollar has given the world a great deal of 
 265
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 trouble, mostly for the need of it but sometimes for 
 the care of it and often in the use of it. It has 
 been hard for the average man to get and to keep and 
 to use for a value received. 
 
 It has its effect upon human character, making 
 some thieves and murderers and others miserly and 
 merciless. Some it has made vain and foolish and 
 some it has debauched by excess of riches. 
 
 The Bible says that the love of it is the root of 
 all evil. Many, however, have put It into such a 
 relation to the nobler faculties and have used It with 
 such a lofty purpose that it has given them immense 
 power for good. The dollar has helped them to be 
 greater and better men. And I imagine that we all 
 of us have so much confidence In ourselves that we 
 think we could safely use It. I never have heard of 
 any man who, railing at riches, declined them, so 
 great Is the confidence of men that they can right- 
 eously use them. 
 
 But now comes this new doctrine with regard to 
 the dollar. It must furnish Its pedigree. It must 
 give references before one can use It morally in any 
 great benevolences. These doctrinaires permit it to 
 be used for paying taxes and buying and selling and 
 purchasing goods and the wages of cooks and coach- 
 men. They permit it to be sent home In the pocket 
 of the laboring man to the sweet and innocent wife 
 and children and they will allow a gambler or saloon- 
 keeper to buy his dinner with the dollar fresh from 
 the hand of the latest victim of his nefarious craft 
 
 266
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 and the merchant to take it in trade without a ques- 
 tion. And I have not heard that the contribution 
 boxes in the churches are labeled: " From the good 
 only." No watch is kept lest a dishonestly obtained 
 bill is put on the plate or that it be taken out when the 
 money is used for the church account. 
 
 But the dollar must account for itself if it comes 
 from certain men whose motives and business trans- 
 actions have been weighed by the censors of human 
 transactions, the judges guarded against in the New 
 Testament, should it propose to go into the treasury 
 of a university or a missionary society. Unless it 
 can prove that it was honestly made, it must not pay 
 college coal bills or give instruction to the heathen or 
 pay a minister's salary or do any good whatever. It 
 is better not to pay for such things until the dollar 
 brings along its certificate of good character. 
 
 There are some embarrassing things about the 
 tainted dollar which our friends, the pharisees, have 
 not revealed. For instance, by what process does the 
 taint wear off this dollar and how long is it corrupted 
 and can it ever get pure? 
 
 If a millionaire who is not certificated by the 
 censors should pay $10,000 to my neighbor, can this 
 neighbor take the money and give $1,000 of it to 
 me for the church? Was the taint worn off by 
 going through an honest man's hands or the hands 
 of several honest men? If so, would it not be taken 
 off by going directly to an honest purpose? I con- 
 cede just for the purpose of the question what I do 
 
 267
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 not believe, that It was dishonest money when it 
 started out. Can an institution or cause of benevo- 
 lence take corporation dividends direct? The stock 
 is owned by Christian men and women who stand as 
 well in their community as the pharisees in theirs. 
 If not, can the proceeds of such dividends be used 
 for these good purposes after they have been trans- 
 muted through the banks and the hands of innocent 
 business men or through the firms of men who cheated 
 on a scale too small to be detected? 
 
 Somewhere between the octopus and the altar the 
 dollar must be regenerated or it is a lost dollar. 
 Ought it to be buried or burned or thrown into the 
 sea? 
 
 But if any man can redeem it, what man and what 
 happens to him — is he the vicarious sacrifice to a dol- 
 lar? And how many men does it take and what are 
 the processes that will satisfy the man who flees such 
 horrible contamination? 
 
 But some of us are skeptical about the taint. 
 And it never has been explained how it can be. The 
 dollar has no personality. It can take on no quality 
 but the material. It can have microbes on it and 
 some of the bills we have to handle appear to have 
 come from unwashed hands and some of them bear 
 contagious disease germs and they ought to be boiled 
 and soaked in lye. But where is the moral taint? It 
 is in the use of it, perhaps. But the Master told us 
 that it was not the material things that contaminated 
 men, not even what one ate and drank. And cer- 
 
 268
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 tainly you could not point to a building on a uni- 
 versity campus or to a church and say " That was 
 built with tainted money " without reversing the 
 teachings of Jesus Christ. Who knows what dollars 
 are In any building? Who knows what hypocrites 
 may be behind any accredited offering to the Lord? 
 Who ever heard a word from our Master making 
 such discrimination? Paul even permitted meat of- 
 fered to Idols to be eaten In the fear of God. 
 
 But a man might offer you money as a price of 
 your silence against sin ! Would you take money 
 from a thief? If a man cannot see the difference be- 
 tween taking money from a burglar and from a busi- 
 ness man whose business may be condemned by some 
 who are prejudiced against it, his ethical sense Is too 
 obtuse for practical use. If a saloonkeeper were to 
 offer me money, one thousand or one hundred thou- 
 sand, to purchase my silence and to restrain my voice 
 against his accursed business, I ought to say, *' Your 
 money perish with you ! " But that is not because the 
 use of that money for a lawful purpose would be 
 tainted. What is the legal right of the man to give 
 the money? What is the purpose of the donor and 
 my purpose In its use? Does the State recognize the 
 right of a business man to have the proceeds of his 
 business and to give It away? Who is going to judge 
 him? Hate, prejudice, clamor? Who is to decide 
 his right to what he has — the demagogue and the 
 pharisee? Do you say that I must find out? Then 
 I must stop when a man hands me his check and 
 
 269
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 say, my friend, we greatly need the money to edu- 
 cate young men and young women, but before I can 
 take it you must tell me where you got it and how 
 the man made it that you got it of and what the 
 man before him did to secure it, because we learned 
 from the ancient pharisees to be very careful about 
 these things, and the government has not put the cor- 
 poration mark on the dollars, you know ! 
 
 For the doctrine must be of general application. 
 It will not do to restrict it to some one person against 
 whom prejudices have been excited and whose busi- 
 ness it has become popular to condemn. We must 
 use no money that was made dishonestly or by ques- 
 tionable methods by anybody. And it will not do to 
 say that we are not accountable if we do not know be- 
 cause it is our duty diligently to search for this taint 
 and leave no careless possibility of such dollars reach- 
 ing the Lord's treasury. 
 
 Is this the teaching of the greatest teacher and 
 example the world ever has seen? We do not find 
 a solitary example of it in Christ's teachings. There 
 was the broad injunction to render to Caesar the 
 things of Caesar and to God the things of God, but 
 the man and not his neighbor was to determine that. 
 Our Master went so far as to tell us that we in our 
 personal and unofficial capacity were not to try to 
 pull the tares out of the wheat. The conditions of 
 the world were such that the censorious, ethical, hair- 
 splitting processes would destroy both wheat and 
 tares. 
 
 270
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 Certainly no one need fail to discriminate be- 
 tween a burglar's stolen money and what has lately 
 come to be known as tainted money. Every boy 
 knows that one cannot take stolen goods without 
 being a partaker with the thief. But the proceeds 
 of recognized business are quite a different thing. It 
 is not permitted to any class of men from ex parte 
 accusations and untried indictments to impose their 
 private judgment upon men who differ from them as 
 to the legitimacy of that form of trade. And even 
 when the government sits in judgment by a final court 
 it says what belongs to the State or to a complainant, 
 and also what are the only practicable forms of 
 restitution and whether the business shall go on or 
 not. Beyond this, to his own Master the man stands 
 or falls. 
 
 A clamor is raised against great forms of busi- 
 ness, greater than the men who assail them, and the 
 assault in most such cases is carried to the Court of 
 Heaven under a charge of moral taint; no final ver- 
 dict has been rendered; thousands of honest and 
 thoughtful men not accepting the charge. The furor 
 seems to many like the mint and anise of the pharisee, 
 and all who differ from these self-constituted judges 
 of motives and methods which they have weighed in 
 the balances of their excited prejudices are branded 
 as without keen ethical sense or as purchased by per- 
 sonal interest. 
 
 You remember that Jesus Christ met one day a 
 rich man, and his preaching was so effective that the 
 
 271
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 man said that he would give half his goods to the 
 poor and he would restore fourfold of what he had 
 taken unjustly. Did the Lord say: "Hold, your 
 money is tainted. You cannot give It away, nobody 
 can take it. It was not stolen, but it was not made 
 honestly and no one should touch it. You must keep 
 it unless you can put it all back whence you got it, all 
 that you got honestly and dishonestly, for that mat- 
 ter, for you stand for dishonest business methods and 
 you cannot give anything to charity. Your money is 
 tainted money. And you must keep it or destroy it so 
 that it will not taint any other person." 
 
 Strange that the Master did not tell us that a 
 man who took Zaccheus's money for charity would 
 be a " fence " or particeps with a thief. Dr. Gladden 
 tells us that Mr. Rockefeller's $32,000,000 for edu- 
 cation is restitution. Well, if that is so we can take 
 it on the authority of Christ, who sanctioned Zac- 
 cheus's purpose. 
 
 There are minds of sufficient ethical discernment 
 to see the difference between the use of the pieces of 
 silver that Judas took to the pharisees and that of the 
 money that Zaccheus proposed to give to the poor. 
 And It is not proved by any means that a modern 
 millionaire is even a Zaccheus because he happens to 
 make his money in a corporation and is the victim 
 of " ranting against capitalists." 
 
 The poor multimillionaire who has not carried his 
 business to the court of the pharisees and received 
 their certificate of good character is In an embarrass- 
 
 272
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 ing situation. There does not seem to be anything 
 that he can do but to keep his money until he dies 
 and have it buried with him. Ah me, the pharisees ! 
 How they do persist from age to age in judging all 
 men ! I rather take my chances with Zaccheus than 
 with the pharisees ! 
 
 I believe that no more specious form of phari- 
 saism has appeared since the days when the pharisees 
 were rebuked by Christ on the earth than this present 
 attempt to convey moral taint to material things or 
 to the use of material things without regard to the 
 purpose and character of their uses. 
 
 There is connected with it a depraving process 
 to him who does such judging, and a great injustice 
 often to the accused. Nothing did Christ more 
 severely condemn than the practice of judging the 
 motives and acts of our neighbors. Nothing so 
 quickly dries up the fountains of magnanimity and 
 that charity which the apostle tells us is the greatest 
 of all virtues. Nothing turns a man so quickly into 
 a snarling cynic. Nothing indicates such narrowness 
 and shallowness of both thought and feeling. 
 
 And by what divine prescience do such judges of 
 their fellow-men single out men and declare their 
 guilt, even before the courts have rendered their final 
 decision? And by what power of discrimination do 
 such men penetrate the quality of acts and tell us what 
 is against human law is also against divine law, and 
 by what omniscient eye do they catalogue the deeds 
 of men and declare to us what dollars are tainted and 
 
 273
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 what are Infallible when made by the same men? 
 The recklessness and wholesale sweeping condemna- 
 tion of certain men by name without any discrimina- 
 tion as to acts, whether some are right and some 
 wrong, shows the reckless and unchristian malevo- 
 lence to which such men have become victims by men 
 who are setting up their spiteful prejudice as a 
 judgment seat in the House of God. 
 
 Christ had the moral ancestors of such men be- 
 fore Him one day on a very much worse case than 
 dishonest dollars, and He said to the accusers, " The 
 one among you who Is without sin begin to throw 
 stones at her." And they threw no stones, but hurried 
 away in confusion. 
 
 Men are, without doubt, making money dishon- 
 estly, though not always those accused. If they are, 
 the law should restrain them and will. But there Is 
 something as bad as dishonest money-getters — and 
 that is a pharisalcal censorlousness. It Is a blight 
 of religion, a mildew that dwarfs every noble in- 
 stinct, a poison that kills every sweet charity. 
 
 How shall we account for the wide-spreading 
 hatred of wealth and the Insidious attacks that are 
 being made upon the dollar whenever it is seen In 
 the hands of successful men in any considerable 
 amount, called " swollen fortunes " — this levellng- 
 down process, a doctrine that is rampant from the 
 White House to the socialists' camp ? 
 
 The peril of it is in the fact that It Is all In the 
 name and professed to be for the poor and the op- 
 
 274
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 pressed. As though the destruction of riches would 
 help the poor and relieve the condition of the desti- 
 tute. 
 
 The dollars are wicked when accumulated in 
 millions. They are clean if the amount is small 
 enough ! A politician much in evidence says that 
 when they are over fifty per cent of any form of 
 business, they are bad dollars and you must not touch 
 them ! And they become very wicked when char- 
 tered as a corporation or when they do so much busi- 
 ness at a cheap rate that men with less capital and 
 facilities cannot compete with them because you will 
 not pay the price for the goods. A strange fever has 
 come over the land to destroy, to disorganize, and 
 scatter wealth in these forms, and the people are 
 blindly following their blind leaders. 
 
 We have suffered something from railway trains 
 off their schedule and from watered stocks and from 
 high prices of meats and from competition of great 
 organized trade which has driven some men out of 
 business. This discontent with new adjustments and 
 change into new times is the demagogue's oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 And the country is in this startling condition to- 
 day, without a foremost candidate for the presidency 
 of either party who is not discrediting business and 
 assailing especially these corporate forms which have 
 made the commercial age and placed education and 
 philanthropy upon a wider and nobler basis. 
 
 The peril is appalling, because under such leader- 
 275
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 ship the sturdy people of our land are joined prac- 
 tically as never before to that socialistic and an- 
 archistic element which is relentlessly at war with 
 all forms of government and bitterly hostile to the 
 accumulation of wealth. We are to-day in the camp 
 of socialism and we do not know it. But the so- 
 cialists know It and boast It. And we shall find that 
 we went into the camp of socialism very much more 
 easily than we shall go out of It. 
 
 A class hatred has been created never before 
 known in this country. Our industrial pursuits and 
 wealth-producing enterprises to which are belted the 
 shaftings and pulleys of civilization are being as- 
 sailed. 
 
 President Woodrow Wilson is reported to have 
 said that we have become sordid In our passion of 
 wealth-getting. He probably said nothing of the 
 kind, for he Is too Intelligent to make such an utter- 
 ance, but It is a current phrase, nevertheless. The 
 getting of wealth has not required the sordid passion. 
 It Is an age in which men have discovered the ways 
 of reaching the resources of the earth and of using 
 the forces of nature, and the wealth of the age has 
 poured out of discoveries that are the contributions of 
 science and the useful arts. Its possession has sur- 
 prised thousands of poor boys into wealth and is 
 changing the poor into the rich in every place and 
 year In our land. 
 
 Never have there been such times into which men 
 could turn trifles into fortunes. Up In Maine a few 
 
 276
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 ye irs ago a man conceived the idea of cutting an eye- 
 let into the corner of a piece of cardboard and tying 
 a string into it and it made him a millionaire. A 
 professor in Boston University caught the idea of 
 making articulate sound by a curious diaphragm and 
 a current of electricity and it made him famous and 
 rich and gave the world the telephone. By a thou- 
 sand such notions, inventions, and discoveries and by 
 the development of our fruitful soil, the wealth of 
 our land has mounted into the billions until every 
 day of the year witnesses the addition of ten millions 
 of dollars to our financial strength and power. 
 
 And the great bulk of all of this enormous wealth 
 has come out of those things that have added to the 
 intellectual strength of the people and the infinite 
 treasury of their knowledge, elevating the character, 
 the self-respect, the taste, and the culture of the 
 people. 
 
 And the character of the wealth-getting of to-day 
 is seen in the uses that are made of it. The miser 
 is a curiosity. The man who hoards money or with- 
 holds It from useful ends is despised and ridiculed 
 by his fellow-men, and the more he has by such proc- 
 esses the meaner he is made to appear. This is the 
 clearest evidence of the way in which the people 
 estimate riches. 
 
 It is a fact so universal that the exception is 
 odiously conspicuous that rich men to-day are the first 
 at the front in all great benevolences and philan- 
 thropies. They get their chief happiness out of their 
 19 277
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 wealth by using it to better the conditions of man- 
 kind in the church, in education, in the fine arts, and 
 in institutions of mercy. The world never has seen 
 anything like it. It is a rare thing to see a man mak- 
 ing money for money's sake. It would be an un- 
 worthy thing for a man to refuse to make money for 
 useful purposes. 
 
 I know that Christ has been quoted as an enemy 
 of wealth. It is, however, like many other mistaken 
 conceptions of His teachings. He drew the line at 
 the useful purpose and employment of riches. He 
 left one rich man in perdition for having no pity 
 and refusing to help the perishing poor. He was 
 exceedingly sorrowful over another who thought 
 more of his possessions than of the truth which was 
 worth a million such fortunes, whose soul was being 
 starved and dwarfed by the love of riches. But He 
 said of another: " I have not seen so great faith, no 
 not In Israel " — not in the church. 
 
 And there never has been a time nor a cause of 
 Christianity when the simple Christian office and 
 work has not demanded the wealth which the poor 
 could not give. Nor has there been a time when It has 
 not numbered among its followers men of riches, 
 from the ruler who built the synagogue to the rich 
 man of Arimathea who begged the body of our Lord 
 that he might lay it in his own new tomb hewn out of 
 the rock. And how God honored that rich man's 
 tomb by making It the only Immortal tomb the world 
 ever has seen ! 
 
 278
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 I remember the account of the rich man and the 
 needle's eye and, if I did not, I should be reminded 
 of it by the unthinking clamor of a class that seems to 
 think that if you are only poor enough you will get 
 to Heaven, and if you are only rich enough you will 
 go to hell. 
 
 It Is hard for any man to purchase a way to 
 truth or virtue or Heaven, It is impossible. And it 
 is true that if a man puts his whole soul into the 
 things he possesses and gives no attention to those of 
 his neighbor, he can no more go through the strait 
 gate than a camel can go through the needle's eye. 
 And it does not make any difference whether the 
 needle's eye was the eye of a needle or a very narrow 
 place so called. It was a place he could not get 
 through. 
 
 But God has made the rich of this world, with 
 whom He made His grave, to serve Him. He has 
 shown them a way to be rich and to be humble, to 
 be rich and to be poor in spirit, to be rich and to be 
 stewards of His kingdom, to have this world's goods 
 and to be rich toward God. 
 
 Anybody can be rich toward God by being de- 
 voted with what he is and with what he has to a life 
 of usefulness, after the pattern and by the pure, un- 
 selfish spirit of Christ. 
 
 The man who had laid up treasures upon the 
 earth and was not rich toward God was the man 
 who attempted to make his wealth serve his happi- 
 ness and power. He was one of the rich men who, 
 
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 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 Mr. Carnegie says, never laughs. But the rich men 
 who know God, who serve their race, who bless man- 
 kind, who sympathize with the poor, laugh. There 
 are kinds of checks which they sign that make them 
 happy. 
 
 We ought to encourage such men. We have 
 done too much bewailing the rich in our churches. 
 We have too often misinterpreted Christ con- 
 cerning them and have made our attacks indis- 
 criminately and driven away from our good causes 
 rich men, God's stewards, who would have carried 
 them forward nobly. In our just sympathy for the 
 common people and our emphasis upon character we 
 have given the impression that Dives represented the 
 rich. 
 
 God wants the rich men. Christ would have 
 used Dives if he would have followed Him; and the 
 rich young ruler he would have loved and shown 
 how to get genuine happiness out of his riches. 
 There is not a teaching of the New Testament that 
 intimates that Christ would make all men poor in 
 purse. He did not come to impoverish the world. 
 His doctrines have made it rich and provide ade- 
 quate uses for its riches. The hope of the poor is In 
 the success of the prosperous. Poverty is not helped 
 by poverty. 
 
 We seem to have failed to appreciate the differ- 
 ence between the rich men of Christ's time, and even 
 of the feudal times, and those of this day. The 
 world was hoarding its riches In those forms that 
 
 280
 
 TAINTED MONEY 
 
 Christ rebuked. The men of the feudal period se- 
 cured their riches in strong castles and invested them 
 in iron chests and spent them upon themselves. The 
 poor were no better for such rich men, the world was 
 possibly the worse. Although it is difficult to see 
 what commercial shape it could have taken; because 
 there was nothing to invite investments, the great in- 
 dustries had not been discovered, invention had not of- 
 fered its marvelous opportunities, commerce was a 
 solitary mercer. There was nothing to do with 
 money but to lock it up and stand guard over it. To 
 compare present conditions with feudal times when 
 the rich grew richer and the poor poorer is a dis- 
 play of profound ignorance. There is no comparison 
 that does not reflect great honor upon the men ac- 
 cumulating the wealth of the present time, who 
 are investing that wealth in ways that give employ- 
 ment to millions of people and that are fast making 
 the poor man independent and self-reliant. 
 
 Those who inveigh against money as tainted for- 
 get to what extent the proceeds of great business en- 
 terprises are flowing out into trades, into wages, and 
 into philanthropies, education, art, and a thousand 
 civilizing benefactions. He is blind to twentieth-cen- 
 tury civilization, he Is deaf to the march of these 
 mighty times who does not see and hear the relation 
 of vast money-getting to Christian progress. 
 
 The men whom such men curse are taking the 
 wealth out of the earth where it has lain Inactive for 
 untold centuries and by mighty commercial engineer- 
 
 281
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 ing and trade methods are sending it everywhere to 
 bless and civilize mankind. 
 
 That it is attended with the selfishness of some 
 designing men no one denies. So is the Christian 
 church. But we have more invested in the sun's 
 light than we have in the sun's spots. 
 
 The railing and frantic foaming of excited men 
 in careless adjectives against the rich is a serious im- 
 peachment of their intelligence. 
 
 He is insufferably small, a curious anachronism in 
 his times, who cannot see the new proportions. He 
 thinks with other men's voices. He is an echo of 
 echoes. He has struck against these gigantic times 
 only to rebound into empty air, merely a sound 
 thrown off from a force that had no use for him, and 
 that he was too small to discern and appreciate.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 LABOR UNIONS 
 
 IT is a strange and inconsistent fact and one which 
 seems to have been overlooked by labor union- 
 ism that the very principles which it condemns 
 It makes the foundations upon which it constructs its 
 organization. 
 
 It curses monopoly, but it is a monopolist. It 
 accuses " employers of using combined capital," 
 which is another name for the corporation, of " de- 
 basing labor and denying It its lawful and just share 
 of what It produces," and then proceeds with violent 
 and degrading assaults, sometimes even with death, 
 to debase and make impossible all labor that does not 
 obey its unlawful and tyrannical mandates, establish- 
 ing a labor trust! 
 
 It is as much a monopoly as anything we find in 
 the most offending trust. It attempts to be a labor 
 trust, and that which it claims for Itself It clamorously 
 denies to capital. It insists upon having the exclusive 
 monopolistic rights of the country! 
 
 Finding its greatest obstacle In corporations 
 which have strength to resist it and power often to 
 
 283
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 overthrow it, the labor unions naturally make their 
 most furious assaults against them, and having ac- 
 tive and voiceful numbers in the cities, they are able 
 to command the politicians and demand laws to fur- 
 ther their designs. They will not make any conces- 
 sion to the mighty labor employers upon any terms 
 that do not recognize a practical partnership in the 
 business, a dictatorial one, a managing and con- 
 trolling one. 
 
 This attitude has done much to bring into this 
 country the present unfriendly attitude toward cor- 
 porate business. A persistent effort is always active 
 to create the impression that the corporation is grind- 
 ing the poor. Until these labor organizations got 
 well under way and began to take on menacing pro- 
 portions we had not heard those familiar expressions 
 about " predatory wealth " and the charge that the 
 rich were merciless scoundrels. 
 
 This conflict is extremely unfortunate. It has 
 widened the gap and strengthened an unreasonable 
 antagonism. It has put capital and labor at variance 
 and created two classes that need not to have ap- 
 peared in our land. Neither can exist without the 
 other. The corporation can find nothing to take the 
 place of man. No machinery can do away with him, 
 no money can purchase a substitute for him. The 
 more money and the more machinery, the more men 
 are demanded. 
 
 As a rule the employee of a corporation is more 
 secure in his position and his pay than he could be 
 
 284
 
 LABOR UNIONS 
 
 if he were hired to an individual. He has more 
 property behind him. He is hired by a hundred or 
 a thousand individuals. And his employers have a 
 vital interest in the business, and the character and 
 skill of the workman are of incalculable interest to 
 them. It is more important than the quality of ma- 
 terial, or motive power, or machines, and must be con- 
 served with the greatest care. A corporation that 
 does not care for its men is not intelligent in man- 
 agement and will not long prosper. 
 
 A great railway company gives careful attention 
 to its locomotives, their care, their oiled serviceable- 
 ness, their driving by intelligent and skilled engineers. 
 They are a prime asset. How infinitely greater is the 
 value of men to a corporation and how infinitely im- 
 portant that that which is committed to brains and 
 conscience and courage shall be servea by the best 
 ability. Therefore the essential wisdom of a wage 
 that shall secure the most skilled and temperate and 
 trustworthy men, that shall healthfully house them 
 and comfortably clothe them and put beyond worry 
 the home, the wife, the children, the aged parents, 
 and furnish something, at least a modest something, 
 for refining influences to the cottage or apartment. 
 
 Intelligent and profitable corporate management 
 will consider these things and secure in the person of 
 employees citizens and not tramps, gentlemen and not 
 brutes, men self-respecting and therefore respected by 
 all patrons. 
 
 The employee is under bonds of common man- 
 285
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 hood and honesty to reciprocate that policy and to 
 make that business his own. He will not use it to 
 get what he can out of it and to regard its interests 
 only as they serve him. He will remember that as 
 men give him employment and make it possible for 
 him to earn a living wage, he must in honor give such 
 men a service and make it possible for those men to 
 receive from the business the Income that alone will 
 justify their investment and its continuance. 
 
 The laborers should remember that the Investor 
 because of his spirit of enterprise, his public spirit it 
 may be, has put into the business large moneys which 
 he might have retained for himself. He had a right 
 to it if he got it honestly. Without following the 
 subtle and sophistical unwindlngs and wanderings of 
 the socialistic philosophers, we will say that for all 
 practical purposes and by consent of common sense. It 
 Is his money by Inheritance or by his own genius of 
 acquisitiveness. Having Invested It, he has a right 
 to a fair return for it if he Invested wisely. It is 
 in the business. But before he can touch a dollar of 
 it he must earn the laborer's dollar. The laborer 
 should remember that this wicked man of the cor- 
 poration before he can take any profit must pay for 
 material if he is a manufacturer, or for rolling stock, 
 repairs, fuel, etc., if he is a railroad man, and earn 
 dividends for stockholders and the w'ages for the 
 men. The laborer has a lien upon the whole con- 
 cern. And he can carry away the whole property, if 
 necessary, to get his pay. 
 
 286
 
 LABOR UNIONS 
 
 The man of the corporation may say that he put 
 his money into the business, but he cannot take it out 
 and carry it away until he pays the men who la- 
 bored for him. He must make his own dollar and 
 the dollar for the laborer and pay the laborer's dol- 
 lar first. The laborer, therefore, is under the highest 
 obligation to render a service that will secure success 
 to the business if honest and skilled labor will do it. 
 
 And before he embarrasses that business by 
 strikes or inefficient service he should Inform himself 
 as to the business, its conditions, and prospects. He 
 certainly is under obligation to it to that extent. If 
 it has treated him on the principles stated above, he is 
 obligated beyond a day or a job laborer. 
 
 In case of just discontent for any cause, he is 
 practically a partner in the business, a fixed amount 
 of the profit of which comes to him weekly in wage 
 and he should request and has a right to an arbitra- 
 tion — to hear causes and present complaints. And If 
 he has rendered satisfactory and faithful service, he 
 has a moral right to just consideration. He cannot 
 be told to go his way if he is not contented. It may 
 be that he has a right to be discontented and that the 
 company Is morally bound to inquire Into that discon- 
 tent and as far as possible right it. It Is not like 
 disposing of a machine. It Is a man with high moral 
 claims who has Invested his all of training and ability 
 for that work and Is unfitted by his years of faith- 
 fulness to it to go elsewhere; who has his home and 
 church and friendship and family ties, interests that 
 
 287
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 were not bought with money, for money cannot buy 
 them. Every honest corporate or business manage- 
 ment of any kind will always consider these things. 
 And when the adjustment of hours and wage is made, 
 the management will remember the difference be- 
 tween men and horses or men and machines. 
 
 But the laborer will have to emphasize his obli- 
 gation at this critical point. He has a right to cease 
 work and to cease in a body if denied arbitration or 
 the righting of wrongs. No one can legally or 
 morally compel him to work, but his rights cease 
 there. He has no right, except by a plain statement 
 of his reasons for quitting, to dissuade any man from 
 taking his place. And he has no right to conspire 
 against his employer or to injure his property. That 
 is criminal. 
 
 Thousands of business men in this country who 
 have themselves had no serious trouble with labor 
 have been alienated from labor unions because of the 
 exceeding unwisdom and sometimes criminal practices 
 of strikes — the substitution of brute force for rational 
 arbitration for the settlement of misunderstandings. 
 There often has been a defiance of law in the destruc- 
 tion of property and infliction of bodily harm which 
 intelligent and calm-thinking men cannot tolerate. 
 
 Labor unions that ought to have promoted the 
 efl'iciency of labor callings and secured to hand toilers 
 great advantages, and not the least in matters out- 
 side the shop, have too often introduced friction 
 between the employer and employee and set the one 
 
 288
 
 LABOR UNIONS 
 
 against the other. The walking delegate too often 
 has been an ignorant meddler with business manage- 
 ment or has tried to justify his office by a swaggering 
 appeal to hitherto contented workmen that they break 
 the fetters of their slavery and demand their propor- 
 tionate share of the world's wealth! The result is 
 that organizations of labor which ought to be of the 
 greatest service are often the greatest hindrance and 
 curse. 
 
 Perhaps I may be permitted to illustrate from 
 recent experiences. At Syracuse University we are 
 erecting several great buildings. A few days ago my 
 attention was called to a team unloading some ma- 
 terial for one of our buildings from one of the lead- 
 ing mills of the city. I was told that after that job 
 the firm would be in trouble because no union man 
 would put up its work owing to a conti-oversy about 
 the employment of nonunion labor by the firm. The 
 firm proposed to conduct its own business and employ 
 the men whom it wished and who were satisfactory. 
 The union men proposed to dictate who should be 
 employed and on what terms. They would prevent 
 as far as they could that mill from doing any fur- 
 ther business unless it was conducted to please 
 them. 
 
 The firm wished to pursue its business according 
 to its own judgment and with the freedom and the 
 right of American citizens. The contractors desired 
 their work from that mill because of its superior 
 quality and reasonable price — we also wanted the 
 
 289
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 work from that mill — but certain union men working 
 by the day say, " We will label the place ' Unfair,' " 
 and notify contractors that " we will strike if they 
 use the firm's material." No one will deny that 
 union men or any men have a right to stop working 
 for that firm if they are not satisfied. But where 
 did they get the right to forbid other men working 
 there or to interfere with the business of the firm, 
 even ruining it if possible? Is it an American right? 
 Do such men represent Americanism? Are their acts 
 in harmony with either our Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence or our constitutional form of government? 
 It is a petty despotism and tyranny that disgraces 
 our country and is misguiding thousands of men as 
 to their obligations as American citizens. It is a 
 tyranny that interferes with the inalienable rights of 
 Americans as sacred as any for which our country 
 has contended in war. 
 
 Only dense ignorance of the principles of Ameri- 
 can citizenship or indifferent disloyalty to them can 
 explain acts so atrocious. It is so lacking in fairness 
 and so indiscriminating In many Instances that it 
 seems like a mixture of ignorance and Indifference to 
 consequences. There was an instance In the erection 
 of our investment building in Syracuse. Pains were 
 taken when the contract was let, to urge preference for 
 Syracuse mechanics and workmen. There was some 
 misunderstanding or disagreement between the con- 
 tractor and some union men with regard to men from 
 out of town, for which the University was not in 
 
 290
 
 LABOR UNIONS 
 
 any way responsible and which It could not control. 
 But our building was labeled " unfair " ! How that 
 punished the contractor who had finished his work 
 and got his pay we could not understand. Why we 
 were penalized who had nothing to do with the trou- 
 ble and could not Influence it If we had been requested 
 to do so, we never have ascertained. Scores of men 
 were approached and threatened with loss of business 
 if they became tenants of the building. After months 
 we were told that the " unfair " taboo would be taken 
 off If we would pay one hundred dollars, reduced to 
 fifty dollars, and finally to twenty-five dollars. Not 
 a cent was paid. And whether the building is known 
 now as " unfair " or not I do not know. 
 
 Were these men loyal American citizens who as- 
 sumed the responsibility of embarrassing a property 
 in this fashion? Were they acting within the law 
 and their privilege? Anyone who would assert that 
 they were, Is ignorant of the simplest principles of 
 our government and of our Individual rights. 
 
 The placards were anonymous and so placed that 
 it was not possible to trace them to a responsible 
 head. An indication. If not a confession, of conscious 
 lawlessness in this case. 
 
 Every intelligent man knows that It is a crime 
 to conspire against a man's business or to do violence 
 to his person. Have we men among us who propose 
 to act the part of criminals under the pretense of bet- 
 tering their condition as workingmen? 
 
 Let us trace this matter a little further Illustra- 
 291
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 tlvely. I am building a house, for instance. I wish 
 to select the plumbing material for my house. I 
 think that I have a right to do so. But I am sur- 
 prised to be told by the Association of Journeymen 
 Plumbers of America that I cannot have that privi- 
 lege. They will decide that question. In Section 
 162 of their by-laws they say: " Realizing that at 
 the present time the work of our trade is being 
 gradually taken from us by reason of certain manu- 
 factured articles, it is necessary that we should take 
 some united steps to stop the use of such plumbing 
 goods as we think injurious to our trade." Then the 
 section goes on to specify as forbidden things the 
 material which I wish to put into my house and which 
 the law provides that I may use ! The very spirit that 
 wrecked Arkwright's loom and opposed nearly all in- 
 ventions. 
 
 Have these men a right to assume this dicta- 
 torial role? Must I submit to this petty tyranny? 
 The spirit of '76 must have fled from us — a fright- 
 ened ghost! 
 
 I want men to work six days in the week upon 
 my house because of the season or urgent circum- 
 stances. There are men who want the work but this 
 Association of the Unions says (Section 159) : " In- 
 asmuch as the plumbing business throughout the coun- 
 try is insufficient to furnish employment to more than 
 fifty or seventy-five per cent of the journeymen, and 
 recognizing the fact that by reducing the hours of 
 labor it will have a tendency to keep more men 
 
 292
 
 LABOR UNIONS 
 
 employed, it is hereby resolved that the United As- 
 sociation establish a National Half-Holiday for Sat- 
 urday " ! 
 
 A new authority for establishing national holi- 
 days ! That men may abstain from work all the week 
 if they choose no one will dispute. But these men 
 propose to limit all men in this particular. They 
 propose to create an entirely artificial condition of 
 things among themselves into which the law of de- 
 mand and supply shall not enter and the embarrass- 
 ment to business must take care of itself. And the 
 union men of the whole country are only two per cent 
 of the whole body of laboring men! 
 
 That the trade may be still further protected, 
 these men, in Section 157, say that " Local unions 
 throughout the jurisdiction should use their, best en- 
 deavors to abolish plumbers' helpers and apprentices 
 so far as possible " ! Stop the making of mechanics! 
 Here is a trust that proposes to force wages by lim- 
 iting wage-earners. Business is menaced by both 
 shortened hours and decreased workmen ! 
 
 The subject is interesting as you proceed. The 
 pay of a carpenter or machinist is not graduated by 
 the skill in the case. You pay the same for a poor 
 man as for a good man. A man is a man in the 
 union. We are speaking of day wages. The in- 
 justice of this to the employer is transparent. The 
 injustice to the mechanics ought to be equally so, for 
 nothing could be more harmful to the trades. It 
 encourages the unskilled, careless, and slovenly. It is 
 20 293
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 filling up the trades with men who can scarcely saw 
 off a board and drive a nail straight. 
 
 In the instruction of union men some things are 
 to be done if practicable, otherwise they are to be 
 omitted! They are not to ride a bicycle between 
 hours except to and from dinner. If they have to 
 return to the shop with a measurement or for ma- 
 terial, for instance ! I have known two thirds of the 
 time of a job spent in the street. " Members work- 
 ing on a job a greater distance from their residence 
 than their shop and not having to report at the shop, 
 shall not reach the job any sooner than they would 
 if they left the shop at 7.55 A.M." Any member 
 having to work overtime, for which by the way he 
 gets fifty per cent more pay, is to quit at five and 
 come back at 6 or later! Men are not to go to the 
 office for pay. The pay must be brought to the job. 
 Probably because the employer's time is worth so 
 much less than the laborer's ! Some of these things 
 are not to be applied where the conditions are spe- 
 cially unfavorable to them — where the people will 
 not stand it! 
 
 These are some of the reasons for my saying in 
 a recent address that we have no more objectionable 
 trust, no worse form of despotism in this country to- 
 day than some forms of labor unionism. This is why 
 I say, speaking of this form of labor, that such men 
 are getting all they earn and some of them much 
 more than they earn, considering the unselected 
 ability of the men. Considering the reduction of 
 
 294
 
 LABOR UNIONS 
 
 hours twenty per cent and the increase of wages from 
 fifty to seventy-five per cent, my statement is moder- 
 ate, and when it comes to paying a $1.50 mechanic 
 $3.50, it is too plain in that case to require even 
 emphasis. 
 
 In their present forms such labor unions are de- 
 structive to business and the workingmen's best in- 
 terests. They should be resisted by all sober-thinking 
 men. They alone are responsible for the increase of 
 the open shop and the opposition of thousands of 
 strong men who have come through the labor call- 
 ings to their present positions. The opposition will 
 increase unless they are modified and brought into 
 harmony with the principles of civic liberty. In my 
 opinion fifty per cent of the union men are not in 
 agreement with present union practices and are 
 coerced by fear into retaining their membership. 
 
 There might be a union of great help to its mem- 
 bership and to business. I believe in labor organiza- 
 tions as I believe in corporations. But let it be a 
 union upon principles of mutual benefit and helpful- 
 ness both to the laborer and to the manufacturer, 
 both to the workingman and to the contractor. Let 
 it be for the purpose of securing to the employer the 
 greatest proficiency, insisting upon only skilled me- 
 chanics for mechanics' pay. Let it consider the 
 interests of the business and how to serve them. Let 
 it compel its wage, not by excluding those who choose 
 to work for less or to work when the union men 
 will not work, but by furnishing the highest type of 
 
 295
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 man and workman so that business men will say: 
 " If you want the most skilled and reliable mechanic 
 or laborer you must get them from the union. They 
 will have no one in the union but a first-class man." 
 
 Don't say to Mike who is laying four hundred 
 bricks a day, a fair day's work: " Hold up there and 
 let Tom have a chance, for he can't lay over three 
 hundred." Rather say to Tom : " You must be con- 
 tent to be classified with ordinary workmen until you 
 can do as much work as Mike. And you can have 
 pay for only what you do in a workmanlike manner." 
 
 Let the union have clubrooms and discuss thrift 
 and temperance and home sanitation and ways and 
 means of getting the home and furnishing it with 
 books and periodicals for mental improvement and 
 spend some of the time in amusements and healthy 
 games now spent in the saloons. Let the energy now 
 being put into opposition to capital be used in self- 
 improvement and furnishing a higher class of me- 
 chanic. 
 
 It is folly to say that men who oppose the un- 
 American type of union with its tyrannical rules and 
 its walking delegate without knowledge of human 
 nature or the commonest instincts of diplomacy, a 
 bad feature of a bad system — it is folly to say that 
 such a man Is out of sympathy with the poor or the 
 working class. 
 
 Let the labor union, instead of discouraging 
 strong, intelligent young apprentices, insist upon laws 
 against child labor and combine with business to re- 
 
 296
 
 LABOR UNIONS 
 
 move vicious causes of poverty and to relieve the 
 worthy poor of every name and clime. 
 
 Give us unionism that recognizes the common 
 rights of men and seeks to promote labor, and that 
 is something more than intolerant selfishness. But 
 so long as unionism obstructs business which it can 
 neither create nor control and denies to nonunion 
 workmen the right which it claims for itself to work 
 or not to work, and so long as it attempts to fix 
 arbitrary and destructive conditions upon the trade 
 callings and is a menace to the peaceable pursuits of 
 men, all good citizens should oppose it. 
 
 All men with any love of freedom should patron- 
 ize boycotted firms so long as the boycott is on and 
 give the preference of employment to men who are 
 denied employment by the arbitrary and un-American 
 acts of labor union tyranny. 
 
 A gentleman writes me that the tyrannical and 
 oppressive treatment that he has received in his city 
 from a labor union ought to make the veterans turn 
 In their graves. I could not refrain from remarking 
 that this man, who requested that his name be not 
 given, for it would ruin his business, would do well 
 to cultivate a little of the spirit of the veterans and 
 turn before he gets to his grave. 
 
 Such a form of union is criminal and men who 
 submit to It are a disgrace to free American citizen- 
 ship. They cannot afford to purchase business at 
 such a price. There are greater assets than business 
 success, and freedom is one of them. We praise men 
 
 297
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 who die for it and then allow ourselves to be tagged 
 with the degrading badge of a cowardly servility by 
 the insolent authority of a labor union! 
 
 With mutual improvement, with justice in the 
 labor callings, with a fair proportionate per cent of 
 the profits of business for skillful and honest service, 
 with a dignified citizenship in labor, all men should 
 cooperate. But with the compulsory doctrines, the 
 arbitrary demands, the violent attacks, the obstruc- 
 tive tactics against employers or workmen, we should 
 take issue as against an alien foe of our country. 
 
 We cannot compel men in this land to do any- 
 thing but obey the laws. We cannot force men to 
 use their capital to furnish employment or say to 
 them what kind of laborers, skilled or otherwise, they 
 shall employ. They are not obliged to do business 
 at all unless they choose to do so. Attempts upon 
 the part of labor unions to manage business in wages 
 and hours, in employees and methods, have driven 
 millions of capital out of labor-producing business 
 and kept it shut up in inactive deposits. We cannot 
 compel men to work and we cannot forbid their work- 
 ing if they can find work to do. Therefore any 
 organizations which attempt to create arbitrary and 
 unnatural conditions and which undertake to take 
 charge of labor and capital are the extreme of folly. 
 They merit no consideration except contempt, and be- 
 cause they are tyrannical should be allowed a place 
 in this free country only until laws can be made to 
 suppress them. Strange inconsistency that prosecutes 
 
 298
 
 LABOR UNIONS 
 
 a corporation for " restraining trade " and flatters 
 and pampers despotic organizations which have for 
 one of their purposes the restraining of labor! 
 
 Curiously, the Bricklayers and Masons Union 
 of America starts out with the noble declaration: 
 " Whereas God in his infinite wisdom has endowed 
 all men with certain inalienable rights, among which 
 are the right of life, hberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness," and proceeds to prescribe the methods by 
 which they shall " scab an employer " ! The noble 
 rights which they have copied from our Declaration 
 of Independence do not seem to apply to " scab em- 
 ployers " ! 
 
 But ours is a freedom that has no classes in it, 
 and all men, employers and employed, are guaranteed 
 equal rights and must cooperate to secure universal 
 freedom. Upon that principle only c^n success come 
 to all.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WORKINGMEN 
 
 I APPRECIATE the fact that I enter upon sen- 
 sitive ground as a professional man in the dis- 
 cussion of the workingman. But that sensi- 
 tiveness has no sure footing. Nineteen twentieths of 
 the professional men have been poor men's sons who 
 know what it is to live in an honest, clean, humble 
 home and to work with their hands, and the other 
 twentieth or whatever that exact fraction may be are 
 to be pitied because they have not known the best 
 and sweetest manner of life known to men. " The 
 Cotter's Saturday Night " tells the story In the fra- 
 grance of spring flowers. Nearly every millionaire 
 of this country has sprung up from such a home of 
 piety and frugality and finds his happiest moments 
 in the remembrance of it, and not In the use or con- 
 templation of his riches. 
 
 The privilege of labor is the greatest riches men 
 can have. I know the workingman, for I have been 
 one, from herding government mules to rolling a 
 truck on a steamer's deck, from driving a mud-scow 
 stage to ranching in the far West. The plow, the 
 
 300
 
 WORKINGMEN 
 
 axe, the spade, the scythe are instruments to which the 
 callouses of my hands have borne faithful testimony. 
 I did not attain to the dignity of the mechanic la- 
 borer, but he is the same genus. I know him and 
 respect him as I do all honest laborers. 
 
 My blood runs hot and adjectives more forcible 
 than elegant multiply in my mind when I see in dem- 
 agogic print or hear in ranting speech this man 
 whom I used to be, and hundreds of thousands, yes, 
 millions of my fellow-citizens, appealed to or spoken 
 of as serfs or as an oppressed and downtrodden race 
 — terms and teachings borrowed from Europe and 
 imported for political purposes by the malcontents, 
 who know no road to power except the road of de- 
 struction to the prosperous and free. 
 
 Happily for the country, our native workingmen 
 and the men of a second generation of the most of 
 our immigration resent the imputation and challenge 
 it with the independence of their action and their 
 votes. There can be no proletariat in this country. 
 The serf is an impossibility to our workingmen unless 
 they make themselves so by joining the ranks of those 
 who never have had a higher conception of the labor- 
 ing class. If they permit themselves to be rounded 
 up and herded by the clamoring socialists who have 
 no fixed doctrines but discontent and envy, they will 
 become a party as distinctive in its distress and 
 wretchedness as anything in the land from which 
 their leaders and doctrines have come. If they re- 
 main intelligent, self-thinking, self-respecting, and 
 
 301
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 self-governing, they will remain what they ever have 
 been, the strength of the Republic, the fathers of the 
 great men of the State and the professions, and from 
 their ranks will continue to arise the men of capital 
 and power in commerce. 
 
 I shall not be misunderstood if I say that the 
 workingman must not make the mistake of accepting 
 the teachings that he is the only worker and that upon 
 him is the burden of the age. I have said that I 
 know what hand toil is. The earliest of early hours, 
 wet and dark nights, and aching bones and muscles 
 are familiar to me, but I never knew toil so wearying 
 and aging and exhausting as I have known since I 
 laid down manual labor and took up the responsibil- 
 ity of a professional life. It is not the laborer with 
 his hands who passes the wakeful nights and the days 
 that have no eight-hour whistle. It is the despised 
 capitalist who spends sixteen hours of day and night 
 planning the business that yields a good and sure 
 wage to the eight-hour laborer. It Is the man who 
 gets no more for himself than a living which is not 
 more wholesome than that of the well-paid working- 
 man and whose anxiety and task are a hundredfold 
 greater. The man who envies him, envies that 
 which never had an element of satisfaction in it since 
 Solomon pronounced upon the vanity of riches. The 
 only happiness he has is from the same source as that 
 of the man he employs, the doing of things, the 
 achievement of a purpose, the making of money that 
 he cannot spend or the spending of which but increases 
 
 302
 
 WORKINGMEN 
 
 restlessness and discontent so plainly seen as It passes 
 from one form to another. We all are worklngmen, 
 and the hardest work Is done by those who are In the 
 greatest spheres of active life. 
 
 The worklngman should not be deceived by the 
 absurd doctrines of the little socialists who have so 
 much sympathy for him and who assert that he Is the 
 only producer on the earth, that no other work ex- 
 cept the work of the hand adds to the world's wealth. 
 These men have a sympathy for dally tollers about 
 In proportion to their distance from the plow, the 
 anvil, and the carpenter bench. 
 
 Day labor adds to the world's wealth and there 
 could be none without It. Wealth adds to labor Its 
 wage and there could be none without It, except that 
 of the primitive and simple forms of savage life. 
 The world has come on up to these summit centuries 
 because the rich and the poor have dwelt together 
 and the Lord has been the maker of them all. 
 
 Nothing Is more absurd than the teaching that the 
 labor of the hand has produced the wealth of the 
 world and the rich do nothing and therefore should 
 have nothing. This Is a doctrine of riotous discon- 
 tent that incites people to the destructive feelings 
 that the man who owns the factory and works much 
 harder than those whom he employs Is defrauding 
 them because he does not divide up the factory with 
 them and take his place at a lathe or a drill press — 
 a silly doctrine that takes no account of labor done 
 with brains, which Imposes the greatest tax upon nerv- 
 
 303
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 ous energy and the very centers of physical force. 
 There was once a carpenter who afterward became 
 a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. In which 
 capacity did He the greater labor? 
 
 There is more than the hand in the labor of the 
 world. There was not much being done when the 
 hand was the only thing that worked. It was only 
 after the brain began to work and men discovered 
 ways of developing the resources of the earth by the 
 forces of nature and by a thousand inventions which 
 sometimes the man who worked with his hands tried 
 to destroy, that hand work did anything except in 
 the rudest ways. In the polite arts the hand follows 
 the ideal. In the useful and practical arts the hand 
 follows the invention. 
 
 Will it be said that the mind worker, who per- 
 haps may never touch a tool or strike a blow of man- 
 ual labor, but who thinks out in all of its detail the 
 typewriter that furnishes thousands of young women 
 with day labor, shall have nothing of profit from his 
 invention, and that the promoter who has a peculiar 
 genius for putting it upon the market, though no abil- 
 ity to become a machinist, nor physical strength for 
 a most indifferent laborer, shall reap no benefit out of 
 it? Do these men produce nothing because their 
 hands have never labored? 
 
 This man, who worked with his brain only, pro- 
 duced results which have been worth to the world in 
 work the labor of a million men who toil with their 
 hands simply. And so far as the rich are concerned 
 
 304
 
 WORKINGMEN 
 
 there are no arbitrary bounds fixed to that class. The 
 limits are being passed over both ways every day. 
 The rich of this morning are poor to-night because 
 the working mind was inefficient, or careless, or 
 " took a day off," or was deceived and robbed, or be- 
 cause some natural changes came upon them like an 
 unexpected frost or flood. 
 
 On the other hand, the poor man applied the earn- 
 ings of his hands to some happy investment with his 
 mind and made them ten thousandfold greater in a 
 year and greater many times over than all he could 
 have hammered out of his anvil In a lifetime. Not 
 a year passes that the employer does not give place 
 to the employed. The errand boy of the store yes- 
 terday owns the store to-day. And he came into 
 possession of It by the labor of his mind. He did 
 three things. He labored, he saved, he invested, and 
 he was three men In these things and he had a perfect 
 right to what was paid to him for his daily toil, to 
 what he put In the savings bank — owned by men who 
 had money enough to keep It safely for him — and to 
 what he invested when by his ability and wisdom It 
 became a store or a factory or a ship or a railroad. 
 
 That man all the way through is the day laborer 
 and he has as much right to what he has in the last 
 degree as he had in the first, and he is doing greater 
 things by the multiplying of the results of his toil 
 than he did with his simple day wage. He is a day 
 toiler, using with his mind the results of those days 
 of hand toil, and it Is absurd in the extreme to say 
 
 305
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 that he Is anything else. And if at the end he wishes 
 to give the results of those hand-and-hand days' 
 labor to his sons and daughters to use and enjoy, he 
 has as much right to do so as he had to work, for 
 them when he carried home at night in his empty 
 dinner pail the money that fed them and clothed them. 
 Another man did not carry his wages home, but left 
 them in a saloon. Had not the first man a right to 
 feed his children and clothe them better than the 
 second man? Still another had sickness and trouble. 
 Must the first man starve his children and leave them 
 naked as a consequence? It is a case where we 
 bear one another's burdens by every man bearing 
 his own burden. The right of a man to go on to his 
 utmost, earning, saving, investing, is as plain as his 
 right to choose the place where he will live and the 
 kind of things he will do. And if he can help his 
 neighbor it is not by dividing starvation with him but 
 by sharing in rational ways what he can add to the 
 world's wealth that can be used for that purpose; and 
 this a sound wisdom is doing in private kindnesses, 
 hospitals, colleges, and asylums, in hundreds of mil- 
 lions of dollars of invested labor, in capital and cor- 
 porate forms of business every year. It all is toil, 
 the laborers, the inventors and discoverers, and the 
 rich to whom was lawfully given in his inheritance 
 that which he had Increased a hundred or thousand 
 times by the labor of his mind. 
 
 Another fallacy which should not deceive the 
 workingman is the assertion, ignorantly repeated by 
 
 306
 
 WORKINGMEN 
 
 the agitators from year to year, that the workingman's 
 estate becomes increasingly worse with the increase of 
 wealth; the rich growing richer and the poor poorer. 
 That statement is being opposed by facts too plain to 
 be successfully disputed. 
 
 The condition of the workingman has improved 
 steadily with the increase of modern wealth, wealth 
 that has been invested in the utilities. The corpora- 
 tion has been conspicuously his greatest friend. 
 
 The first passenger train was run in England on 
 September 15, 1830. Since that time wealth has 
 taken on the alarming proportions which we are 
 called upon to check; the railway became a corpora- 
 tion as soon as it attempted to cross any considerable 
 space and transport passengers and freight in a large 
 way. Soon other great enterprises, the most of them 
 inspired by the railway, called for millions more of 
 money than any one man had and for a genius of 
 administering ability. What became of the poor 
 workingman? By this time, according to socialists 
 and anarchists, he ought to be annihilated. He must 
 have been a very rich workingman, for he has been 
 growing poorer during all this time of the develop- 
 ment of predatory wealth. There certainly ought 
 not to be anything left of him now. 
 
 What are the facts? They are easily obtainable. 
 In 1830, when the railways began, the wages of farm 
 hands was 80 cents per day; blacksmiths got $1.12 a 
 day; carpenters, $1.57; painters, $1.25; mill opera- 
 tors, $.94; day laborers, $.79. To-day the day 
 
 307
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 laborer gets from $1.75 to $2.00 per day, the me- 
 chanic from $3.00 to $6.00 per day, as anyone knows 
 who employs carpenters and masons. If cost of liv- 
 ing has increased greatly, the workingman has him- 
 self to thank for that largely, for with a reduction of 
 one fifth of the time taken out of the production of 
 materials, there must of course be one fifth added to 
 their cost. 
 
 But a more striking comparison is to be found in 
 the days preceding the great accumulation of wealth 
 and especially before the hateful corporation was 
 known. In the seventeenth century in England 
 wages were sixpence a day and the condition of the 
 workingman was one of abject squalor. In the be- 
 ginning of the nineteenth century in this country 
 wages paid in produce and in currency would have 
 amounted to about fifty cents per day. An intel- 
 ligent woman, whose young womanhood was in those 
 days, told me that she had worked for fifty cents a 
 week. Compare what she could do with the thou- 
 sands of kinds of employment open to women now — 
 occupations opened by capital. 
 
 But if one would like to go back to a time when 
 living was cheap and no one was ever caught in the 
 tentacles of the octopus, let him go back to the four- 
 teenth century. 
 
 The American Farmer has given us a most in- 
 teresting and instructive compilation that grows in sig- 
 nificance and emphasizes its lesson as you consider 
 our own times. It is said that " memory's geese are 
 
 308
 
 WORKINGMEN 
 
 swans," and there are great flocks of these swans in 
 the romancing of the present-day sociahstic fiction. 
 
 To those who have not examined comparative 
 conditions there seems to be some force in the insist- 
 ence of the sensational novel and the feeble-minded 
 socialistic magazine writer. But, fortunately, it is 
 possible to live in the ages gone and to trace the estate 
 of man up to these heights of his prosperity and glor- 
 ious citizenship. If our worklngmen will study his- 
 tory a little more and listen a little less to ignora- 
 muses who talk with swelling, empty words, they will 
 find how greatly they are blessed in comparison with 
 any past age. 
 
 Here is what the American Farmer finds: " Had 
 you lived in the fourteenth century you could have 
 bought draught horses at $.72 each, and oxen at 
 $1.25. In the days of Henry II $^0.00 would 
 have equipped a farm with 3 draught horses, half a 
 dozen oxen, 20 cows and 200 sheep, leaving a balance 
 of $2.00 toward the payment of rent, which was about 
 $5.00 a year. In England pasture and arable lands 
 were ridiculously cheap, two cents an acre for the 
 former and twelve cents an acre for the latter being 
 considered a fair rental. Two cents or its equivalent 
 would buy a pair of chickens in these blessed days of 
 old. For the value of a nickel one could acquire a 
 goose fit for a Christmas dinner or two ducks that 
 would make a fine roast. A penny would purchase a 
 dozen strictly fresh eggs, and wheat fell sometimes 
 as low as forty cents a quarter, or eight bushels. This 
 period seems to have been the paradise of topers, as 
 the brewer was compelled by law to sell for two cents 
 21 309
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 three gallons of beer, the equivalent of forty-eight 
 glasses. It will give our modern labor unions the cold 
 shivers to read that three cents a day was considered 
 good wages for an ordinary laborer. [For one and 
 two third days' work he could have bought a goose.] 
 
 " Our farmers probably will heave a sigh of sym- 
 pathy when they learn that even at harvest time four 
 cents was the highest amount expected. Young 
 couples about to marry had no such terrors before 
 their eyes as confront them in this era of prosperity. 
 Housekeeping might safely be entered upon by the 
 most timorous in those ' good old days.' House 
 rent was so low that the Lord Mayor of London 
 paid only $4.80 a year to his landlord. 
 
 " The Chancellor of the British exchequer, the 
 man who does the work of our Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, had an annual salary of $192. When a father 
 sent his son to a university four cents a day was looked 
 upon as a comfortable allowance, with a margin for 
 such luxuries as wine at eight to twelve cents a gallon. 
 A salary of $24 a year was considered munificent. 
 King Edward VI gave his daughter an allowance of 
 $4.80 a week, with an additional $247.60 a year for 
 the maintenance of her eight servants. The bed that 
 a king then slept on would now be shunned by the 
 humblest farmer in the land. There is not a renter 
 in the West that would not be considered rich by com- 
 parison. Remember, too, that they had no railroads 
 in those days, or decent roads of any kind. A trip 
 of a few hundred miles was a momentous undertak- 
 ing, and a man setting out from London to Edinburgh 
 made his will with little hope of getting back. Of 
 course there were no interurbans, or street cars, or 
 even canals, and wheeled vehicles were entirely out of 
 the reach of any but the aristocracy. 
 
 310
 
 WORKINGMEN 
 
 " But it is not necessary to go back to the four- 
 teenth century or to England to find out what was 
 meant by the ' good old times.' Come along down 
 to the nineteenth century and to our own country and 
 see how people lived much less than a hundred years 
 ago. Many men now living remember when men 
 had to work all day at the hardest kind of work for 
 one bushel of wheat. Fifty cents in trade was what 
 one got for beginning at daylight and grubbing or 
 splitting rails until the sinking sun reminded him to 
 quit his arduous task. Farm produce, when salable 
 at all, was absurdly low. There was no market, 
 only the neighborhood consumption, and there being 
 little or no money, everything was barter. Eggs 
 went begging at a cent or two a dozen, poultry was 
 but little better, stock of all kinds at the very lowest 
 ebb, and no farmer could hope to make profit off any 
 of his produce. Merely a living, as the result of 
 days devoted to toil and nights devoid of ease, was 
 the best that could be anticipated by millions of pio- 
 neer farmers ' in the good old days.' Some senti- 
 ment still lingers about those times. We recall with 
 interest many of the romantic and tragic incidents, 
 but we hardly think any of our farmer readers would 
 care to be transported back, except in fancy, to the 
 period which did not fully end until the last century 
 was more than half over. * The good old times ' 
 are well enough for the poets, the writers of histori- 
 cal novels, and the ancient dames who croon in the 
 corners of the blessed days of linsey-woolsey dresses, 
 jeans suits, corduroy roads, and open cabin doors. 
 As for ourselves, we prefer the present, despite its 
 graft and greed, its selfishness and its sordidness, for 
 at least it has replaced penury with plenty, depriva- 
 tions of all kinds with innumerable comforts, and has 
 
 311
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 changed agriculture from a groveling calling to the 
 noblest and most prosperous of the professions." 
 
 There never were times that were so kindly to 
 the laboring man as the present. His labor is a cap- 
 ital which he can invest in any part of the country 
 and if he does so wisely it will yield a remuneration 
 which in a few years can be placed where it will make 
 him comparatively independent. If there are many 
 exceptions they are In those conditions of providence 
 which cannot be charged to the country and there are 
 no more of them than there are among the men of 
 capital. 
 
 The workingman gets what his labor is worth in 
 the market. He gets what he puts into it. It is 
 upon the same principle precisely as money and trade. 
 If there is much money it is worth less. If the mar- 
 ket is overstocked, trade is sluggish and profits are 
 slow and men must wait patiently for a change In the 
 commercial tide. 
 
 Labor feels a similar condition of supply and de- 
 mand. The workingman carries to the market one 
 day's labor and the market pays its price more or less 
 according to the demand. He gets the pay for that 
 one day's work. If he saved yesterday's labor and 
 last week's also, he can get pay for the day he works 
 and pay also in interest, according to the market, for 
 the days he has saved up. He can get as much for 
 what the days are In wages as any man gets on a like 
 amount at interest if he loans them out as wisely. 
 
 312
 
 WORKINGMEN 
 
 If he chooses the mirage of the socialist, if he 
 runs after the ignis fatuus of the philosopher who 
 is going to take the wealth of the rich and divide it 
 among the laborers, he will grow very hungry and 
 homeless. If he will let the saloon alone and apply 
 himself simply to the opportunities which his honest 
 hands may use, it has been computed that the labor- 
 ing men of the country could own three fourths of 
 the railroads in ten years. 
 
 There never was a country where so many and 
 such secure facilities were offered to the wage-earner 
 to deposit safely his earnings and help him to a con- 
 stantly increasing income from the dime savings bank 
 to the share of a successful corporate business, and 
 never have so many such people in any age availed 
 themselves of these facilities. The savings banks are 
 filled with the earnings of the poor. It is said that 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad is owned by over 6,000 
 persons. 
 
 This means that there are thousands of small 
 holders. The New York Times of recent date tells 
 us that in the disturbed condition of the market, 
 due to the unwise rantings against capital, " Farm- 
 ers, school-teachers, mechanics, clerks, invaded Wall 
 Street in a way never before witnessed and took away 
 3,000,000 shares divided about equally into lots above 
 and below 100 shares apiece. It was said that 50,- 
 000 shareholders were added to the lists of 200 con- 
 cerns. Very little went abroad, but much to New 
 England, more to the South, and most to the West."
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 This was not Invested in gambling and specula- 
 tion, but the purchase of sound properties which 
 will recover their standard values when the in- 
 sane ravings against corporate capital shall finally 
 cease. 
 
 The workingmen have it in their power to re- 
 establish the values of this country. They can re- 
 deem the unions from the demagogues and the lazy, 
 blatant, walking delegate, who justifies his election by 
 making himself a trouble-maker for both the em- 
 ployer and the laborer. They can silence the agitator, 
 who insults their intelligence by comparing them with 
 slaves and serfs. They can establish business confi- 
 dence by giving an honest day's work heartily for 
 honestly and promptly paid wages. They can con- 
 trol the politics of the country and make legislation 
 constructive instead of its burdening the country 
 every year with a terrible weight of impracticable 
 and mischievous laws. They can make the law 
 and order and thrift and happiness of every com- 
 munity. 
 
 They can be what American labor must be if 
 America is to hold steadfastly her place at the head 
 of the nations of the earth, the bone and sinew, the 
 red corpuscled blood, the character and virtue, the 
 independence and self-reliance, the healthy brain 
 whence spring the inventors, the spirit of enterprise 
 whence come the millionaires and creators of com- 
 merce, the home-makers in which are the roots of the 
 Republic. 
 
 314
 
 WORKINGMEN 
 
 There can be no land and country without them 
 and all things are theirs. There is nothing to which 
 they cannot aspire and there is nothing to which the 
 workingman cannot attain. He is not a class. He 
 is the citizen. 
 
 There is no workingman on earth so manly as the 
 American workingman. The remark made fre- 
 quently in these days that wealth tyrannizes over 
 him or that he cringes to the rich is untrue. Such 
 things are said by men who know little of the Amer- 
 ican workingman and generalize from exceptional 
 cases. 
 
 My pastoral experiences in Boston and New York 
 were with the rich and the poor, the employer and the 
 laborer. I cannot recall a solitary instance in which 
 any workingman cringed to wealth or position. 1 
 think that he is in more danger of an extreme of 
 self-assertion to vindicate his just claim to equal 
 manhood. 
 
 And fairness compels me to say that I recall no 
 instance of an offensive attitude upon the part of 
 wealth toward the workingman. The exceptions 
 that are sometimes cited are not American types 
 either of the rich or the poor and those exceptions 
 usually are put forth in offensively patronizing ways. 
 
 There is extremely little class friction in this 
 country. The most of it, as we have observed, is 
 an importation. There would be less of it, and, in- 
 deed, none at all, if the laboring man never depre- 
 ciated himself. Let him set the highest success as 
 
 3^S
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 his mark — the greatest things that he can do. That 
 ennobles one's character and begets true contentment. 
 That marks the only success that is worth having. 
 Manhood is the goal of us all if we have a worthy 
 view of life, and all things beside are incidental.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 LAWS will be a staple demand as long as there 
 are institutions and personal obligations of 
 men to be administered by varying intellects. 
 Laws are the footing courses of the mighty structure 
 of government. It is not built upon politics or par- 
 ties nor upon personalities and popular issues. These 
 are variously tempered mortar, usually untempered 
 and sometimes overtempered. Sound' laws inter- 
 preted by men high above partisan or personal in- 
 fluences are the solid foundations which abide forever. 
 Popular issues are sand dunes, often wind-driven by 
 human passion. Men, even if wise enough for a 
 given time and issue, give us no guarantee of a suc- 
 cession of wise men, and what you leave to a wise and 
 strong man to do becomes the precedent for an un- 
 wise and weak man who follows him. And if a 
 wise man may set aside law, an unwise man when 
 he comes into power may also. The only safety is in 
 government by constitutional law and wise statutes 
 into which is mixed the controlling and predominat- 
 ing element of common law. 
 
 317
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 The insistence which is needed in the country to- 
 day as much as it has been at any time in our history 
 is for that which is more imperiled under the present 
 administration than ever before, reverence for the 
 Constitution, the common law, and the courts. 
 
 Our national preservation is involved here. It 
 was that reverence which held us in the days of our 
 fathers and which has been our great sheet anchor in 
 every critical period. We are threatened now by the 
 substitution for that old anchor of a patent, flukeless, 
 weak, and malleable thing called socialism; an experi- 
 ment to which men in our highest authority are lend- 
 ing themselves, and an experiment increasingly peril- 
 ous by the greater size of the ship of state and the 
 infinite value of her cargo. 
 
 We hear from our statesmen at Washington 
 something about shaping out the old flukes and so 
 stretching the cable of the constitutional anchor as to 
 let the ship slip off into waters now desired to enlarge 
 the general governmental anchorage. What is to 
 check the slipping, when our anchor is made to slip 
 and not to hold, is a question that seems not to trouble 
 our new order of statesmen. 
 
 If you will permit me to change this nautical fig- 
 ure of our ship of state, I might say that the doctrine 
 which it is suggested that we are to accept is an ad- 
 justment of the compass to the course instead of to 
 the magnetic meridian by which all safe courses must 
 be determined. 
 
 A wave seems to be sweeping over the times 
 318
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 which bears down law and order and constitutions 
 and substitutes the personality of man and makes 
 opinions law. If the old law will not do it, make a 
 law that will do it. If a Constitution is in the way, 
 it is easy to show that there has been that in the Con- 
 stitution which our founders did not see nor dream 
 that they had put there. What they thought the 
 States were to be compelled to do, it is easy to show 
 that the States are not to be permitted to do — be- 
 cause " they arc unequal to it " ! The interpretation 
 of what reservations are left to the State will be de- 
 termined by the government at Washington — what 
 is good for them to do and what is harmful for them 
 to do ; things that were once questions for the courts 
 to decide will be arranged by new statutes framed by 
 the Chief Executive and his Cabinet and consented to 
 by an obedient Congress. The States have their 
 proper place in this new theory as the several depart- 
 ments of government to carry out the prescient wis- 
 dom of the ruler of the Nation and his champions of 
 the new government. We have a new doctrine of 
 States' rights. We are told by the President that 
 " the States' rights should be preserved when they 
 mean the people's rights, but not when they mean the 
 people's wrongs." Now if those words had not been 
 said by the President of the United States, I would 
 say that they sound like the words of a politician and 
 not a statesman. They are made of such stuff as is 
 thrown to the galleries. Who is to be the judge 
 of the quality in the case, as to which are the people's 
 
 319
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 rights or the people's wrongs? Heretofore the 
 courts have decided that question, and the courts un- 
 influenced by executive interference. How are the 
 rights to be preserved and how are the wrongs to be 
 removed? In the old-fashioned way through con- 
 stitutional revision by amendments by both the Con- 
 gress and the States. The new fashion to which you 
 are asked to subscribe is to read into the national 
 Constitution new interpretations, or if you are in a 
 hurry, make a new statute to be operated by one of 
 the new commissions by which the country is to be 
 governed for the good of the people. 
 
 Some of us are so old-fashioned that we have 
 supposed that whatever rights a State has, good or 
 bad, it has something to say under the Constitution 
 about the preservation of those rights, and that that 
 is not a question for Washington until it hears from 
 the States. Because we can compel a State to stay in 
 the Union, it does not follow that we can rob it of 
 its inherent, constitutional, and reserved rights and 
 make it an empty shell, a useless form of government 
 only — a vermiform appendix. 
 
 It doubtless is true that for some things we must 
 invoke the general government. But the govern- 
 ment must be invoked by the States. The States are 
 not to be compelled by the government except in the 
 things to which they have constitutionally consented. 
 
 One of the great New York dailies said awhile 
 ago that the new way is to " look around until you 
 find some abuse, picture it forth to the people as a 
 
 320
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 scaly monster, belabor it until you have attracted at- 
 tention and made yourself popular as a deliverer of 
 the enslaved, then rush to Congress with the sugges- 
 tion of a bill — the vaguer the suggestion is the safer 
 it will be — to draw the teeth of the monster and tie 
 his legs. Then make a prodigious fuss over your 
 achievement in speech and writing and leave the law- 
 making body to work out the statutory solution. If 
 the legislators raise constitutional objections, de- 
 nounce them as traitors and the slaves of the trusts. 
 Few practical reforms are thus achieved, but it is a 
 first-rate way to make political capital." 
 
 There is nothing more dangerous than central- 
 ized government, especially when the government 
 gathers authority into itself. The safety of this 
 country has been that the centralized form of our 
 government has been only such as the people have 
 given and not such as has been taken away from the 
 people. It was one of the principles that De Tocque- 
 ville pointed out as constituting the difference be- 
 tween the Republic of France which went to pieces 
 and our Republics, that in France the rulers governed 
 from the center outward, while with us we rule by 
 the people from the outside inward. We construct 
 our government from the town meeting to the Leg- 
 islature and from the Legislature to the Congress, 
 and in that order we construct our governmental 
 forms, the officers of government being only the 
 agents of the people. And their prerogatives are 
 limited and their privileges and duties are defined by 
 
 321
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 the people in constitutions both of the Nation and the 
 State. 
 
 This has been our stability. To substitute men 
 for law or the party in power for the Constitution or 
 to permit the slightest liberty to be taken with it 
 under the pretense of serving " the people's rights," 
 is to yield the eternal safeguards of the country to 
 an infatuation and a delusion. 
 
 And permit me to say that the easy use of the 
 Constitution for the purpose of personal political 
 doctrines is increasingly dangerous under an ex- 
 tremely popular administration. Often the most pop- 
 ular rulers are the most dangerous, and insidious 
 moves are made upon constitutional liberty under 
 such administrations which under opposite conditions 
 are instantly detected and resisted. 
 
 An advance is being made into paternalism and 
 the centralization of government by commissions the 
 possibility of which no man dreamed ten years ago. 
 What would have become of the political head of a 
 Cabinet officer twenty years ago if he had proposed 
 to stretch the Constitution to overcome certain re- 
 served rights of the States, and what would have 
 been the political following of a Chief Executive who 
 had talked of abrogating such rights under the plea 
 that they did not serve the good of the people? Are 
 we in America ? Has this been America for the past 
 two years? Such things only recently have been 
 possible to America. And their reign should be as 
 brief as their introduction has been recent. 
 
 322
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 Perhaps what I now say may be slightly para- 
 doxical. We have too many laws and too many 
 lawyers — in some places. Our troubles have been 
 precipitated largely by statute-making, and the mak- 
 ing of statutes is due to too many lawyers in Con- 
 gress. Every lawyer has to make a law to justify 
 his election among his constituents. We ought to 
 send to Congress fewer lawyers or say to the lawyers 
 whom we send : " We want you to see to it that there 
 Is not another law made for twenty years and to help 
 repeal half of those that have been made in the last 
 twenty years." We are overlawed until about every 
 form of business in the country is outlawed. It has 
 come about by men confounding forms for principles. 
 The principles in commerce and society and govern- 
 ment are few and simple and plain and for their 
 definition and enforcement they call for, few laws. 
 
 The principles of business, whether a corporate or 
 an individual form of business, are practically the 
 same. One is not inherently bad and the other in- 
 herently good. The same quality of human nature 
 is in both. They differ in size. But the same remedy 
 is demanded for the same thing in both. And if the 
 individual who whines so piously got hold of the 
 corporation, he would not run it as a church but for 
 profit. It has been so from the beginning and will 
 be so to the end, and a thousand years after the 
 millennium you could find something to investigate in 
 business either individual or corporate. 
 
 Up in my old State of Maine, when I was a boy, 
 
 323
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 a couple of West India goods stores stood on the 
 opposite sides of the way of a single-street town. 
 One day the proprietor of one of those stores sold a 
 gallon of West India molasses for two cents less than 
 the dealer on the opposite side sold It to his customers. 
 At once a war of competition began and the farmers 
 carried away molasses in buckets for nothing until 
 one of those traders emptied his single hogshead. 
 But the other one had two hogsheads in stock and 
 won out. Of course it was a wicked thing for that 
 trader to have two hogsheads instead of one when 
 that backwoods war began. In these times a secre- 
 tary from some commission would be sent up there 
 to see how It happened under our railway laws that 
 a man could get two hogsheads of molasses and his 
 neighbor have only one. One of those men was 
 guilty of restraining trade ! 
 
 But In the simple old times it passed over, a little 
 summer whirlwind. The town never got such cheap 
 molasses afterwards, for two fools cured themselves 
 of their folly. The law of common sense made a 
 statutory law unnecessary. 
 
 Wc have so many laws and so many sniffing com- 
 missions, so many special and assistant prosecuting at- 
 torneys barking on the scent, that the business man 
 to-day cannot tell from one day to another whose law 
 he Is violating. Men have been arraigned, within a 
 short time, who were as much surprised as any man 
 could be when they were charged with criminal busi- 
 ness methods. Things that were lawful suddenly be- 
 
 324
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 came unlawful, and things lawful from the beginning 
 in their States all at once, by hitching a commission 
 to the Constitution by a statute, became crimes in all 
 of the States. Unsuccessful competitors of corpora- 
 tions had at last, through long preparation of a 
 certain hysterical form of public sentiment, secured 
 by enactment what their business ability had failed to 
 accomplish, and men who had pursued business prin- 
 ciples and methods recognized by competitive busi- 
 ness since the world began, found themselves hounded 
 from court to court, assailed by executive proclama- 
 tion, and hooted by an unthinking and prejudiced 
 public. 
 
 We must get down to first principles and ac- 
 cept the world with its human nature. We cannot 
 make the millennium by Investigation. 
 
 Archbishop Ireland, whose Americanism Is as 
 conspicuous as his loyalty and devotion to his Church, 
 said In Washington recently: " In the intentions of 
 the fathers of the Republic political liberty was to 
 be the guardian and protector of civil liberty. It was 
 thought that, citizens being lawmakers, no laws would 
 be enacted that would go beyond what was neces- 
 sary In demanding restrictions of civil freedom. 
 
 " And yet is there not some peril to civil liberty 
 from political liberty, at least, in what I may be al- 
 lowed to call the exuberance, the riotousness of 
 political liberty? As a matter of fact, we have too 
 many laws; our Legislatures are too anxious to in- 
 crease the bulk of the statute book. As things are 
 23 325
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 tending, we shall soon have so many laws that 
 wrapped around us as it were by a serried mail we 
 shall become prisoners forbidden to stir or walk." 
 The Archbishop said further: '* Let us be on our 
 guard that in the pursuit of justice we do not bring 
 on injustice; that in coveting social prosperity we do 
 not encounter social disaster and chaos. There is in 
 this land to-day the delusion that to build up one class 
 naught else is needed but to pull down another, and 
 there is growing up among us a hatred of success in 
 others, however much that success may have been the 
 reward of most praiseworthy efforts. That accumu- 
 lation of capital, corporations, trusts, may have had 
 their faults and may need to be watched over by the 
 State with diligence and care, I shall not deny. But 
 this much I do deny, that accumulations of capital 
 and corporations are to be prejudged as guilty; that 
 men having part in them are to be deemed without 
 right to work, without right to fair play, which is the 
 native appanage of all Americans. 
 
 " This I deny : That all men are equally talented, 
 equally farseeing, equally industrious, that conse- 
 quently all are more or less entitled to an equal pos- 
 session of wealth or an equal industrial reward. 
 
 " This I deny: That all men being as they are by 
 nature and by habit, society can ever be without its 
 rich and its comparatively poor: That American in- 
 dustries and enterprises can ever thrive and hold their 
 own in world-wide competitions without there being 
 here and there, ministering to its needs, large accumu- 
 
 326
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 latlons of wealth and consequently large gatherings 
 of men with associations as contributors to that 
 wealth. 
 
 " Destroy great enterprises, make impossible the 
 unification of many individual energies, and if equality 
 then comes, it will be equality of mediocrity and so- 
 cial poverty." 
 
 I could not formulate my political and economi- 
 cal creed more perfectly. In substance and almost in 
 form of words at some points I said these things sev- 
 eral months ago. 
 
 The political laws and commissions and messages 
 have become a menace to our very fundamental form 
 of government and to our commerce and manufac- 
 tures, and we cannot awake too soon if we are to stay 
 the imperiling tendency of the hour. 
 
 To-day farsighted business men sit helpless be- 
 fore the riotous forces that have laid their hands 
 upon the wheels of manufacture and trade and that 
 threaten to turn out of our shops and factories and 
 trades hundreds of thousands of mechanics and labor- 
 ing men within the next year. The spirit of investi- 
 gation has discredited nearly every man's business 
 and posted warnings everywhere until men do not 
 know where to insure their lives or where to invest 
 their savings. The word comes all along the line 
 from conservative men to slow up until the future 
 can be seen more clearly. 
 
 Nothing on earth but this universal distrust from 
 unwise and useless investigations could stop the 
 
 327
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 progress of the most prosperous age the world has 
 ever seen. Every condition fills our sails prosper- 
 ously, but our captains are called pirates, our cargoes 
 are branded as stolen, and men of business of great 
 aggregations are known as buccaneers. That is the 
 alarm which is constantly shouted and which the com- 
 missioners are trying by ex parte methods to justify. 
 And there are too many thousands who believe it to 
 make it safe for the country, which always depends 
 upon the confidence of the people for business pros- 
 perity. 
 
 The President accuses his critics, and especially 
 the college men, of offering no remedies for the evils 
 he sees. Has it occurred to the President that there 
 are no evils which are not subject to correction by 
 the judicial processes which our fathers provided 
 when the common law was incorporated into our Con- 
 stitution and statutes? 
 
 The President's kindly critics believe that much 
 of the evil is exaggerated and in distorted forms. It 
 is incidental and not radical and pervasive. Much 
 of it is well-nigh ancient history, such, for instance, 
 as one of the most recent discoveries of the Interstate 
 Commerce Commission. It is not a live issue. 
 There is not enough evil to-day that threatens the 
 common good to warrant such a proportion of the 
 administration's attention and machinery of investi- 
 gation. It may be good politics. It may be a way to 
 make a certain kind of fame, but it is poor statesman- 
 ship. 
 
 328
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 If a remedy of evils is wanted, we would suggest 
 a remedy for the greater evil of agitation, exaggera- 
 tion, and distrust which is threatening the business of 
 the country. Stop investigating and shouting thief at 
 every great form of business. Restore the confidence 
 of the people. If there are evils to correct, correct 
 them without the bugles and drums of investigating 
 commissions. Use the common law and common sense 
 which served the world quite well until this sudden 
 spasm of government by commissions and investiga- 
 tions. Dismiss the commissions which must justify 
 their existence by smelling for rotten things and give 
 the country peace and rest. 
 
 Any government by investigating commissions or 
 committees will keep the country in a constant state 
 of agitation, for in the nature of things such methods 
 must be kept busy. And there always are things to 
 investigate. You can stir them up in anything from 
 a corporation to a church. I have known ministers 
 who kept churches stirred up and discredited and 
 divided from the time their pastorates began until 
 they ingloriously ended, none too soon, by trying to 
 create a millennium after a hand-made pattern of their 
 own invention. 
 
 We all want the most perfect things in govern- 
 ment and business, but there are some things that can- 
 not be done offhand, and the more you work at it the 
 more you bungle the job. There are laws of being 
 and progress and intelligence and ethics that cannot 
 be legislated and they cannot be set aside or hurried. 
 
 329
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 If they could be, the millennium makers would have 
 had things all adjusted long ago. But the world's 
 history is full of the useless patents and the broken 
 implements of men who started out to hurry up the 
 world and change it over in a day. 
 
 The only remedy is with human nature. And 
 that has to be remedied at its center. And there is 
 as much of that in a poor man as in a rich man or he 
 would not envy the rich man his riches. There 
 is as much of it in individual business as there is in 
 corporations, for every corporation is made out of 
 the union of individual forces of business. And 
 there is as much blundering and impotency in the gen- 
 eral government as there is in the State governments. 
 The general government should be the State gov- 
 ernments met together in Washington — but not aban- 
 doned at home. 
 
 The evil to be remedied, if one of the impractica- 
 ble college men might speak, is the mistaken assump- 
 tion that the wrongs of things can be legislated out 
 of them and that it Is the province of the government 
 to use a machinery of special commissions to investi- 
 gate and hunt up wrongs. As though there ever had 
 been anything or is anything or will be anything while 
 human nature lasts that will not have some evils in 
 it, or as though there can be a condition while men 
 differ In ability and the chance of opportunity and the 
 passion of acquisitiveness, that will not present in- 
 equalities of accumulation and cause loud protests 
 from the unsuccessful, who usually apologize for their
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 failures by accusing their successful rivals. The 
 restoration of our courts to the place usurped by com- 
 missions and the return to time-honored methods of 
 adjusting wrongs ab initio would hold us back from 
 evils worse than any threatening from trusts or 
 " swollen fortunes." 
 
 The age is peculiarly liable to exaggerated no- 
 tions of the wrongs, the tyranny, and the corruption 
 of men. We take a paper at breakfast and focus the 
 world's iniquity into one house at one hour as into 
 a camera obscura. We scrape it all off the pages 
 of one little paper into our plate and look at it and 
 say: "How long, O Lord, how long! The world 
 has gone over to the devil bodily." But you scatter 
 it all back whence it all came over the wires and 
 there is not enough of it to refract one ray of the 
 sun of our glorious civilization. Look around you. 
 Do you find the conditions in your town that are 
 in the other town? Things located in another 
 town, like a quack's recommendations, usually can- 
 not be located anywhere. Do you find cruel rich 
 and starving poor? Do you find mechanics and 
 workingmen underpaid and their employers rolling 
 in luxury and spending their money in indolence? 
 You find such exceptions. But that is not the rule. 
 Would there be more buildings built and more rail- 
 ways and more industries if there were fewer million- 
 aires? The men who are helping things out of 
 mediocrity are the men who are making the mighty 
 centers of force around which industry, labor, trade, 
 
 331
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 commerce revolve In their great orbits, and you can- 
 not hurl these tremendous interests Into chaos more 
 surely or with more awful certainty than by strllclng 
 these centers and discrediting them with the people. 
 
 It would be well for our agitators to study Wash- 
 ington's Farewell Address as a caution against the 
 misuse of the Constitution; study Lincoln's mighty 
 faith and superb patience and his charity for all; 
 study McKInley's philosophical, practical, sound 
 sense and give the people a rest. The evils that are 
 will be corrected by the force of public sentiment, 
 acting sanely and calmly, and the evils that are not 
 will vanish into regions whence come all disturbing 
 ghosts. 
 
 There was not a thing from meat packing to rail- 
 way traffic that was not striving to make Its adjust- 
 ment to its new conditions, the larger conditions, and 
 that would not have reached that adjustment far 
 more satisfactorily without the mischievous processes 
 of an investigation which took the fiction sensation 
 mongers for its authority and Inspiration. 
 
 The demagogue has reveled In investigations, 
 and the greater the evils he could stir up, the greater 
 value he has claimed for his service. That remedy 
 has been worse than the disease. 
 
 Strange that all of a sudden all Americans must 
 be investigated! It could have been done fifty years 
 ago. It can be done fifty years from now. But we 
 will pray that it may not be done again for a thousand 
 years to come ! 
 
 332
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 The remedy? Talk of nothing for a year but 
 the great and glorious things of America. Talk of 
 the thousand varieties of handy and cheap forms into 
 which meats and fruits and vegetables, and all edibles, 
 are being put for men in all places and pursuits, from 
 the day laborer to the North-pole explorer. Talk of 
 the difference between kerosene at fifteen or twenty 
 cents a gallon and kerosene at one dollar a gallon 
 (and every gallon in those times might blow you into 
 kingdom come) . Talk of the by-products once in the 
 dump heaps that are adding hundreds of millions an- 
 nually to our country's wealth and the comforts of 
 the rich to the homes of the poor. Talk of unnum- 
 bered forms of manufacture, those most active agents 
 of civilization which must be credited to our great 
 land. Talk of the railways which from opposition 
 in their Inception to persecution throughout their his- 
 tory, have pushed on, opening up States, filling the 
 nation with teeming millions, transporting us for a 
 fraction of the cost of conveying ourselves In all 
 directions, hurling our papers and letters off at every 
 wayside village at a mile a minute, and taking to the 
 tidewaters for the markets of the world the products 
 of our fields, and the work of our shops and fac- 
 tories. Talk about these great things a year and 
 see how few things there will be to complain about. 
 Let the glory of our country and the glory of its 
 future be the next party platform. We have had pes- 
 simism enough, socialism enough, and investigation 
 enough. 
 
 333
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 The further man advances the larger will be his 
 concepts and achievements and the more diminutive 
 will appear the men of small vision who obstructed 
 him. The large developments of great men are not 
 opposed to the small enterprises of smaller men which 
 have any element of progress in them. If sometimes 
 they interfere with the smaller activities and cause re- 
 adjustments, they more than compensate by the 
 greater things accomplished. The smaller things 
 must yield to the larger and more powerful. It is 
 God's law. Nothing is plainer In all nature. 
 
 The little stars have their orbits. The great stars 
 made those small orbits. You can put neither into 
 the place of the other. They harmonize. That they 
 differ one from another introduces no confusion into 
 the universe. The ruin would come by dividing the 
 big ones up to make little ones of them. 
 
 The violent effort, opposed to all laws known to 
 man, to equalize artificially the forms of our trade 
 will stand as a grim monument to mark the supreme 
 folly of our country among all nations and to desig- 
 nate our commercial place in the centuries. And its 
 inscriptions will be the deeper chiseled, more legible 
 and enduring because of the startling contrast with 
 our progress in all other forms of intelligence. 
 
 Let us find our remedy for the present fear and 
 distrust and incrimination in traditional statesmanship 
 as far removed as the poles are apart from a paternal, 
 fussing, meddling, hysterical form of government 
 which has set for itself the regeneration of the land 
 
 334
 
 THE REMEDY 
 
 through government by commissions with investiga- 
 tion. 
 
 If there be things which require the national at- 
 tention, let it be so given as to conserve the good 
 while restraining the bad. Let it foster and promote 
 the great things and not assail them as though cor- 
 porations monopolized the evils and individuals car- 
 ried the virtues because they are done up in small 
 parcels. Let our laws be discriminating, promote all 
 the interests of all just men, great and small, promote 
 more than restrain, build up more than pull down. 
 And let us as far as possible steer away from special 
 commissions, which must vindicate themselves by 
 doing special things and, therefore, must find material 
 or make it up by investigations. Our general laws 
 are best. Our regular courts and machinery of jus- 
 tice will be least influenced by passion or politics and 
 self-interest. 
 
 And then let all the people insist, with a front 
 that will threaten instant resistance, that no one of 
 our courts or judges shall be influenced by threat or 
 reward or malice or politics or by anything except 
 justice. Let those balances hang far away from 
 White House or lobby of legislative halls, in an 
 atmosphere of justice, insulated from every influence 
 but — justice.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 MEN FOR THE TIMES 
 
 IT may be " insulting to the American citizen," 
 as one editor of the public press has told me, 
 to say that our great trouble Is that the man is 
 too small for his times, but that depends upon whether 
 it is a fact. If that is true, the remark is not in- 
 sulting, although it may be humiliating. It is best 
 to look into the face of facts however ugly they may 
 appear, 
 
 I believe that there is nothing clearer than that 
 the age has grown faster than the average man who 
 Is living in it. Some men have anticipated It and 
 have. Indeed, been Its creators. They, however, 
 would be the first to say that It Is too great for them. 
 But the average man has been left behind in the 
 mighty onrush of the times. He has found it im- 
 possible to keep up with Its discoveries and Inventions 
 and to grasp the extent of Its commerce and reveal- 
 ing future. The problems have come faster than he 
 could master them. They have excited his fears and 
 anxiety. He has attempted to apply old methods, and 
 when he could not, has condemned and opposed the 
 
 33^
 
 MEN FOR THE TIMES 
 
 things he could not understand. This failure of the 
 prophetic gift has left him out of sympathy with the 
 men of far vision. He has not followed the seer. 
 It was easier for him to brand things which were 
 incomprehensible as visionary and follow the mal- 
 content. 
 
 This is why he has opposed the readjustments of 
 his times. He has sincerely believed them danger- 
 ous. That business should pass into new forms of 
 gigantic proportions has seemed to him perilous and 
 threatening to the stability of the country. And 
 when they have taken on inevitable magnitudes and 
 accumulated force, like that of the planets, he has 
 become dismayed, and like peoples once frightened 
 by the eclipse, has run about in frantic helplessness 
 seeking protection. You find him in Congress mak- 
 ing laws to stop progress because progress has fright- 
 ened him. Things are getting too great and the few 
 men who are as big as their times are ghosts of 
 Caesars that, haunting the Nation, may seize the reins 
 of power and make all the rest of us slaves. They 
 are the millionaire conspirators ! But the movements 
 of the age are great because men are small. They 
 are not too great to great men. They are natural 
 enough and there is nothing alarming in their pro- 
 portions to those who have kept up with them. 
 Gravitation is not disturbed by the addition of a new 
 planet or the loss of an old one. There is enough of 
 it and there is not too much of it. If a new planet 
 comes on, gravitation appoints it to its orbit. If one 
 
 337
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 drops out, gravitation makes a new adjustment and 
 there is no serious disturbance of the universe. 
 
 The only question for us is what are the re- 
 sources and the forces and the men who are equal to 
 them? And it is our business not to make things 
 small but men great, and to get out of the way of men 
 who are great, and not hinder them if we cannot 
 help them. 
 
 There are causes for the inequality of the times 
 and men. The age has been more than a growth — 
 it has been a sudden creation. It has been more than 
 a sun rising — it has been a sun burst out of a cloud. 
 Chemistry has thrust upon us, for instance, in a half 
 century a hundred substances which were not cre- 
 ated by the Almighty, but which were left for the 
 creator-man. Changes in use of old forces and the 
 application of new ones have compelled readjust- 
 ments of methods of business and men have had 
 little more to do than to go on as the stars do by 
 gravitation. This is plain to those who having eyes 
 see and having ears hear and having minds under- 
 stand. 
 
 It is a query whether there might not be something 
 peculiar to our country in our imported man. We 
 have been taking into this country for a quarter of a 
 century in tremendous numbers peoples who have 
 not been so situated as to have had opportunities of 
 sound thinking and worthy horizons. They have 
 come in millions to influence the thought of our coun- 
 try and they have been subject to violent prejudices 
 
 338
 
 MEN FOR THE TIMES 
 
 by being made to believe that strength, power, wealth, 
 business, were menacing to individual rights and 
 privileges. Millions of these peoples have had little 
 opportunity to grasp economic problems outside 
 their dinner pails. Their ignorance has been taken 
 advantage of by the yellow journals In red type. 
 Those are the papers they read. It was the reading 
 of such a paper that murdered McKinley. 
 
 These men are everywhere, and though many 
 thousands of men from alien shores are our best 
 American citizens, they are not from these men's 
 shores. This Is an element In our present condition 
 that we have not grappled with with any sound 
 philosophy or practical sense. We have left them 
 to the demagogue. We are now reaping our whirl- 
 wind. 
 
 At another point we have suffered. , It has been 
 by the loss of an Americanism essential to the amal- 
 gamation of incoming peoples. Peoples from out- 
 side are to subdue us to their crude thinking or we 
 are to lift them by the power of our intelligent and 
 free citizenship. But we lost millions In our great 
 Civil War who would have been a tremendous con- 
 serving strength at this time. They were slain In 
 battles on both sides of the contest, equally virile and 
 American. We lost them, but not only so, they would 
 have become the fathers of millions like themselves 
 from whom would have sprung the great successors 
 of those statesmen and scholars, philosophers and 
 judges, of our tremendous past. We can well believe 
 
 339
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 that ours would be a greater land, saved from the 
 folly that is now covering us with shame and con- 
 fusion, had these men been added to the force of our 
 Americanism. We would not be advertising our- 
 selves as helpless and frightened by the unusual gifts 
 of an unusual land and time. Those who are equal 
 to the age are too great a minority. Their voices 
 will register in history. Clamor will register now. 
 
 What can be done? There is much that can be 
 done. A work of education of public sentiment 
 must be begun. The cringing, politic, compromis- 
 ing, self-seeking public man, whether in the pulpit, 
 the press, or the political forum, must be displaced 
 by men of convictions who are not afraid and whose 
 convictions are born of loyalty to truth and our land. 
 
 We must have men in the front of influence, to 
 whom ofl'ice is nothing and money is cheap and fame 
 evanescent. Men who use their country at the cost 
 of it should be despised. We should teach our chil- 
 dren in our homes and in our public schools that such 
 men are enemies to our country. 
 
 We should insist that parties must be organiza- 
 tions, not to perpetuate themselves nor to assert a 
 slavish authority over men by the terror of the labor 
 unions' " scab " language, or to promote men to ofiice, 
 but for the direct service of the country, to be sup- 
 ported in proportion to a loyalty that will welcome 
 defeat at the polls but never the defeat of sound 
 principles of government; that will choose to act the 
 part of a minority in loyal protest rather than 
 
 340
 
 MEN FOR THE TIMES 
 
 control as a majority at the price of debauched prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 Who does not know that at more than one point 
 of vital interest every party that has had control has 
 sacrificed the interests of the country to party success? 
 
 Our present agitated and confused condition, our 
 compromise with socialism, our use of the more subtle 
 and insidious forms of anarchism by which the whole 
 structure of government is disturbed and commerce is 
 halted in the time of its greatest prosperity with 
 untold loss not to the rich only but to the poor, 
 is due not to a wise and courageous statesmanship 
 seeking reforms in an age of glaring degeneracy — 
 an absurd, an infamous charge — but to cunning, au- 
 dacious politics which with a garment of light hiding 
 its true character is deceiving the very elect. 
 
 Such things must be met fearlessly and pursued so 
 relentlessly by all possible exposure that men in the 
 trade of politics at the expense of the country will be 
 made as odious as a Benedict Arnold, for such men 
 are traitors of the most dangerous character. Men 
 fighting in the open against the government upon a 
 declared issue, even if a mistaken one, are infinitely 
 honorable in comparison. 
 
 What is more detestable than that man who 
 spends his days and nights studying the popular 
 moves from which he may choose some exciting cause 
 that will give him the following and claque of a rest- 
 less and excitable element as subject to influence by 
 some new thing as ever the Athenians were? 
 23 341
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 We should relegate to the rubbish heap of poll- 
 tics every agitation without a sound issue and a trans- 
 parent cause. 
 
 An education of a constructive kind In public sen- 
 timent is our great need and it is an educational work 
 in which all can offer themselves as teachers. 
 
 Never until that sentiment is created will laws 
 be worth engrossing. With that sentiment special 
 laws are not needed and agitating commissions can 
 safely leave the country to discover and regulate its 
 wrongs by laws that the ages of civilization have 
 stamped with efficiency. 
 
 But ours must be a more intensive education. 
 Our intellects must be created. They are the foot- 
 ing courses on which we build sentiment and loyalty 
 and progress. We need more than the red school- 
 house. 
 
 We had the spectacle, in the recent trial of a so- 
 cialist, of a defendant lawyer arraigning education 
 as the creator of an objectionable class, a tyrannical 
 class ! This utterance probably has the distinction 
 of being the first of its kind from such a source. It 
 is not usual that a man from an educated profession 
 champions ignorance. 
 
 Possibly that socialistic lawyer remembered that 
 In the convention of 1787, which gave us our consti- 
 tutional government, more than one half of the 
 members were university men, while some of the 
 others, like Franklin, were equal In mental discipline 
 and scholarship through private study. That Is why 
 
 342
 
 MEN FOR THE TIMES 
 
 he thinks the Republic tyrannical! The educated 
 man hardly needs a defense in these days and the 
 man who scorns him boasts his ignorance. 
 
 The story is told of the late Bishop Ames, a con- 
 fidential adviser of Lincoln and one of the best-known 
 bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, that 
 when presiding over a frontier conference, one of the 
 older ministers in an ardent speech thanked God that 
 he was not a college man. The bishop said: " Do I 
 understand the brother to thank God for his igno- 
 rance?" " Yes, sir, I do," was the reply. "Well," 
 the bishop answered, " the brother has much to be 
 thankful for!" 
 
 Power of brain to interrogate our times intelli- 
 gently, clearly, and rationally would correct preva- 
 lent vagaries with regard to government and twen- 
 tieth-century forms of commerce and trade and social 
 conditions. 
 
 The case is as plain as the growth of trees and 
 other plant forms that the mind is increased by what 
 it feeds upon — by hard study and sound thinking, and 
 so becomes able to generalize safely Its facts and use 
 them constructively. It is the way the strong man 
 Is made. 
 
 And that Is the first work for education, to make 
 a man as big as his time; to make him for himself 
 and not a mere commercial machine ; to make him safe 
 to himself; capable of thinking for himself; with 
 Ideals that lift him to leadership. Especially in a 
 country where every voter is a ruler, every voter 
 
 343
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 should be thoroughly furnished by a sound education 
 in the public schools, the technical schools, and the 
 colleges. 
 
 The Rev. Bishop Bash ford, in discussing the 
 advantages of a college education, has given some 
 interesting facts and figures. According to these 
 figures the college-bred men of the United States have 
 furnished thirty-two per cent of all Congressmen, 
 forty-six per cent of our Senators, fifty per cent of the 
 Vice-presidents, sixty-five per cent of the Presidents, 
 seventy-three per cent of the Judges of the Supreme 
 Court, and eighty-three per cent of our Chief Justices. 
 " But as only one man in 750 reaching twenty-one 
 throughout our history has been a college graduate, a 
 little calculation will show that a college education 
 increases its possessor's opportunities of reaching 
 political eminence in the United States from two hun- 
 dred and fortyfold in case of Congressmen to six hun- 
 dred and twenty-twofold in case of the Chief Justices 
 of the Supreme Court. A college education increases 
 one's opportunities of reaching the higher places in 
 government even more than it increases his opportuni- 
 ties of reaching the lower positions. 
 
 " Soon after the Cyclopedia of American Biog- 
 raphy was issued President Thwing looked up the 
 educational record of every name appearing in the 
 six volumes. Out of 15,142 persons whose names 
 appear in our national biography, 5,326, or thirty- 
 five per cent, were college bred. In other words, a 
 college education gives a young person 262 times as 
 
 344
 
 MEN FOR THE TIMES 
 
 many possibilities of reaching recognition In a na- 
 tional biography as those persons enjoy who have 
 neglected their early opportunities for culture. 
 
 " A well-read person was handed the six volumes 
 of this same Cyclopedia and was asked to select from 
 it lOO Americans whose names would be immortal. 
 After much examination and study he furnished a 
 hst of 150 Americans — authors, teachers, soldiers, 
 preachers, statesmen, inventors, business men, and re- 
 formers, whose fame in his judgment would be last- 
 ing. The early lives of these persons were examined 
 and seventy-five per cent of them were found to be 
 college graduates. This shows that as we pass from 
 the less eminent to the more famous Americans the 
 proportion of college graduates increases a young 
 person's possibilities of reaching the roll of Ameri- 
 can immortals five hundred and sixty-twofold. 
 
 " Several intelligent persons were asked recently 
 to name the twelve persons who in their judgment 
 had won the greatest fame in the recent war with 
 Spain. After some discussion a list of sixteen names 
 was agreed upon and submitted to the writer. The 
 record of these persons disclosed the fact that four- 
 teen of them, or eighty-seven and a half per cent, were 
 college graduates. In other words, the discipline and 
 association of the college increased the opportunities 
 of winning fame in the late war six hundred and 
 fifty-sixfold. 
 
 " The statistics furnished surely demonstrate the 
 immense advantages which a college education gives 
 
 345
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 young people for a public career. The impression is 
 quite general, however, that for a life of business a 
 college education furnishes no advantages. Indeed, 
 many people believe that higher education stands in 
 the way of money-making by demanding the time and 
 money which might otherwise give a young man an 
 excellent start in business. Let us test this impres- 
 sion by the facts. 
 
 " The first wealthy Rothschild was trained for 
 the Jewish priesthood and then used his disciplined 
 powers for laying the foundations of that great bank- 
 ing house. James Gordon Bennett, Sr., studied ten 
 years for the priesthood and then abandoned the 
 sanctuary for the editorial sanctum and used his 
 trained intellect for founding one of the great news- 
 papers of the country. A. T. Stewart was educated 
 for the ministry, became a teacher, and then turned 
 his keen, trained mind to business and accumulated 
 a fortune of $40,000,000. Samuel J. Tilden, who 
 made millions and w^ho left $5,000,000 to the New 
 York Library, was the son of a farmer and a graduate 
 of New York University. Abram Hewitt, the incor- 
 ruptible mayor of New York, the millionaire business 
 man and partner of Peter Cooper, was a graduate of 
 Columbia College. Henry Roosevelt, who made 
 millions and left $2,000,000 to the Roosevelt Hos- 
 pital of New York, Is another example of the gradu- 
 ate in business. John A. Stevens, a Yale alumnus, 
 who was for thirty years president of the New York 
 Bank of Commerce, was the financial adviser of 
 
 346
 
 MEN FOR THE TIMES 
 
 Chase and Lincoln, and the chairman of the com- 
 mittee which raised $150,000,000 for the govern- 
 ment at the time of her sorest need during the Civil 
 War. WilHam B. Astor completed a college course 
 and then used his disciplined powers to add $50,000,- 
 000 to the Astor estates. A study of our commercial 
 metropolis shows that some college graduates at 
 least are men of affairs able to bring things to pass 
 in the business world and to secure wealth. Such 
 eminent financiers as Corcoran and Bell, of Wash- 
 ington, Biddle, Rush, and Pepper, of Philadelphia, 
 the Tudors, Adamses, Durant, and the Lawrences, of 
 Boston, teach the same lesson." 
 
 Ignorance is the soil of anarchy and socialism. 
 The demagogue influences the ignorant. And the 
 demagogues multiply among the ignorant. The raw 
 condition of this land is our danger. 
 
 Science is no longer exclusively scholastic and 
 mythical. It is practical and is being harnessed to 
 countless forms of human endeavor. Hundreds of 
 millions of dollars are being invested in electricity 
 that was represented a century ago by one man and 
 a kite. To master it and apply it in best forms by the 
 most perfect apparatus demands a long and thorough 
 course of training. The young man should bring to it 
 a prepared brain and then spend years in an engineer- 
 ing course, mathematical, experimental, practical, 
 under trained instructors. 
 
 Chemistry is represented by other hundreds of 
 millions. It yields up its secrets and renders its will- 
 
 347
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 ing service to the educated only. It will destroy the 
 ignorant meddlers. Biology in surgical and medical 
 practice, geology in the structure of the globe and in 
 mining developments, botany in curative drugs and a 
 thousand useful and esthetic forms, mineralogy in the 
 ores and precious metals; in fact, all of the sciences 
 as taught in the colleges are practical demands and 
 the educated mind is the master to whom they yield 
 obedience. 
 
 Education is not for culture simply. It is a prac- 
 tical necessity. It is becoming indispensable to men 
 in all walks of life since human life is entering into 
 the possession of the awful forces and agents of the 
 universe to which the ignorant are unequal and by 
 which they are endangered and destroyed. It is not 
 to ride Bucephalus, but to bridle and saddle and ride 
 lightning that our young Alexanders are come. And 
 they are to do it by turning out of the shadows of 
 ignorance toward the rising sun of revealed truth 
 and ascending knowledge. 
 
 Shall we have a Lusitania of 790 feet in length 
 and 40,000 tons burden, with 45,000 horse power of 
 steam, in her immensity and not have a man equally 
 equipped and disciplined to command her? As much 
 greater the ship than the old-fashioned sailing vessel, 
 so much greater the man. We must make our men 
 as great as the times in which they live. I am told 
 that the most successful transatlantic line, the only 
 one that never has lost a life, requires the four 
 officers subordinate to the captain to hold a captain's 
 
 348
 
 MEN FOR THE TIMES 
 
 license. And I am told that these officers were 
 educated for the British navy and all have been mas- 
 ters of ships. That is in keeping with the age. 
 
 In a republic where the people are the rulers, 
 where the voter is the emperor, the demand for edu- 
 cated men is placed upon the people. We are in 
 contempt instantly among the nations of the earth 
 if we send the uneducated and unthinking into Con- 
 gress or into high executive positions. Our land 
 demands nothing so much as great minds. And the 
 universities and colleges must work night and day 
 to keep up with the market demand, because the 
 80,000,000 will soon be 200,000,000, and this is only 
 the beginning. Great men for a great country is the 
 logic of events. 
 
 Evils in corporations and In individual enterprise 
 will be corrected by strong thinking brains as we move 
 forward. We never shall go backward. We must 
 go forward. What we need Is not a riotous clamor 
 against organized capital, but we should develop our 
 young men to a capacity and arouse In them a loyalty 
 that will prepare them to go into Congress and intel- 
 ligently legislate safe adjustments of these gigantic 
 forces of the times, and the largest possible forms of 
 business In manufacture, trade, and Industry to the 
 State and to all the civil rights of men by sound 
 principles of progress and prosperity. 
 
 The very magnitude of the age has Imposed upon 
 man the obligation of presenting to its service his ut- 
 most powers. He must be as great as the things he 
 
 349
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 makes and the things he attempts to control. The 
 plain man, the workingman must be a philosopher and 
 statesman. The means are at hand. The world is 
 full of books. The workingman of our cities could 
 carry home at night the best thinking, the latest dis- 
 coveries, the most practical sciences, the most inspir- 
 ing discussions of the great questions of the age, for 
 about what it cost him that day for his beer. Ten 
 minutes with his minister, his priest, his rabbi, or 
 the school-teacher will give him the necessary hints 
 for wise selection of subjects. 
 
 It is startling, If not appalling, to think of such a 
 country as ours In such an age, with such mighty 
 forces and with movements so vast, governed by vot- 
 ers who cannot grasp Its tremendous problems, but 
 who are the traffic and barter of the politician with 
 his yellow newspaper. 
 
 We cannot consent as a country to have our laws 
 made and our pace set in these awful times by men of 
 small and unworthy concepts. We must have think- 
 ers everywhere from the dinner pail to the pulpit, 
 clear-visioned, practical thinkers; men who have 
 something to think with as well as to think about. 
 
 The greatest nation of the earth demands the 
 greatest intellectual force, the purest morals and tru- 
 est patriotism to be found among men for its lawmak- 
 ers and executives. Our task is the development of 
 our internal resources, the amalgamation of conflict- 
 ing races and conditions meeting on our shores, the 
 opening up of all of those golden seams of progress 
 
 350
 
 MEN FOR THE TIMES 
 
 that lead across our mighty continent, the preparation 
 of a last civilization of so great virility and power 
 that it will be ready for the conquest of forces sure 
 to invade our land from the Western worlds to con- 
 quer us or to be conquered. We are at the outer 
 threshold of our mission and opportunity as a nation 
 and we must have men constructive and not destruc- 
 tive to control and shape our destiny. Ours must be 
 men of steady, calm confidence and deep-rooted, safe 
 convictions. It is no time for Dryden's " Duke of 
 Buckingham " : 
 
 A man so various that he seemed to be 
 Not one but all mankind's epitome, 
 Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, 
 Everything by turns and nothing long. 
 
 That is your professional politician. whose life is 
 full of cowardly contradictions. 
 
 Our only safety is in an insistence that govern- 
 ment shall be by the Constitution and by those laws 
 and principles which have been tested in all civilized 
 ages. 
 
 If we trifle with constitutional government by 
 " stretching the Constitution," by reading into it per- 
 sonal opinions and reading out of it safeguards 
 against dangerous ambitions; if we swing it like a gate 
 on hinges, allowing men to open and shut it at will, 
 we shall have a government by men and not by law 
 and that leads to oligarchy and tyranny. Our safety 
 is in the wisdom of our fathers of 1787 and our prog- 
 
 351
 
 THE RAID ON PROSPERITY 
 
 ress up the heights of civilization and to a sure pros- 
 perity must be by the protection of the Constitution, 
 which secures and guarantees the inalienable rights of 
 the people both rich and poor. Theirs was a pre- 
 scient wisdom which provided for the civic rights of 
 every new adjustment. This highway leads to a 
 prosperity commensurate with our resources and our 
 obhgations. 
 
 (?) 
 
 THE END
 
 A VALUABLE FINANCL\L BOOK. 
 
 Financial Crises 
 
 And Periods of Industrial and Commercial Depression. 
 With Diagrams, Bibliography, and Index. By Theodore 
 E, Burton. i2mo. Cloth, $1.40 net; postage, 12 cents 
 additional. 
 
 " Mr. Burton has written a very interesting book. His table of bib- 
 liography shows that, in collecting his facts, he has examined a great 
 number of authorities ; and his theories, based on these facts, should 
 prove acceptable to all who have studied the subject." 
 
 — New York Evening Post. 
 
 " It is a guide of financial fact and theory. Out of this volume one 
 can trace the causes of financial depressions and detect the warning 
 signs which precede their coming. And when they have come one can 
 learn here how to deal with them and check their worst effects. The 
 whole book is filled with data of the utmost value to business men and 
 financiers, as also to those intelligent readers who, while perhaps not 
 interested in the subject of finance as a study, must find it of invaluable 
 interest as a subject of skilful literary treatment." — Philadelphia Item. 
 
 "The author has deeply entered and minutely analyzed his subject- 
 matter in preparing what will be recognized as a standard work." 
 
 — Boston Advertiser. 
 
 " The book is splendid and most complete, while the quotations from 
 the works of the leading economic writers in this country and Europe, 
 used to enforce the arguments which Mr. Burton presents, enforce the 
 chain forged of fact and argument." — Netu York Mail and Express. 
 
 " The volume is a remarkably succinct and lucid study. It should 
 be read by every banker and man of business." 
 
 — Satt Francisco Argonaut. 
 
 " General readers of financial books and all advanced students will 
 appreciate this valuable work, but it will be especially prized by bankers 
 and others in financial and business life. It combines theory, criticism, 
 and statistical fact. In the theoretical part the author exposes some 
 fallacies as to financial crises and panics, and offers a positive theory 
 which is reasonable and tenable." — Brooklyn Standard- Union. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 APPLETONS' BUSINESS SERIES. 
 
 Trust Finance. 
 
 By Dr. E. S. Meade, of the Wharton School of Finance, 
 University of Pennsylvania. i2mo. Cloth, $1.25 net; 
 postage, 12 cents additional. 
 
 In " Trust Finance " are discussed the methods which have been 
 employed and the financial principles which are illustrated in the pro- 
 motion, financing, and financial management of the industrial trusts. 
 
 The author has no program of trust regulation to advocate, nor is 
 it apparent that he considers any scheme of regulation necessary or 
 even desirable. He confines himself to a discussion of financial meth- 
 ods and principles as illustrated by the history of the ludustrial Trust, 
 and avoids the main grounds of the controversy which the so-called 
 " Trust Question " arouses. The book will be of service to the in- 
 vestor, and to the student of finance who wishes to gain an insight into 
 the nature of the trust as an institution without reference to its moral 
 or ethical characteristics and functions. 
 
 "A useful and timely work." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 "Of profitable interest to students of finance." — Boston Advertiser. 
 
 " A masterly study of trusts from the investor's standpoint." — The 
 Outlook. 
 
 " Nothing more searching and brilliant has been written on the 
 subject." — Seattle Times. 
 
 "Interesting because it gives a complete resume of the whole 
 ' trust ' subject." — Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 
 " Nothing could be more enlightening and fairer than Professor 
 Meade's discussion of the conditions that drove competitive industries 
 into combination." — Chicago Evening Post. 
 
 " A comprehensive and able statement of the genesis, the oi^aniza- 
 tion, and the management of the industrial combinations commonly 
 known as the ' trusts.' This field has been made the subject of any 
 number of newspaper and magazine articles, as well as addresses 
 before economic associations, but which is for the first time dealt with 
 in the large and thorough way which Mr. Meade is able to employ in 
 this book. He has made a valuable addition to financial literature." — 
 fVall Street Journal. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
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