MONOPOLY AND THE LAW action in the administration of government, legislative or otherwise. Morally it is no worse for corporate money to purchase votes, influence elections or legislation, than for individual money to do so. The corporation is but an aggregation of individuals, but in practical life the effect is worse because of the facility with which great aggregations of wealth in corporate management may be handled to corrupt political action. The danger to the public in this is not simply that great monopolies may grow up, that avenues of commerce may be closed, that enormous wealth may illegitimately come to the owners, but the greatest danger lies in threatening the integrity of the-state. The elimination of this power can only come through strict enforcement of the laws and the education of the American people to a higher standard of political and private action. We may, however, have to take one step further in legislation, and that is, to limit the aggregation of wealth under corporate management. Speaking of Theodore Roosevelt as a man and not as President (because I would not bring into this discussion the slightest refer ence to partisan politics) he has done more
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to elevate the standard of manhood, to in culcate higher principles of political action, and higher ideals of business morality, than any man who has lived within my recollec tion, and it is the duty of every citizen, and especially the members of our profession, in our humble way, to emulate his course. It is also our duty to take a deep interest in these questions, because the danger to state is not imaginary. We have before us the history of other great republics which have arisen to splended heights, added a few pages to history, crumbled to decay, and disappeared, because they were honey combed with corruption. Governments but epitomize the moral standard of its people. Great wealth tends to luxury, luxury to idleness and vice, and vice to degeneration of the human race. We are a wonderfully prosperous and wealthy people. If we would maintain the high standard of man hood we must with courage eliminate from the people the corroding and decaying effects of vice, of immoral conduct, in pri vate life, in public life, and in the business and commercial transactions of the people. St. Paul, Minn., January 1907.
