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About The morning Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1899-1930 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 8, 1903)
Tike Moraiiii-:(Astori VOL, LVI. SUPPLEMENT-TUESDAY, SEPTEMHKR 8, UKM. M). 291. PRESIDENT ADDRESSES UNIONS Chief Executive Urges His Hearers Strive for Purer and Higher Citizenship. ;: S Hyrscuse, Kept. ?. Pmtdtnt IMoss tlt wua today accorded a magnificent reception by (ha cltlscna of his own state. From the moment of hli arrival thla morning at :30 o'clock until he stepped aboard hi special train at 11:30 tonight to begin bin return trip io uysier my ne, was aeeoniea a con imuoua ovation, Fully lOO.OOO person tame (mm all section of New York aiat, and many additional thousand came from (ht country contiguous to thla city. .Everywhere In the clt he was received with notable enthusiasm As h drove througli tht etreeta tens oi uuwaanas of praona tanked along the sidewalk a-rtretcd him with cheer. Huslnes houses and residences wr abtaxe with bunting and American flags floated In the brieve from almost every window. In the morning aoon after his "ar rival, he viewed from a bttlfuily dec orated aland In Hanovar Hquure the great parade of the labor organisations of the city. Ho then went to the state fair grounds, where ho delivered an ad dress before 60.000 people. Thi president spoke aa follows: . In spaklnrm Labor Pay at the on nuaJ fair of Um Now York Stale Agrt cultural Association. It la natural to keep specially In mind tht two bodies whe compose tht majority of our peo pi and upon whose welfare dnpends the welfare of the entire, stale. If cir cumstances are such that thrift, Indus try and forethought tnabl the fanner, the tiller of the aoll, on the one hand and the wngn worker on the other, to keep themselves, their wive, and their children In reasonable comfort then the State la well oft, and we ran be assured that the other classes In the commun Ity will likewise prosper, On the other hand If there la In the long run lack of prosperity among the two classes named, then all other prosper Ity la eure to be. more seeming than real. It has been our profound good fortune aa nation that hitherto, dlsregr ling exceptional porlods of de. preaalon and the normal and Inevitable fluctuatlnps,ther hue been on the who),, . from the beginning of our (lovernmcnt to the present day a progressiva bet terment alike In the condition of the til ler of the aoll and In the condition of the man who, by hli manual (kill and luhor, aupporta himself and hit family, and enloavors to bring up his children ao that they may bo at least a well off im. and If possible better off than, he hlmaelf haa been There are, of course, exception, but ns a whole the atundard of llv ng among the farmers nf our country haa risen from generation tn generation, and the wealth represented on the farma luta ateadlly Increased, while the wage of labor haa likewise risen, both aa regards the actual money paid and aa regards the purchasing power which that money repreaenta. Hide by aide with thla Increase In the prosperity of the wage worker and the tiller of the soil hns gone on a great In; crease In the prosperity among the bus iness men and among certain classes of professional men; and the prosperity of these men hjut been partly the cause and partly the consequence of the pros- iwrlty of farmer and wage worker, s It can not be too ofteji repeated that In this country, In the long ran, we all ot us tend to go up or down Wether. If the average of welt being la htgh, it meant that the average ... wage-worker, the average farmer, and the aver age business man are all alike well , off. If the average shrinks )hre is hot one of these classes which will not feel the shrinkage. Of course there are always some mji who art not af fected by good times, just as there are some men who are not affected by bad times. But speaking ," oroodny, It Is true that If prosperity comes all ot us tend to share more or less therein! and that If adversity comes each of us, to a greater or less extent, feels the tnsion. Unfortunately, In this1 world the Innocent frequently find themselves obliged to pay some of the penalty for the. misdeeds of the guilty; and so If hard times came, f whether they be due to our own fault or to our misfortune, Whether they be due to some burst of to speculative frensy that has caused portion of the business world to lose Its hesd-a loss which no legislation can possibly supply or whether they be due to any lack of wisdom In a por tion of the world of labor In each case the trouble once started Is felt more or less In every walk of life. It Is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life that we should recognise this community of In terest among our people. The welfare of each of us Is dependent fundament ally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore In public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; In other words, whose en deavor It Is, not to represent any special lass and promote merely that class's selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all suctions and ail classes nnd to work for their In (tresis oy workiug for our common country. We can keep our government, on sune and healthy basis, we can make and keep our social system what It should bo, only on condition of Judging each man, not as a mtvmber of a class, but on his worth as a num. It Is an Infamous thing In our American life, and ftmdnmentally treacherous to our Institutions, to apply to any man any test save that of his personal worth, or to draw between two sets of men any distinction save the distinction of conduct, the distinction that marks off those who do well and wisely from those who do 111 and foolishly , There are good cltlsens and bad cltlxens In every etnas aa in evtvy locality, and the attitude of decent people toward great public and social questions should be determined, not by the accidental (locutions of employment or locality, but by those deep-net principles which represent the Innermost souls of men. The failure In public and In private life thus to treat each man on his own merits, the recognition of this govern ment as being either for the poor as such or for the rich as such, would prove fatal to our Republic ,as such failure and such recognition have al ways wived fatal In the past to other republics. A healthy lepubllcun gov ernment must rest upon Individuals, not upon classes or sections. As soon as It becomes government by a class or by a section It departs from the old American Ideal. It Is. of course, the merest truism to say that free Institutions are of avail only to people who possess the high and peculiar characteristics needed to take advantage of such Institutions. The entury that has Just closed has wit- nessed many and lamentable Instances In which ponplo have seised a govern ment free In form, or have had It be stowed upon them, nnd yet have per mitted It under the forms of liberty to beeoroo some species of despotism or anarchy, because they did not have In them the power to make this seeming liberty one of deed Instead of one mere ly of word. Under such circumstances the seeming liberty may be supplanted by a tyranny or depotlsm In the first place, or It may reach the road of de potlsm by the path of license and an archy.r It matters but little which road- is taken. In either case the same goal Is reached. People show themselves Just ns' unfit for liberty whether they submit to anarchy or to tyranny; ana class govwhmbnt, whether It be the government of a plutocracy or the gov ernment ot a mob, is equally Incom patible with the principles established In the days of Washington and perpe tuated In the days of Lincoln, Many qualities are needed by a people which would preserve the power ot self- government in fact as well as In name. Among these qualities are forethough, shrewdness, self-restraint, the "courage which refuses to abandon one's own rights, and the disinterested and kindly good sense which enables one to do Justice to the lights of others. Lack ot strength and lack of courage unfit men for self-government5 on, tne one hand; and on the other, brutal arrog ance, envy, In short, any manifestation of tlto ' spirit of selnnh disregard, whether of one's own duties or of the rights of others, are equnlly fatal. In the history of mankind many re publics have risen, have flourished for a less or grester time, and then have fallen because their citizens lost the power of governing themselves and thereby of governing th-lr state; and In no way has this loss of power been so often and so clearly shown as In ths tendency to turn the government Into a government prlmurlly for the benefit of one class Instead of a gov ernment for the benefit of the people as a whole. Again and again In the republics of ancient (ireece, In those of mediaeval Italy and mediaeval Flanders, this tendency was shown, and wherever the tendency rbecume a habit and invurl ably liuvitubly proved fatal to the Btat. In the final result it mattere notj one wna wniior the move ment was In favor of one class or of another. The outcome was equal ly fatal, whether the country Ml Into the hands of a wealthy ollKarchy whlc exploited the poor or whether It fell tin der the domination of a turbulent n which plundered the rich. In both cases there resulted violent alternations between tyranny and dlnordcr and final complete loss of liberty, to all cltl sens destruction In the end cvertak Ing the class which had for the moment been victorious as well as that whlc hud momentarily been defeated. The death knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged In the hands of those who sought not to do Jostles to all cltlsens rlc and poor alike, but to stand for one speclU class and for Its Interests as opposed to the Interests of others. The reason why our future Is assured lies In the fact that our people are gen ulnely skilled In and fitted for self-gov eminent and therefore will spurn the lealershlp of those who seek to excite this ferocious and foolish class antag' onlsm. Tho average American knows not only hat he himself Intends to do about what Is right, but that his aver. oge fellow-countryman has the same Intention and the same power to make his intention effective. He knows. whether he be 'business man, protes. slonal man. farmer, mechanic, employ er. or wage-worker, that the welfare of each these men Is bound up with the welfare of.all the others; that each Is neighbor to the other, is actuated by the same hopes and fears, has fundn mentally the same Ideals, and that all alike have much the same virtues and the same faults. Our average follow cltlsen Is a sane and healthy man. who believes In decency and has a whole some mind. He therefore feels an equal scorn alike for the man of wealth guilty of the men and base spirit of nrro gance toward those who are less well off, and for the man of small means who In' his turn either feels, or .seeks to excite in others the. feeling of mean and and base envy for those who are better off. The two fwjlngs, envy and urro gance.are but opposite niug the same shield, but different developments of the same spirit. Fundamentally, the unscrupulous rich man who seeks to exploit and oppress those who are less well off Is In spirit not opposed to, but Identical with, the unscrupulous poor man who desires to plunder and op. press those who are .better off. The courtier and the demagogue are but developments of the same tj'pe under different conditions, each manifesting the same Bervllo spirit the same desire to rise by pandering to base passions; though one panders to power in ' the shape of a single man and the other to power in the shape of a multitude. So likewise the man who wishes to rise by ''wronging, others must by right be contrasted, not witn tne man wno iwe wlse wishes to do wrong, though to a different set of people but with the man who wishes to do Justice to all people and to wrong none. ' ' The line at cleavage between good and bad cltlsenshlp lies, not between the man of wealth who acts squarely by his fellows and the man who seeks each day's wage by that day's work, wrong ing no one and doing htg duty by Ns neighbor; nor yet does this line of cleavage divide the unscrupulous wealthy man who exploits others in his own Interest, from the demagogue, or from the suljen and envious being who wishes to attack all men of property, whether they do well or HI. On the con trary.the line of cleavage between good eltlsenslilp separate the rich man who does well from the rich man who does M, the poor man of good conduct from the poor man of bad conduct. This line of cleavge lies at right angles to any such arbitrary line of division as that separating one class from another, one locality from another, or men with a certain degr ee of property from those of a less degree of property. The good citizen Is the man who, what ever his wealth of his poverty, strives manfully to do his duty to himself, to his family, to his neighbor, to the state; who Is incapable of the baseness which inaiilfi-sts Itself either In arrogance or In envy, but who while demanding Jus tice for himself is no less scrupulous to do Justice to others. It is because the average Amtirican cltlsen, rich or poor. Is ot Just this tyite that we have cause for our profound faith in the future of the Republic. Ours Is a government of liberty, by, through, and under the law. Lawless ness and connivance at law breaking whether the law-breaking tuke the form of a crime of greed and cunning or of a crime of violence are destructive not only of order, but of the true ilb eitics which can only come through or der, H alive to their true Interests rich ii lid noor allien wilt u-t their fucca like , Hint ugdlnst the spirit which seeks per- 1 oonal nd vantage ty overriding the laws, without regarl to whether this spirit shows Itself in the form of bodily vio lence by one set of men or In the form of vulpliii cunning by another set of men. Let the watchwords of all our people be tb- old famallar watchwords of hon esty, decency, fair-dealing and common sense. The qualities denoted by these words are .essential to all of us. as we deal with thq complex industrial prob lems of today, the oroblems affecting not m-rely the accumulation but even ii!or tliu wisa distribution of weolth. We usk no man's permission when we require him to "bey the law; neither the ticrmlsalon of the poor man nor yet ui ti;e rich man. Least of all can the mnn of great wealth afford to break the law, even for his own financial advan tage; for the law Is his prop and sup lirt. and It is both foolish and pro- fwiindly unpatriotic In him to fail in giv ing hearty support to those who show that there Is In very fact one law, and one law only, alike for the rich and the lor, for the great and the small S ff1 llnnuMilw Ihlaiwa I . 1. J . . .v sr., a..., j III l, CTltU III me Utlt orotectlon of nronertv anrl mnn sin cerely Interested In seeing that the Just rights of labor are guaranteed, should alike remember not only that In the long run neither the capotalist nor the wage worker can ba Itemed in hen 1th v f.i an ion save by helping the other; but also that to require either side to obey the law nnd do its full dutv toward thl community Is emphatically to that side s real interest. There is no worse enemy of the wage- worker than the man who condones mob violence In any shape or who preaches class hatred; and surely the slightest acquaintance with our Indus trial history should teach even the most short-sighted that the tlmeB of most suffering for our people as a whoip, the times when business Is stagnant, and capital suffers from shrinkage and gets no return from Its Investments, are ex aetly the times of hardship, and want, and grim disaster among the poor. If all the existing Instrumentalities nf wealth could tie abolished, the first and severest suffering would come among . tnose or us who are least well off at present. The wage-worker Is well off only when the rest of the country is well off; nnd he can best contribute to this general well-being by showing sanity and a Arm purpose to do Justice to others. ' . In his turn the cnpatalist who is real ly a conservative.the man who has fore thought as well as patriotism, should heartily welcome every effort.leglslatlve or otherwise, which has for Its object to secure fair dealing by capital, cor porate or individual, toward the public and toward the employe. Such laws ' t,a,i.iiBC-iUA law ill LII1H SlHlt', which the court of appeals recently u- nanimously decided constitutlon-U-such law as that passed in congress last year for the purpose of establishing a department of commerce and labor, un der which there should be a bureau to oversee and secure publicity from the great corporations which do an Inter- tate business such a law as that pass ed at the time for the regulation of the (treat highways of commerce so ns to keep these roads clear on fair terms to , all producers In getting their goods to , market these laws are in the Interests not merely of the people as a whole, but of the propertied classes. For in no way Is the stability of property better assured than by making It patent to our people that property bears Its prop- , , er share of the burdens of the state;