Weekly Watertown leader. [volume], September 18, 1908, Image 1

About Weekly Watertown leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1908-1909

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WEEKL Y VV, V 1 ER iOw IN LEADER.
VOLUME XLIX
JOURNEYING IN
LAND OF DREAMS
Impracticable Democratic Proposi
tion for Trust Control.
Convincing Exposition of Fallacy of
Bryan’s Panacea for Solving
Problems of Modern
Business.
(From Gov. Hughes’ Youngstown
speech.)
When we consider remedies that are
proposed for the trusts, we find our
selves journeying in a land of dreams.
Again the magician of 189 G waves his
wand. At a stroke difficulties disap
pear and the complex problems of mod
ern business are forgotten in the fas
cination of the simple panacea. And,
as the free coinage of silver 1* the
ratio of 10 to 1 was to destroy the
curse of gold, so the new found specific
of equal perfection is to remove the
curse of Industrial oppression. The de
lusion of 1908 is comparable only to
that of twelve years ago.
The first sugestton is that the law
should prevent a duplication of di
rectors among competing corporations.
However advisable rt may be to have
Independent directorates of competing
corporations, it would seem still more
Important to have Independent stock
holders, for a majority of the stock
holders of a corporation choose the di
rectors. If a law were passed pre
venting the duplication of directors it
would easily be evaded in the selection
of men who would represent the same
interests. The most ordinary exper
ience shows that it is not necessary to
serve on a board of directors in order
to control Its proceedings. Whatever
the advantage of such a law as is pro
posal, it hardly rises to the dignity of
a “remedy,” or vindicates its title to a
place in an imposing scheme of reform
outlined in a national platform.
But the more Important proposal is
“thht any manufacturing or trading
corporation engaged in interstate com
merce shall be required to take out a
federal license before it shall be per
mitted to control as much as 25 per
cent of the product in which it deals.”
A license is permission, and the object
of the remedy is not to regulate large
businesses, but to destroy trusts. Hence
the supposed efficiency of the plan is to
be found in the prohibition of the con
trol by any such corporation “of more
than 50 per cent of the total amount of
any product consumed in the United
States.” This is another delusion of
ratio. *
It might be interesting to inquire
what is the meaning of “any product
consunu'd in the United States.” Dogs
it refer to a class of commodities?
And, if so, how shall the classes be de
fined? Or does it refer to each sepa
rate article of commerce? And, if so,
what account does this proposal take
of the skill and initiative of manufac
turers who have built up a more or
less exclusive trade in particular ar
ticles, often protected by trade-marks,
although in most active competition
with other articles designed for the
same general purpose and seeking the
same market? In a desire to correct
the evils of business are we to place
an embargo upon honest endeavor
whose activities present none of the
abuses requiring remedies? And, if
not. what statutory definitions shall be
found to be adequate and just if we
lay down our prohibition in terms of
volume or ratio of business and not in
terms of tfght and wrong? If we
adopt Mr. Bryan's proposal, to what pe
riod of production is the prohibition
to apply? Is the excess for a day or
for a month to be considered? Or is
the average production for a year to be
taken? And what system shall be de
vised by which suitable information
may be furnished in the nature of dan
ger signals along the routes of trade
so that the manufacturer may know
when he is about to exceed the pre
scribed ratio? lie may justly be re
quired to govern his own conduct, but
how shall he be apprised of the con
duct of others upon which is to depend
bis guilt or innocence?
The patent laws confer a true
monopoly in the exclusive right to man
ufacture and sell. Are those laws to
be repealed because a "private mon
opoly is indefensible and intolerable?”
Bryan** Crude Reasoning.
An example of Mr. Bryan's reason
ing is found In his statement that
“when a corporation controls 50 per
cent of the total product it supplies
forty millions of people with that prod
uct." There are. of course, specialties
which have a limited market and are
used by a relatively small number of
the people of the United States. More
than 50 per cent, and indeed even as
much as 100 per cent of the trade in
such articles may be in the control
of a particular corporation. This may.
In fact, be relatively a small corpora
tion. It may never have aspired to the
unsavory renown of a “trust.” But by
prosecuting its particular line with
fidelity and meeting satisfactorily a
limited want: or by reason of some
secret processes or advantage of experi
ence. it may control the trade in a giv
en article of commerce. Or. suppose a
concern controls the whole trade in
some useful byproduct which It has
found it advantageous to make, is the
trade to be prohibited?
The Democratic platform makes no
|
THE SENTINEL STANDS FIRMLY IN DEFENSE OF HIS: FLAGL
—From the Baltimore American.
exceptions to cover such cases, and we
have learned that it is equally “binding
us to what it omits.”
If we could imagine such a crude
prohibition to be enacted into law, and
to be regarded as valid, what would be
tbe effect? Mr. Bryan, with his usual
readiness, suggests that the concern
may sell as much of its plants as are
not needed to produce the amount al
lowed by law. He speaks as though
every manufacturing concern had as
many fully equipped units of produc
tion as would correspond to any given
percentage of trade which it might be
required to lop off. Plants are not so
easily dismembered. Reduction in out
put means reduction in work, reduction
in the number of men employed and
curtailment of the efficiency of a going
concern. Let us suppose a concern
which controls SO per cent of a given
product—that is to say, makes and
sells $8,000,000 in value out of a total
trade in the product amounting to $lO,-
000,000. Is it to be compelled to reduce
its output to $2,000,000 because only
$2,000,000 in value are made by others';
Then, if it could sell a part of its plant
on Mr. Bryan’s theory, what should it
sell? Should it sell off enough to re
duce its capacity to $5,000,000, and
allow three-fifths of its plant to remain
idle until others developed a capacity
for handling the other $5,000,000?
Should it assume that the total trade ;
will increase and is not always to re- I
main at $10,000,000, and hence retain
a larger portion of its plant in idle
ness? Or suppose a concern controls
100 per cent of the trade in some arti
cle, what plants shall it retain? It
can produce nothing until others pro
duce ; but it may produce an amount
equal to the production of others, and
it hopes the trade will grow. What a
vision of business uncertainty and con
fusion, of idle and impaired plants, of
the ruin of workingmen whose lives
have clustered around particular indus
tries and who depend upon their con- I
tinued efficiency, is presented by this ;
fanciful remedy for the destruction of
trusts!
Apart from this, if the dissolution
were effected in the manner desired j
and portions of plants could be sold I
and were sold as suggested, to whom
would the sale be made? Would it be i
necessarily to foes or to those ambi- *
tious to be competitors and anxious to i
take advantage ot its plight?
This proposal in its utter disregard
of the facts of business, in its substi
tution of the phantasies of the imagin
ation for the realities of life, stamps
the Democratic platform with the fatal
st .mp of 1890. The commerce and in
dustry of this country, the interests of
its wage earners and of its interdepend
ent masses, who must rely upon the
stability of business, cannot afford to
give license to such vagaries.
In the solemnity with which this
proposal has been declared, and the in
sistence with which it is advocated, we
find an appropriate test of the capacity
of our opponents to deal wisely with
th problems of the day.
SUCCESSOR TO THE WATERTOWN REPUBLICAN.
NO RETREAT
HOW TAFT WAS SOUGHT BY
M’KINLEY.
The Manner in Which the Republi
can Candidate Was Called to a
Larger Sphere of Action.
One afternoon early in 1900. when
Judge William H. Taft was dictating
a decision of Ihe United States Court
in the Federal Building in Cincinnati,
a telegram was placed in his bands.
He tore off the envelope and was sur
prised to find a telegram from Presi
dent William McKinley, reading:
“I shall take it as a great favor if you
will call on me some time next week.”
Judge Taft guessed at the meaning
of the summons and guessed wrong.
He went to Washington and was shown
into a room at the White House, where
lie met the President and Secretary
Long of the Navy. Later, Elilui Root,
tlie Secretary of War, came in. Then,
to use Mr. Taft’s own words:
“Mr. McKinley said that he wanted to
send me to the Philippines to help in the
work of establishing civil government as
the army moved on. I thought of my
place on the bench and hesitated. Be
sides, I believed and said we could get
along without the Philippines.
“ ‘But we have them and must take
care of them,’ the President replied.
“ ‘You are at the turning of the ways
in your life,’ Mr. Root then observed.
‘The bench is the easy road. You can
stay there and be comfortable. On the
contrary, the Philippines will demand per
sonal sacrifices and risks and much hard
work, but you will have an opportunity
of doing your country a very great ser
vice.’ I went home, and argued the mat
ter for two weeks.”
The telegram to Cincinnati opened
the door of American history to Wil
liam 11. Taft and made him the Repub
lican candidate for President of the
United States.
of Civil War.
Money indebtedness is not the only
obligation we incurred and assumed
in the great civil war. There was a
still greater debt, *an everlasting obli
gation that could never be paid in full.
But in the years that have followed,
the Republican party has inaugurated
and developed pension laws under
which over three and one-half billion
dollars have been paid to disabled
veterans or to the survivors of those
who gave the r lives for their country
and their flag. This pension system, a
product of the policy of the Republican
party, has no precedent in history and
no equal in justice and generosity
among the na ions ef the earth.—Hon.
Janies S. Sherman.
Colonel Bryan laments the “discrimi
nation that has been going on against
the fanner” in electing so few tillers
of the s il to Congress and the Senate.
What troubles him chiefly, however, is
the discrimination which the whole
American nation exercises against a
certain farmer of Lincoln, Neb., in de
clining to elect him to the White
House. —New York Tribune.
WATERTOWN. JEFFERSON COUNTY, WIS. SEPT is 1908.
TAFT COPIES FROM GOOD STOCK.
Family Ranked Among the Plain
People for Many Years.
The Tafts-—those who at present are
the Tafts —hail ancestrally from Ux
bridge, Mass. They say that Tafts are
so thick in Uxbridge that even a wom
an can't throw a stone without hitting
one.
Some years ago—ln 1874, to be exact
—there was a Taft reunion in Ux
bridge, to which descendants of the
original Robert Taft came flocking
from all parts of the country. One of
the conspicuous features of the affair
was a historical address by Alphonse
Taft, father of the present Republican
candidate. He traced the history of
various branches of the family, and
when he came to file one to which he
and his children belonged he said:
“Our family have not embarked much
upon national politics, except that they
have shared in the battles of the coun
try when national independence was
to be won, and also when the Union
was at stake. But brilliant political
careers have not been characteristic of
rhe Tafts in the past. It is not safe to
say what may be in store for them.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
and also of families.”
This is taken from the account of
the reunion published at the time. Al
phonso Taft would perhaps have been
somewhat dazzled if he could have fore
seen how quickly and brilliantly the
family would proceed to “embark upon
national politics.” He himself started
the turn of the tide which he predict
ed. It seems to be reaching its flood
in the career of the son who that year
was entering Yale.
As Alphonso Taft described his im
mediate ancestors one sees where his
son got certain characteristics. Peter
Taft (1715) was "a large, good-look
ing man of magnanimous disposition.”
He had four sons.
Aaron, the candidate's ancestor, was
also so magnanimous that he lost
money by indorsing a friend’s notes;
he was a man “of great intelligence
and integrity.” And tl on, going some
what further back, there was Captain
William Taft, who took Blarney Cas
tle in the sixteenth century “by blar
ney quite as much as by military
prowess.” Good stock was Captain
William from which to make a twen
tieth century Secretary of War Wil
liam.
A Grand Record.
The Republican party is not only
rich in men, but rich in practical and
beneficial principles—it is rich too in
its record, in promises performed and
pledges fulfilled, and so we are for
party and party principles first and
will acquiesce in the choice of the ma
jority, rallying around the standard
bearer who will carry us again to vic
tory.—Hon. James S. Sherman.
Mr Bryan might make a hit in the
Rocky Mountain States by proposing a
federal guaranty of mining stock de
posits.—Omaha Bee.
I IBS Of i EXPERT.
Shall Barits Be Made Liable lor
One Another’s Debts?
Recognized Authority on Financial
Questions Discusses Practical
Bearings of Proposed Guar
antee Plan.
(By George E. Roberts, former Di
rector of the Mint.)
The proposal to require the banks of
the country to guarantee each other’s
deposits owes its present strength to
the financial disturbance of last fall.
It is urged as a means of preventing
panics, and there is no disagreement
/ about the desirability of accomplish
ing that purpose. Most of us agree
that a repetition of the conditions
which existed last fall should be made
impossible, but this is by no means the
only way to do it, or the best way.
For years the advocates of compre
hensive currency reform have pointed
out that with $14,000,000,000 of bank
deposits in the country and only about
$2,000,000,000 of money all told in the
country, both in the banks and out,
liiere should be some method provided
by which, on the basis of good assets,
ihe supply of lawful currency could be
readily increased to meet exceptional
demands, whether such demands were
due to seasons of unusual business ac
tivity or to alarm among depositors.
Their foresight and arguments did not
avail, but they are hardly to he swept
off their feet now by impatient zeal for
this new, and, as they regard it. ill
considered scheme. They stand for a
complete and scientific treatment of
the subject.
The guaranty of deposits is a crude
and imperfect remedy at best. It does
not recognize or attempt to cure the,
defects in our banking and currency
systems, but aims only at persuading
depositors not to draw their deposits.
The losses to depositors by the failure
national banks has become an insig
nificant percentage, and is growing less
every year, as a result of natural, evo
lutionary progress in banking. The
standards are being constantly raised,
and the efficiency of official inspection
and supervision constantly improved.
The true line of development is not by
any revolutionary policy, but by hold
ing individual bankers to yet
stricter acco int, and at the same time
enabling every properly conducted
hank to readily obtain a supply of cur
rency to meet all demands upon it.
The fundamental weakness in our
currency system is in the fact that it is
not readily responsive to the needs of
the country. The legitimate demand
for money varies from year to year,
and from season to season in the same
year. It is a familiar fact that there
is a great deal more business to be
handled from September Ist to Decem
ber 31st each year than in any other
four months of the year, but there is
no more money in the country unless
gold is imported for the purpose.
Would Lead to UeckleNS Hanking.
Asa remedial measure the guaranty
of bank deposits is not only inadequate,
hut it is worse than inadequate, for it
proposes to overturn the principle of ;
individual responsibility by means of
which the banking business has been
raised to its present high standards,
and upon which all individual and so
cial progress is based.
The proposal contemplates that the
public shall be relieved entirely from
the exercise of judgment and dis
crimination in the choice of banks, and
while it is highly desirable that a!!
banks shall be made safe, to the end
that even the most ignorant and con
fiding may be protected, it is still true
that an alert public opinion has great
influence in maintaining proper bank
ing standards. We cannot afford to do !
without that influence.
LTider present conditions the invest
ments. the personal habits, the general I
character and abilities of the banker j
are under the constant scrutiny of tlx;
community, and a matter of public in
terest. Notwithstanding occasional in
'
stances in which the public has been j
deceived, it may be stated as a general
proposition that an unblemished char- !
acter and a reputation for good busi- \
ness ability and conservative judgment j
have been necessary to success in the :
banking business. The public looks
over the individual who is to receive, :
and invest and be responsible for its
money with some discrimination, and
the elimination of the unfit by the
scrutiny and composite judgment of the I
community is a factor of the highest i
value in maintaining the standards of j
the banking business. It is, however,
a factor entirely overlooked by the ad
vocates of this scheme.
They calculate the insignificant per
centage of loss to total deposits under
present conditions, and assume that no
greater losses would occur after char
acter ceased to be a factor in the busi
ness. and all deposits were given blind
ly to whoever would bid highest for
them. To the objection that this elim
ination of character as a factor in the
acquisition of deposits must tend to
promote reckless banking, reply is j
made that bankers will be deterred
from recklessness by fear of losing
their own money. The repiy misses the I
point. All men are not deterred from '■
recklessness by fear of losing their j
own money, but reckless men are now, ‘
as a rule, kept out of the banking busi
ness by the unwillingness of the public
to entrust money to their care.
Careful Banking Best.
Under present conditions there are
compensations in favor of careful and
I conservative banking. There arc peo
l pie who are not influenced in their sc-
I lection of a bank by the highest rate of
| interest offered on deposits, and who
j have their suspicions aroused by the
! tender of exceptional inducements.
They know that such offers put a
, strain upon the business, and they de-
I liberately prefer to place their money
| with a banker who will not subject
I himself to sueh strain. These deposit
. ors esteem safety above all other con
j and they are numerous
j enough to exercise a very wholesome
i restraint upon reckless tendencies in
| the business. A hanker now prizes the
I reputation of doing a safe business.
1 and cannot afford to have a reputation
i for imprudence and speculative in
f clinations. An 1 yet. although held in
| check by these powerful considerations,
the pressure of competition carries the
business near the danger line even
now. There is too much competition
for dep< sits, and the ambitions of the
more venturesome members of the fra
j tensity, and the pace they set, puts tin*
"hole system under strain.
! But what are likely to be thn con
i ditions in flic business when the public
■ > s no longer concerned about the man
| agement of a bank, and all the re
| wards for conservatism and restrants
I upon recklessness are removed? The
I considerations which in the past have
tended to safeguard the business and
advance Us standards would be gone.
; The public would care nothing for the
personality of the banker. Instead of
■ looking to the institution which receiv
ed 11 10 deposits, the depositor would re
ly on an outside fund. A banker
might bet all the deposits on horse
I races without the fact becoming a
j matter of any concern to ids custorn
j ers.
And how would the conservative,
i prudent banker fare wilder these con-
I ditions? The legitimate reward for
: maintaining that character would be
j tost to him. He would get no deposits
I unless he hid as high for them as his
rivals, for the government would Stand
behind the latter, and assure the pub
lic that they were just as safe as he.
and tax him to make them so. In
I short the reckless ami incompetent poo
pie, who arc now either excluded from
the banking business, or held in check
by the distrust which a discriminating
| public fools towards them, would make
1 the pace to which everybody else in
the banking business would he obliged
to conform or get out of the business.
Would Demoralize Bnaines*.
The hardest competitor in any line
of business is the incompetent or dis
honest man who does anything to get
business. Such people get into the
banking business even now, but their
number and influence for mischief
would he greatly increased if they
were hacked up by unlimited credit. In
other lines there may be some question
as to the quality or service offered by
rivals, but all bankers deal in the same
kind of money, and if deposits were
made a joint liability, there is no rea
son why they should not go to the
hankers who offer the greatest induce
ments to attract them. The careful
Danker would have no off-set or protec
tion against demoralizing competition,
and he would he placed in the strange
position of being liable for his com
petitor's obligations.
All efforts to make it appear that the
interests of bankers are on one side of
this question and the interests of de
positors on the other are untrue to the j
facts. Nothing that in the long run is |
harmful to the banking business, that
puts it under strain and tends to low
er its standards, can be beneficial to
depositors or the public. It cannot be
advantageous to the community to have
its savings and working capital pass
into tße hands of the venturesome
class of bankers who will bid most for
them. The actual waste and loss
through unwise investments would In
evitably increase. It would fall at first
on tlie conservative bankers and penal
ize them. Instead of an elimination of
the unfit, which is the true process of
evolution, the tendency would be to an
elimination of the best. Eventually the
burden of increasing waste would have
to be borne by ail depositors and the
whole community.
Oklahoma Trial Inconclusive.
The fact that the first bank failure
in Oklahoma after the law went into
effect, was followed by immediate re
imbursement of the depositors, proves
nothing as to the practicability of the
system in the long run. The fact that
the .State banks of Oklahoma have
gained deposits since the system went
into operation, while national banks
within the State have lost, if true,
proves nothing as to the merits of the
system. The law itself requires that
all public deposits must be kept in
banks that belong to the system, and
this provision alone would cause a con
siderable transfer of deposits and in
fluence some banks to join the system.
The real test of the policy will come
in its influence upon the banking busi
ness in the long run. Will it tend to
secure more careful and prudent in
vestment of the vast sums which the
people of the country keep in banks, or
will it tend to weaken the personal re
sponsibility for these funds and divert
them into incapable and wasteful
hands. It is a superficial view which
lays all emphasis upon the immediate
results of the law and gives no con
sideration to its violation of funda
mental principles and the consequences
which must follow.
||
DR. GOaDAK
HERE IS THE PROOF!
,
; it oiitributcd by N. A. Goddard, M. I).
You will not in l that in n furring yon
to casus I have successfully treated and
; cured to stay cured, that I refer yon to
: people right herein Wisconsin, in your
own county, not to people away off in
I some other slate. You are at liberty to
ask these people about their cases or
write to them and verify mv statements.
Mr. Nick Iv'dingcr of Knowles, Wis.,
cured of a rupture, 20 years standing.
Mrs. W . .1. Lyle oi Kox Lake, cured of
varicose veins of the leg.
Mr. Jesse Keduioud llcdgranitc, Wis.,
cured of chronic appendicitis.
Mr. John Mums. Watertown, Mis.,
Cured of piles of 20 years duration.
Mr. Albert Tieotz, Lebanon, Wis,,cured
of rectal ulcers.
Mr. Adolph Hammerstioui. Rcdgranitc,
cured of granulated e\e lids.
Mr. ( has. A. Shwercski. Watertown.
'A is., cured of rupture of 12 years stand
ing without the use of knife or opera
tion.
Miss Dora Saunders of Berlin, Wis,
cured of goitre.
Mr. Herman Guelzovv, Redgranile.
cured of chronic bronchitis.
Mr. Thomas Owens. Redgranile. W is.,
cured of blood poison, and hundt u’a of
others in other parts of the state. Names
given on request.
Remember 1 take no incurable cases.
I give a legal written guarantee to cure
Private diseases of both sexes receive
special attention. At Watertown. Sept.
Bth. Consultation free. Write me
HI NEW OOMOCIAL HOTEL
WATERTOWN, WIS.
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 7
At Beaver Dam, October 6
406 Colby-Abbott Building
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN
A. {3 O. Meyer
DENTISTS
No. 102 Main Street, next to Mer
chants National Rank, W atertown, W is.
’Phone 143-Y
towaok Scliiriotz'er & Cos
FURNITURE **o
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Telepliones Nos. 1702 ncl 170.1
Plume Store 4(5-7.
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THE UP-TO-DATE GROCER
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Telephone 135-y
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