being especially fitted to arbitrarily fix rates, are in reality specially unfitted for the work. The bias caused by pecuniary interest is everywhere recognized. A judge is not permitted to sit in his own case, and a juror is excused if he has the slightest pecuniary interest in the result of the trial. And yet railroad managers impudently assert that those who have the largest pecuniary interest in the fixing of the rates are just the ones to be trusted with this important task.

If competition were free to work in the fixing of railroad rates, the patrons of the road could protect themselves, but there is no competition at all between intermediate points, and the rates are often fixed by agreement at competing points. It is as absurd to say that the patrons should depend upon the railroad managers for justice in rates, as it would be to say that a plaintiff should submit his case to a jury made up of defendants in the case.

And so, no matter what question is under consideration, the reformer is always misrepresented by those who find a profit in the existing conditions.

Not only is the reformer the real defender of property rights, but he is the best friend of the very persons who abuse him. Just as that physician is the best one who points out to his patient the dangers of the disease from which he suffers and proposes the best remedy, no matter how severe, so those are the best friends of the rich who attempt to restrain excesses and to correct abuses.

Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, describes the right of election by the people as "a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped off by the sword of revolution where peaceful remedies are unprovided." The reformer seeks by peaceful means to correct abuses which, if not reformed by legislation, are sure sooner or later to lead, first to bitterness between the classes and finally to violence. Dickens in his "Tale of Two Cities" gives his readers a picture of the French revolution, and points out that the horrors of the revolution were but the natural result

of the cruelties which the masses previously suffered at the hands of the aristocracy. This is his language:

"Along the Paris streets, the death carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realization, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a pepper-corn, which will not grow to maturity under condi'tions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license, and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.

"Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equippages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father's house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants."

The French aristocrats who showed their contempt for human rights were very solicitous about property rights, and yet they were in fact the deadliest enemies of property and property rights, because their wantonness provoked the attacks which followed.

The situation in this country to-day is not what it was in France prior to the revolution. The extremes of society are not so far apart nor have the evils now complained of been carried so far. And yet no one who has studied the situation can be blind to the fact that the arrogance of our financiers, and greed of our railroad magnates and the avarice of our monopolists are creating a gulf between productive wealth and predatory wealth-between the very poor and the very rich. The longer remedial legislation is delayed the wider the gulf grows, and the wider the gulf, the greater the danger. The longer a needed reform is

delayed the more radical the remedy is likely to be and the more danger that the spirit of retaliation will make itself manifest.

It is time to call a halt. It is time to displace the corporate influences that now have such a powerful hold upon politics, and to return to a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," in which the property of the poor as well as the property of the rich, the life of the obscure as well as the

life of the conspicuous, and the liberty of all shall be protected by law. They are the best friends of both human and property rights who labor most earnestly and most intelligently to correct injustice in government wherever found; they are the most dangerous enemies of property rights as well of human rights who either turn the instrumentalities of government to private gain or who, for pecuniary advantage, resist needed remedial legislation.

They are practical questions that we are called upon to discuss every day, and at least one of them is applicable to every business transaction.

That competition is the life of trade, there can be no doubt, providing, however, that it is healthful, fair, honest and friendly; otherwise, it loses its true characteristic, and from a constructive it becomes a destructive force; from the building up and bettering of conditions to the tearing down and destruction of opportunity, or, to express it more forcibly, perhaps, but none the less truthfully, turning from profitable peace to unprofitable war.

When men allow the spirit of rivalry to run so high that they lose sight of all economic principles, and are only inspired with the desire to win at any cost, then they assume the attitude of the heathen, and reap the heathen's reward, which is simply the gratification of present desires at the expense of the fuller reward, that a decent regard for the rights of others and a due sense of respect for themselves would bring them in the future; for competition entered into with a view only of winning, and not for legitimate profit, becomes a destructive factor in the business world, affecting all interests alike, and such competition necessarily causes loss, and losses whenever and however made affect every trade and commercial interest in the community where such loss occurs.

Competition when fairly engaged in promotes industry and encourages every effort to build up and develop our material interests; it broadens and strengthens our intelligence, and makes for betterment in every branch of human effort. Competition between rivals in business is as natural as the breath of life, it is the law of trade, and becomes profitable so long as it is conducted upon reasonable, sensible lines, is decent and fair.

Profitable occupation is progress, growth, the sure results of economic competition, and when men forget what they are in business for, lose sight of its object-profit-and think only of putting a rival out of business, it is then that competition is swallowed up in war, with only wreck and ruin as the inevitable result; then after we have impoverished ourselves and our neighbors to the last degree, we declare a truce, hang out the white flag, and sue for peace.

Peaceful, just and righteous methods will always prevail, and they are the stepping-stones to success in every branch of business, they are the fundamental principles of civilization, the benefits of which we are all trying to secure, but why is it, as seems to be the case, that we cannot, at least, do not, reach that coveted estate except through strife and loss and suffering?

To gain peace, we go to war, and after the smoke of battle has cleared away.

we find that both sides are defeated; the spoils have been shorn of all of their value during the heat of the conflict, and the victor, so called, finds himself in the possession of a worthless trophy, while the laurels of victory become transformed into badges of mourning in memory of the loss so unnecessarily incurred.

Competition that causes actual loss in the value of anything is hurtful, not only to the competing parties, but to the entire community, and particularly to that trade or business to which it applies.

To defeat a competitor through the use of superior financial strength, that is, by doing the work or selling the goods at cost or less, simply because it can be done without embarrassment at the time, just to get the business, is bad policy, economically unsound and vicious, and should be condemned and opposed by every man who has the good of his trade, his business and his country at heart. The practice of such methods is destructive of all the cardinal principles of business, upon which alone can the trade and commerce of the world prosper and progress.

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To gain possession or control by treachery, trickery, sheer force, or the improper use of financial stress, is to practice the doctrine of the survival of the strongest and death and destruction to the weakest. Experience has taught us that it is best not to destroy anything, but to keep everything, as waste makes want;" in the earlier ages of the world no prisoners of war were held; all who were captured were shot-killed. Later they were made prisoners, they were held as slaves; later still, they were made prisoners and exchanged or paroled. Those who were wounded or sick were taken to the hospitals, and cared for by the men who had shot them. This is the custom today, and shows the wonderful strides that humanity has made in the direction of decency and fair play.

The proper forces to be used in competition, in order to best succeed, are a better and more comprehensive knowledge of our trade, our business, of the tools and appliances used, and a better knowledge of men and materials, and how to handle them; better business

habits and more economical methods than our competitors. Success achieved through such means is legitimate and healthful, and within the reach of all.

Any man can be sober, industrious and economical; no one can deny him those virtues, and if he chooses to apply them to his business, he will succeed in proportion to his ability to use them, and if all men make them the standard of competitive action, the measure of success would be just as great as now, without the losses that the present custom entails, and more evenly distributed.

Financial loss is the pestilence of business, and should be avoided as such, and it is to this end, and for this purpose, that men organize and associate themselves together in such bodies as this exchange.

Since the dawn of civilization, man has been learning how to live, how to do right, how to get the most and best out of life, and he has learned a good many great and good things, and he is bettermuch better-in many ways than when he first came here to live; but for all that how little he has yet learned of all there is to know, and what poor use he so often makes of what he does know.

One of the good things he has learned is that it is not good to live alone, that association with his fellows is necessary to bring him the greatest happiness, to develop his greatest powers, and to place him upon that high plane for which his natural intellect fits him. We were made to live together and to help each other live, not to live on or upon each other. Reciprocity should be the password between all men, giving to rather than taking from one another.

Another thing we have learned is that association is necessary in order to establish certain rules and regulations for the preservation of life, liberty and property; that association brings with it mutual interests, protected by these rules and regulations, and that such protection we could not and would not have if disassociated.

We have learned, too, that the quickest and best way to defeat a common enemy is to combine against him, that unless we do combine, we are apt to