3
September 6, iso
1 he Nebraska Independent
in the establishment of a douma, and throughout
Europe the movement manifests itself in various
forms. In the United States this trend toward
democracy has taken the form of a growing de
mand for the election of United States senators
by a direct vote of the people. It would be diffi
cult to overestimate the strategic advantages of
this reform, for since every bill must receive the
sanction of the senate as well as the house of
representatives before it can become a law, no
important remedial legislation of a national char
acter is possible until the senate is brought into
harmony with the people.
I am within the limits of the truth when I
Bay that the senate has been for years the bulwark
of predatory wealth and that it even now con
tains so many members who owe their election
to favor-seeking corporations and are so subserv
ient to their masters as to prevent needed legis
ation. The popular branch of congress has four
times declared in favor of this reform by a two-,
thirds vote and more than two-thirds of the states
have demanded it, and yet the senate arrogantly
and impudently blocks the way.
"The income tax, which some in our country
have denounced as . a socialistic attack upon
wealth, has, I am pleased to report, ine endorse
ment of the most conservative countries in the old
world. It is a permanent part of the fiscal system
of most of the countries of Europe and in many
places it is a graded tax, the rate being highest
upon the largest incomes. England has long de
pended upon the income tax for a considerable
part of her revenues and the English commis
sion is now investigating the proposition to change
from a uniform to a graded tax.
"I have been absent too long to speak with
any authority on the public sentiment in this
country at this time, but I am so convinced of the
Justice of the income tax that I feel sure that the
people will sooner or later demand an amend
ment to the constitution which will specifically au
thorize an income tax and thus make it possible
for the burdens of the federal government to be
apportioned among the people in proportion to
their ability to bear them. It is little short of a
disgrace to our country that while it is able to
command the lives of its citizens in time of war,
it can not, even in the most extreme emergency,
compel wealth to bear its share of the expenses
- of the government which protects it.
"I have referred to the investigation of in
ternational controversies under a system which
does not bind the parties to accept the findings
of the court of inquiry. This plan can be used
in disputes between labor and capital ; in fact, it
was proposed as a means of settling such dis
putes before it was applied to international con
troversies. It is as important that we shall have
peace at home as that we shall live peaceably
with neighboring nations, and peace is only pos
sible when it rests upon justice. In advocating
arbitration of differences between large corporate
employers and their employes, I believe we are
defending the highest interests of the three
parties to these disputes, viz: the employers, the
employes and the public. The employe can not
be turned over to the employer to be dealt with
as the employer may please.
"The question sometimes asked, 'Can I not
conduct my business to suit myself?' is a plausible
one, but when a man in conducting his business
attempts to arbitrarily fix the conditions under
jvhich hundreds of employes are to live and to
determine the future of thousands of human be
, ings, I answer without hesitation that he has no
right to conduct his own business in such a way
as to deprive his employes of the right to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To support
this position, I need only refer to the laws
regulating the safety of mines, the factory laws
fixing the age at which children can be employed,
and usuary laws establishing the rate of interest.
The effort of the employer to settle differences
without arbitration has done much to embitter
him against those who work for him and to
estrange them from him a condition deplorable
from every standpoint.
"But if it is unwise to make the employer the
sole custodian of the rights and interests of the
employes, it is equally unwise to give the em
ployes uncontrolled authority over the rights and
Interests of the employer. The employes are no
more to be trusted to act unselfishly and disin
terestedly than the employers. In their zeal to
secure a present advantage they may not only
"do injustice but even forfeit a larger future gain.
"The strike, the only weapon of the employe
at present, is a two-edged sword and may injure
the workman as much as the employer, and even
wrhen wholly successful, is apt to leave a rank
ling in the bosom of the wage-earner that ought
not to be. Society has, moreover, something
at stake as well as the employer and employe, for
there can be no considerable strike without con
siderable loss to the public. Society, therefore,
la justified in demanding that the differences be
tween capital and labor shall be settled by peace
ful means. If a permanent, impartial board is
created, to which either party of an industrial
dispute may appeal or which can of its motion in
stitute an inquiry, public opinion uay be relied
upon to enforce the finding. If there is compulsory
submission to investigation it is not necessary that
there shall be compulsory acceptance of the de
cision, for a full and fair investigation will, in
almost every case, bring about a settlement.
"No reference to the labor question is com
plete that does not include some mention of what
is known as government by injunction. As the
main purpose of the writ is to evade trial by jury,
it is really an attack upon the jury system and
ought to arouse a unanimous protest. However, as
the writ is usually invoked in case of a strike
the importance of the subject would be very much
reduced by the adoption of a system of arbitra
tion, because arbitration would very much reduce,
even if it did not entirely remove, the probability
of a strike.
"Just another word in regard to the laboring
man. The struggle to secure an eight hour day
is an international struggle and it is sure to be
settled in favor of the workingman's contention.
The benefits of the labor saving machine have not
been distributed with equity. The producer has
enormously multiplied his capacity, but so far the
owner of the machine has received too much
of the increase and the laborer too little. Those
who oppose th,e eight hour day do it, I am con
vinced, more because of ignorance of conditions
than because of lack of sympathy with those who
toil. The removal of work from the house to the
factory has separated the husband from his wife
and the father from his children, while the growth
of our cities has put an increasing distance be
tween the home and the workshop. Then, too,
more is demanded of the laboring man now than
formerly. He is a citizen as well as a laborer,
and must have time for the study of public
questions if he is to be an intelligent sovereign.
To drive him from his bed to his task and from
his task to his bed is to deprive the family
of his companionship, society of his service and
politics of his influence.
"Thus far I have dwelt upon subjects which
may not be regarded as strictly partisan, but I
am sure that you will pardon me if in this pres-
, ence I betray my interest in those policies for
which the democratic party stands. I have not
had an opportunity to make a democratic speech
for almost a year, and no one not even a politi
cal enemy could be so cruel as to forbid me to
speak of those policies on this occasion. Our
opponents have derived not only partisan pleas
ure, but partisan advantage as well from the divi
sion caused in our party by the money question.
They ought not, therefore, begrudge us the satis
faction that we find in the fact that unexpected
conditions have removed the cause of our differ
ences and permitted us to present a united front
on present issues. The unlooked for and unprece
dented increase in the production of gold has
brought a victory to both the advocates of gold
and the advocates of bimetallism the former
.keeping the gold standard which they wanted and
the latter securing the larger volume of money
for which they contended. We who favor bimet
allism are satisfied with our victory if the friends
of monometallism are satisfied with theirs. . And
we can invite them to a contest of zeal and endur
ance in the effort to restore to the people the
rights which have been gradually taken from them
by the trusts.
"The investigations which have been in pro
gress during the past year have disclosed the
business methods of those who a few years ago
resented any inspection of their schemes and hid
their rascality under high-sounding phrases.
These investigations have also disclosed the
source of enormous campaign funds which have
been used to debauch elections and corrupt the
ballot. The people see now what they should
have seen before, namely, that no party can ex
terminate the trusts so long as it owes its po
litical success to campaign contributions secured
from the trusts. The great corporations do not
contribute their money to any party except for
immunity expressly promised or clearly implied.
' The president has recommended legislation on this
subject, but so far his party has failed to respond.
"No important advance can be made until this
corrupting influence is eliminated and I hope that
the democratic party will not only challenge the
republican party to bring forward effective legis
lation on this subject, but will set an example by
refusing to receive campaign contributions from
corporations and by opening the books so that
every contributor of any considerable sum may be
known to the public before the election. The great
majority of corporations are engaged in legiti
mate business and have nothing to fear from hos
tile legislation and they should not be permit
ted to use the money of the stockholders to ad
vance the political opinions of the offi
cers of the corporations. Contributions
should be individual, not corporate, and no party
can afford to receive contributions even from in
dividuals when the acceptance of those contri
butions secretly pledge the party to a course
which it can not openly avow. In other words,
politics should be honest, and I mistake political
conditions in America if they do not presage im
provement in the conduct of campaigns.
"While men may differ as to the relative im
portance of issues, and while the next congress
will largely shape the lines upon which the next
presidential campaign will be fought, I think
it is safe to say that at present the paramount
issue, in the minds of a, large majority of the ,
people, is the trust issue.
"I congratulate President Roosevelt upon the ,
steps which he has taken to enforce the anti-trust
law and my gratification is not lessened by the
fact that he has followed the democratic rather
than the republican platform in every advance
he has made. It has been a great embarassment ,
to him that the platform upon which he was
elected was filled with praises of the republican
party's record rather than with promises of re- '
form; even the enthusiastic support given him
by the democrats has enabled the champions of
the trusts to taunt him with following democratic
leadership. He has probably gone as far as he
could go without incurring the hostility of the lead
ers of his own party. The trouble is that the re
publican party is not in a position to apply effec
tive and thorough-going reforms, because it has
built up through special legislation the very
abuses which need to be eradicated.
"Before any intelligent action can be taken
against the trusts we must have a definition of a
trust. Because' no corporation has an absolute
and complete monopoly of any important product,
the apologists for the trusts sometimes insist that
there are in reality no trusts. Others Insist that
it is impossible to legislate against such trusts
that may exist without doing injury to legitimate
business. For the purposes of this discussion
it is sufficient to draw the line at the point where
competition ceases to be effective and to designate
as a trust any corporation which controls so much
of the product of any article that it can fix the
terms and conditions of sale.
"Legislation which prevents monopoly not
only does not injure legitimate business, but act-
ually protects legitimate business from injury.
We are indebted to the younger Rockefeller for
an illustration which makes this distinction clear.
In defending the trust system he Is quoted as say
ing that as the American beauty rose can not,
be brought to perfection without pinching off
ninety-nine buds, so that the one hundredth bud
can receive the full strength of the bush, so great
industrial organizations are impossible without
the elimination of the smaller ones. It is a cruel
illustration but it presents a perfectly accurate
picture of tru3t methods. The democratic party
champions the cause of the ninety-nine enter
prises which are menaced; they must not be sac
rificed that one great combination may flourish
and when the subject is understood we shall re
ceive the cordial support of hundreds of thousands
of business men who have themselves felt the op
pression of the trusts or who, having observed
the effect of the trusts upon others, realize that
their safety lies, not in futile attempts at the
restraint of trusts, but in legislation which will
make a private monopoly impossible.
"There must be no mistaking of the issue and
no confusing of the line of battle. The trust, as
an institution, will have few open defenders. The
policy of the trust defenders will be to insist upon
'reasonable regulation' and then they will rely up
on their power to corrupt legislatures and to Intim
idate executives to prevent the application of any
remedies which will interfere with the trusts.
Our motto must be: 'A private monopoly is in
defensible and intolerable,' and our plan of attack
must contemplate the total and complete over
throw of the monopoly principle in industry.
We need not quarrel over remedies. We
must show ourselves willing to support
any remedy and every remedy which
promises substantial advantage to the peo
ple In their warfare against monopoly. Some
thing is to be "expected from the enforcement of
the criminal clause of the Sherman anti-trust law,
but this law must be enforced not against a few
trusts as at present, but against all trusts, and
the aim must be to imprison the guilty, not merely
to recover a fine. What is a fine of a thousand
dollars or even ten thousand dollars to a trust
which makes a hundred thousand dollars while
the trial is in progress?
"If the criminal clause is not going to be en
forced it ought to be repealed. If imprisonment
is too severe a punishment for the eminently re
spectable gentlemen who rob eighty millions of
people of hundreds of millions of dollars annually,
the language of the statute ought to be changed,
for nothing is more calculated to breed anarchy