Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, July 30, 1912, HOME, Image 16
EDITORIAL PAGE
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga.
Entered as second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 3, 1873.
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Payable in advance.
Trust Evils Should Be Ade
. ouately Punished
M
“The Trusts Should Be Regulated and Restricted. But They
Should Not Be Destroyed.’’
%
The Stanley committee of congress has spent two years trying
to find out what should he done to the trusts. It has come to the
lame and impotent conclusion that “the control of corporations by
the Federal government, as recommended by Mr. Carnegie, Judge
Gary and others, is * * * semi-Socialistic in its nature and
beyond the power invested by the constitution in congress.’’
The idea that the great corporations must in the end submit to
reasonable and effective control by the government in the public in
terest was not Mr. Carnegie’s idea, nor Judge Gary’s, and it is not
semi-Socialistic.
The idea was very definitely and briefly stated in a signed edi
torial by William Randolph Hearst more than thirteen years ago—
on June 6. 1899—when he said :
"The trust Is a labor-saving device that can lower the cost of produc
tion. The trust is also a great power which can raise the price of its com
modities, rob its weaker rivals, corrupt legislatures and oppress the public.
These evils of the trust should be made criminal and adequately punished.
The trusts should be regulated and restricted. But they should not be de
stroyed. And, what Is more, they can not be destroyed.”
Three of the greatest trusts in the United States have been con
victed in the Federal courts in the past five years of the sins Mr.
Hearst predicted thirteen years ago, namely, “raising the prices of
commodities, robbing weaker rivals, corrupting legislatures and op
pressing the public.’’ These evils are now universally admitted.
But they have never been adequately punished. The punitive power
of justice has been shown to be weak. The criminal clause of the
anti-trust law has been robbed of its sting. A mandate of dis
solution from the highest court in the United States has not de
prived the offending trust either of its profits or its dismembered
parts. It has been found impossible to “unscramble an egg’’—to
use Mr. Morgan’s happy phrase; the omelet has been divided into
many parts, and in the process the market value of the whole has
been increased.
Chairman Stanley’s idea of limiting the power of trusts by put
ting an arbitrary limit upon the amount of business that any cor
poration shall do is not practicable and is not new. It is one of Mr.
Bryan’s fanatic and extreme fads, suggested by him four years ago
and discarded by everybody as silly, and finally abandoned even by
him.
It would be just as reasonable to put an arbitrary limit on the
number of miles which a railroad shall operate, or the amount of
traffic which it shall haul.
Formerly one traveled over eleven different railroads in mak
ing the journey from New York to Chicago. ,Men and goods
are now carried quicker, cheaper and better by one railroad than
they possibly could be by eleven. Freight is carried long distances
in thfe United States at an average ton rate lower than anywhere
else in the world, and this is due to great railway systems, the
genius of men, concentration, co-operation and to a volume of traffic
undreamed of a few years ago. A single telephone company
stretches from the Atlantic Io the Pacific. Although there are in
numerable independent telephone companies in the states traversed,
a single company does more than half the telephone business of the
country. It is possible to talk over its wires from New York to Den
ver. 2.100 miles.
According to Mr. Stanley’s foolish 30 per cent idea, this com
pany would not be acquired by the government—a reasonable and
beneficent step -but it should bo split up into many parts and every
man would have three or four different telephones on his desk ■when
one is more convenient.
But every one realizes that the corporation has become so pow
erful that nothing less than the government itself can supervise it
and control it. To say, as Chairman Stanley does, that congress
has no power under the constitution is to say that the corporation
is more powerful than all the people together. Congress represents
the whole people. The constitution vests in congress the control
of interstate commerce. That control has already been extended to
the railroads. Even that right was stubbornly contested and stren
uously denied for many years by men like Stanley, but it is now
universally conceded.
But single corporations are now greater than any single rail
road. create more interstate commerce than any railroad, and
affect the public interests more closely than any single railroad.
The largest railroad system in the United States does in one year
only about one-third the business of the United States Steel Cor
poration in good times.
We are sorry that Chairman Stanley’s long, arduous and con
scientious work should have led him to such a weak conclusion —to
such contradictory and extraordinary ideas as that congress, on
one hand, has no power to supervise and regulate interstate cor
porations. but, on the other hand, has power to put some limit upon
the size of corporations and the amount of business permitted to be
done. In his first conclusion Mr. Stanley belittles congress; in the
second be magnifies its powers beyond all reason.
Mr. Stanley underestimates organization, co-operation and con
solidation. He overestimates flu* power of congress in thinking
that it can do what it ought not to do and can not do.
Irresistible natural forces and tendencies are behind the great
growth of the corporations. To say that these irresistible forces
can be stopped by an act of the legislature is to confound an act of
congress with an act of God.
’l’he trusts, which are already more powerful than any indi
vidual or any state, are not more powerful than.all the people, and
they can be controlled in the public interest by all the people acting
through congress?.
pfhe “Come Back" FarnT
A "Come Baek farm, where derelicts may get a new grip on
life and pave the way for future usefulness, is planned by the Chi
cago city officials.
It is one thing to provide work for an idle man and another to
keep him interested in it. This is the problem that confronts the
committee now looking into the matter.
Only a few days ago such a plan was tried in the oil regions
and found to work well.
There is a great deal in habit, and work is a habit as much as
td'-n'ss. Therefore it is sale to say that once the toilers on the
cone. • ack larm become accustomed to their tasks they will he as
loatlu t<> resume their old ways as they were unwilling to make a
fresh >“»r| in life.
any rate, it is an experiment worth the trying. If successful,
will do much toward solving the disposit ion of hundred# of starv
men during the cold nionLUs
The Atlanta Georgian
THE GUIDING HAND
The Real Force Behind the Gangster Scandal in New York.
By HAL COFFMAN.
■ ■ • s WIN
CT" JBi
iI | Pt HFI H 11I'll j : ' I
The Siren of Perpetual Motion
Man Still Longs to Get Something for Nothing, But Only Succeeds in
Giving Something and Getting Nothing.
I HAVE received a letter from an
intelligent man who is evidently
well educated, except in that
which for his present purpose he
should have known best of all —the
science of physics. He has a lucrav
tive profession, and yet he tells me
that he has expended nearly all his
hard won money in unsuccessful ef
forts to perfect a perpetual motion
machine. He asks for advice, but
it is plain that he would scorn the
only advice I could give him, which
would be to either throw away his
machine at once or else to set it
aside until he has mastered the
laws of mechanics, after which he
would be sure to throw it away
without waiting for advice.
Everybody who has the reputa
tion of being a "scientist” soon be
comes painfully aware of the multi
tude of the worshipers of this siren
of perpetual motion. They are con
tinually asking for advice—and
never taking it. They are like fool
ish, ignorant little fish that can not
be dissuaded from swallowing a
tempting bait, which all wise fish
have known for generations to be
only a deadly lure.
But I shall, perhaps, be asked, as
some of these same misled invent
ors have already asked me. "Why
do you. who have said so much to
encourage invention, now denounce
this particular form of it as im
possible?”
Well, I do not denounce it as im
possible.
1 say simply that it is only pos
sible in case the whole basis of ex
isting science can first be over
turned. It files in the face of the
great principle of the conservation
of energy, which, being interpreted,
means that you can not get some
thing for nothing, and that what
you receive, in mechanics, can
never be more than the exact equlj -
alent of what you give.
Let us illustrate tills by some ex
amples.
When a steam engine runs II uses
energy which has been brought to It
in another form In the first place,
there is the coal which Is burnt.
Millions of years ago, when that
coal was in the form of growing
plants, it had energy stored up In
it. It was emrgy in the form ot
chemical combination. <»« i<u
TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1912.
By GARRETT P. SERVISS
through the influence of the sun’s
rays. The sun had to pay, dollar
for dollar, for all that stored en
ergy. The sun’s pocket is the poor
er for every lump of coal on the
earth. We put the coal in a fur
nace and set it on Are. The locked
up energy is brought out in the
form of heat. The heat passes into
the water in the boiler and inspires
its molecules with unwonted mo
tion. They yibrate more and more
violently until' they are torn asun
der, and the water is turned into
steam. The pressure of the ex
panding steam acts against the pis
ton, and the wheels of the engine
turn. You could not make the en
gine go by whistling to it. or by
making cabalistic signs over it. The
one essential thing is to supply it
with energy in a form which it can
use. You have borrowed that en
ergy directly from the coal, and ul
timately from the sun.
When a trolley car speeds along
the track it goes by virtue of the
electric energy which is flowing
through the wire overhead. That
energy comes from a great dynamo,
which is spinning far away, and the
dynamo borrows its energy either
from an engine, which takes it from
coal burning under a boiler, or from
a motor set in motion by water fall
ing from a height. The dynamo
turns the energy it receives into an
electric current, in order that it
may be readily delivered, through
a wire, to the place where it is to be
utilized. The trolley takes the elec
tric energy from the wire, and de
livers it to the motor on the ear,
and that turns it back again into
mechanical energy, which drives
the wheels. It is an endless chain
of give and take. But there is
always a loss in the process. At
the end of it you can not get back
all tin nergs originally expended.
It is like the traveler changing his
money as he goes from country to
country. Every time he changes
dollars into francs, and tram s into
marks, and marks into florins, and
florins Into liras, and liras into
pesetas, the banks take out their
commission But the eommlasionii
demanded by human machinery,
turning energy into its various
forms, aie so exorbitant that if the
same rates prevailed in money mat
te! » the bunkers would soon have
everything and the public nothing.
The best steam engine does not de
liver, in the form of work, more
than a third of the energy derived
from the burning coal.
Now, the idea of the perpetual
motion inventors is that they can
devise a machine which will cheat
nature of its commissions. They
expect to set the machine going,
and then see it go on forever with
out supplying it with any energy
to keep it in action. There have
been such machines which worked
for a time, but. invariably, after a
while, they fail, and, also invaria
bly, it has been found that while
they did work they were obeying
the law of the conservation of en
ergy, so that they were not really
perpetual motion machines at all.
Mr. ,Phln in his “Seven Follies of
Science” has described a number
of these devices, about which you
might read with profit.
Remember, the principle is sim
ply this: There is a fixed amount
of energy available in nature. Prob
ably there is ten times, or a hun
dred times, as much energy within
our reach as we have ever utilized.
That is for the future to determine.
But. in any case, while we can
turn the energies of nature into a
multitude of different forms, we
can not add to their sum. If we
take with one hand we must give
with the other. The capital is in
variable, and nature pays no in
terest.
Now, this principle rests on hu
man experience. N<< departure from
it has ever been observed. Still, a
philosopher must admit that we
do not know everything, and that
even experience may mislead. Our
time is very short and our powers
are very limited. It is within the
range of possibility that there is
some other law In nature which we
have not discovered, and which,
whm discovered, will upset our
present science. If you believe
that you can discover this revolu
tionary law, don't undertake the
job without first educating your
self in all that is already known, or
believed to be known Then ask
nobody's advice, but go ahead.
But, before you begin, get to
gether ten million, or, better, a
hundred million dollars, to pay for
jour experiments. and to ln*ure
yourself against the danger of Im-
Pot ei i-lilng j our fnmlly and end
ing in tlie poor house
THE HOME PAPER
Dr. Parkhurst s Article
on
Education in the Work
We Do
—and—
Presidential Vote Cast
by Socialists
Written For The Georgian
By the Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst
PEOPLE are educated by the
work that they do; that is,
if it is educating work, and
a good deal of it is not.
A good deal of it is work that a
man might go on doing all his life
long, and at the end know no more
than he did at the beginning.
That so much of the work that is
being done is of the uneducating
kind is one of the bad fruits of our
civilization.
It Is work of the kind tha-t is
given to the people that are down
and keeps them down. It is em
ployment that is of such a sort that
it gives the worker nothing in par
ticular to think about, to exercise
his mind over, or to be interested
in.
And work that can be done with
out having to think about it ear
nestly and become interested in it
deeply never makes any wiser the
man that does it.
For example, a man who shovels
gravel does not thereby become
more of a man any more than a
steam shovel by being operated be
comes more of a steam shovel.
And very much of the labor that
is being performed is of precisely
that character.
Consider, for instance, the condi
tion of a mill operative, a ticket
chopper on the elevated railroad, a
truckman, a street sweeper, a
seamstress, a bank clerk, pinned
down to one particular, narrow,
repetitious line of service.
Workers Become
Mere Machines.
A very great deal" of what is be
ing done is much of that order.
It is work that runs in a rut, and
hardly is there any more thought
required in the doing of it than is
required of a car wheel in its move
ment along the railroad irons.
Workers become in that way lit
tle more than human machines,
and, like machines of the other
sort, grow worse rather than better
by the using, to be kept running till
they finally wear out, break down
and are thrown on the scrap heap.
This situation is intensified by
the increasing tendency toward the
division of labor, which is all the
time making the grooves of indi
vidual service narrower and nar
rower, the ruts deeper and deeper,
with always less opportunity for
independent thought and action,
anfi thought must be independent
and action must be self-determined
if it is going to conduce to the ad
vantage of the worker.
That, then, is the drift of events
with us. That is the way things
are going.
And they are going faster and
faster.
This is a severe criticism upon
our civilization, but it is true.
THE presidential vote cast by
the Socialists is no longer a
negligible quantity, running
from IM,OOO in 1900 to 434,000, in
1908. The estimated strength of
the party in 1910 was 50 per cent
greater than in 1908.
Mr. Debs is again proposed as
presidential candidate, and the cal
culation is that he will poll some
thing over 1,000,000 votes in No
vember, or ten per cent of the en
tire ballot cast. This increase in
The Spice of It
By JAMES RAVENSCROFT.
CITY folks to the country go
When they're having their vacations;
Where the milk cows low and the roosters crow.
And they set out man.size rations.
They leave off starchy, padded clothes.
And they roam the hills and valleys:
And they call it great, and they say they hate
To go back to streets and alleys.
Country folks to the city hie
in their recreative leisure;
Where for half the night there are lanes of light
With the lure of life and pleasure.
They put on clothes they swelter In,
And they go while they’ve cash to go on;
And going away they wish they could stay
Right there—and so forth and so on.
Went to a farm,” town folks enthuse,
"For rest from the hurly-burly.”
Say* the farm folk: "Well, we've been for a spell
Whe.e they don't get up so early."
Each could have got more rest, of course,
Staying at home, but that’s not It;
1 hey wanted u, lngs strange, they wanted a change.
And eor’.-s,' r-st till they got It.
-Ife ' A-
strength, both rapid and uniform,
gives non-Socialists something to
think about.
“Collective Ownership’’
Is Chief Feature.
But there is; also a good deal for
'Socialists themselves to think
about, more perhaps than has been
seriously considered by the rank
and file of the party. The Social
ist program is simple and easily de
signed, and, like all programs, en
counters no difficulty till it reaches
the point of execution.
The fundamental feature of the
plan is “collective ownership,”
whatever exactly may be the dis
tinction between that and “govern
ment ownership.”
This much, however, is evident
ly intended—that certain properties
shall be taken out from under in
dividual control and become the
holdings of the people taken col
lectively or of some governmental
representative of the people.
Since confiscation is not a con
fessed part of the scheme—a fea
ture that would be Strenuously re
sisted by none more than by prop
erty-holding Socialists themselves,
who are more concerned to add to
their possessions than to lose what
they have got—it follows that dis
possessed individual holders are to
be compensated upon surrendering
their property to collective owner
ship.
The properties thus to be sur
rendered and paid for out of the
"collective” treasury include rail
roads, telegraphs, all "large scale
industries,” all distributing agen
cies, etc., etc.
A student who has given more
thought to this matter than most
people has roughly estimated the
amount required for so immense a
purchase at hundreds of billions of
dollars.
Supposing we make a "try" at
the matter by calling it $500,000,-
000,000.
That would mean a per capita
outlay of $5,000 for every man,
woman and child in the country.
Cheaper to Plan
Than to Work.
As that would be impracticable,
and as the • “collective” treasury,
being empty, would be unable to
reimburse individual holders, the
“collective” administrators <>f the
treasury (and only the powers above
would have an Imagination fertile
enough to conceive what or who
that could be) would have to issue,
in behalf of impecunious <-<>ll« • -
tivity, certificates of obligation,
carrying with them, of course, an
interest pktdge of. say, 4 per e.-nt,
the total amount of which would be
twenty billions annually.
That sunt it would devolve upon
the people to pay every twelve
months, except so far as the prin
cipal was reduced by some hypo
thetical sinking fund held by im
pecunious collectivity. As said at
the outset, it is cheaper to construct
a program than to work it.
No scheme of thij kind will be
practically undertaken till the solid
sense of the country has forgotten
its brains and the intelligence "f
the majority been taken captive by
the uncalculating infatuation of the
minority.