AMERICAN COMBINES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2421, 9 February 1909, Page 5

AMERICAN COMBINES.

WRONG-DOERS OF GREAT WEALTH. Ex-President Roosevelt, in his final Message to Congress, said: —.“As regards the great corporations engaged in interstate business, and especially the railroads, I can only repeat what I have already again and again said'iir'my Messages to the Congress. I believe that under the interstate clause, of the Constitution the United States has complete and paramount right to control all agencies of interstate commerce, and I believe that the National Government alone can exercise this right with, wisdom and effectiveness so as both to secure justice from and to do justice to the great corporations, which are the most important factors in modern business. I believe that it is worse than folly to attempt to prohibit all combinations as is done by the Sherman anti-trust law, because such a law can be enforced only imperfectly and unequally, and its enforcement works almost as much hardship as good. I strongly advocate that instead of an unwise effort to prohibit all combinations there shall be substituted a* law which shall expressly permit combinations which are in the interest of the public but shall at the same time give to some agency of the National Government full power of control and supervision over them. One of the chief features of this control should be securing entire publicity in all matters which the public has a right to know, and furthermore the power, not by judicial but by executive action, to prevent or put a stop to every form improper favoritism or other wrongdoing. “It is in the interest of all of us that there should be a premium put upon individual initiative and individual capacity, and an ample reward for the great directing intelligences alone competent to manage the great business operations of to-day. It is well to keep in mind that exactly as the anarchist is tho worst enemy of order, so the men who defend the rights of property have most to fear from the wrong-doers of great wealth, and the men who j are championing popular rights have most to fear from the demagogues who, in the name of popular rights, would do wrong to and oppress honest business men, honest men of wealth; for the success of either type of wrong-doer necessarily invites a violent reaction against the cause the wrong-doer nominally .upholds. In point of danger to the nation there is nothing to choose between, on tho one hand, the corruptionist, the bribegiver, tho bribe-taker, the man who employs his great talent to swindle liis fellow-citizens on a large scale, and, on the other hand, the preacher , of class hatred, the man who whether from ignorance or from willingness to 1 sacrifice his country to his ambition ! persuades well-meaning but wrongheaded men to try to destroy the instruments upon which our prosperity j mainly rests. Let each group of men f beware of and guard against the short-f comings to which that group is itself !: most liable. Too often we see. the business community in a spirit of un-; healthy class consciousness deplore the effort to hold to account under the law the wealthy men who in theirs management of' great corporations/ whether railroads, street railways, oil* other industrial enterprises, have bc-j havedin a way that revolts the con-) science of the plain, decent people. Such an attitude cannot be con-) denuied too severely, for men of proy pertv should recognise .that they., jeo* pardise. the rights of property whed they fail heartily to join in the effon to do away with the abuses of wealthOn the other hand, those whojadvocat; proper control on behalf of the public through the State, of these great eoi porations, and of the wealth engage" on a giant scale in business operation: must°over keep in mind that tinier they do scrupulous justice to the coi poration, unless they permit ampjj profit, and cordially encourage capah? men of business so long as they at with honesty, they are striking at t! root of our national well-being, fd; in the long run. under the mere sure of material distress, the peofl as a whole would probably go baok| the reign of an unrestricted mdividuj ism rather than submit to.a conn by the State so drastic and so fool it conceived in a spirit of such linff sonable and narrow hostility to w'eaE as to prevent business operations fi| being profitable, and therefore ji bring ruin uponHhe entire busiij community, and "ultimately upoiUj ontire body of citizens.”