Show I 1 a r A a 0 N id 11 K 0 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 b fil I 1 i ESTS business situation and antitrust legislation the chief topic philadelphia april 10 industrial sociological and political problems problem s of tho the times were discussed at length here today at A the annual session of the american academy of political and iclal by men prominent in various walks of life the present business situation and antitrust anti trust legislation was tho the topic for discussion at the afternoon meeting the speakers were samuel gompers president of tho the american federation of labor charles P neill commissioner of labor washington ifon D 0 C william J lein vice president of the national association of wholesale druggists new york tork isador straus of new and theodore marburg of baltimore all odthe of the speakers were vere optimistic as to tho the financial and business outlook I 1 mr gompers said eald that it if fifty business men were to go before a just judge and give their opinions as to tho the cause causa of the recent flu financial ancial and industrial disturbance he be was of the opinion that they could not agree 0 e but ho he desired to make it plain that whatever the cause the working people wore were not to blame the fact th that a t such conditions existed ho he declared should bo be taken take n as a lamentable commentary on tho the methods of the prin princes of finance and of industry the workers mr gompers said were not in favor of bf a species of governmental action that entee the right of a busness business man to conduct modern business within the law 1 10 commissioner nelll neill said that the sherman law was trying to restore absolute free and unrestrained competition but the government dould could never bring back such a condition while we are arc led to bell believe 0 ve th the 0 consumer I 1 Is a the only honest person mr nelll neill said ho be was just as selfish as the trust magnate or the labor aaboe leader when it comes down to the effects of competition the speaker pointed out that every was tho the legit legitimate imato product of competition and t tho he reduction of wages was also the result of comp competition e tho the association or combination ho he held was the only intelligent means of preventing destruction by competition the annual address to the academy by judge peter S Oros grosscup scup of the theoli k circuit courton court of appeals chicago on the scope tho dimit arid tap the duty ot tho the government in relation to fo corporate orp construction and management and the discussion of the paper by herbert knox smith sinith commissioner of corporations washington logton D cf 0 and james dames B dill of the new jersey court of erro errors rs and appeals made up tho the program at the session tonight N the subject of judge Gross Grosse cups ups annual ad actress adil tress resa was the the and the D duty of government in relation lo ao corporate construction and management lie ho said bald in part starting out with the proposition thatchat that what government Is to maul mankind politically organized tho the corporation la Is to modern industry organized judge GroB grosscup soup d dealt in his address with the relations of the corR corporation oration as an organized form of holding property to monopoly to competition to tho recent business disturbances and especially to the republican ideal that in a country where political power Is wielded by tho people property incorporated corp orated as well as unincorporated should bo a widely diffused among the people the keynote of the address i was that tho the corporate policy of the country should be so reconstructed that the corporation of the future would bo be not only a trustworthy agency to wield the peoples industrial energies but a trustworthy medium I 1 also through which ht ch to widely diffuse the count rys industrial proprietor ship judge grosscup Gro sTOUp carefully laid down the distinction between the paternal socialistic theory of government and that theory of government in which individual freedom its is the central idea between the corporation as a medium of proprietorship so care carefully full y organized that it would justly invite the peoples trust and the corporation so 0 loaded down with governmental in thit that it could not successfully carry out abt any trust following this up with a concrete statement of the structural principles upon which in his judgment the corporation of the future to make it it a trust f 1 worthy ageneta to wield the nations energies and a trustworthy medium through which to work out individually its instincts of ownership shourd be reconstructed referring to tad the recent speech of senator la follette judge s said laid that the se senator was not far from right when he aad said that the domain of 0 incorporated property Is in the control of a few men the fiam numbers the senator gave and the names may be incorrect but compared with the eighty millions of people that make up this nation the substance of what he said was arne but continued judge grosscup GroB scup mark the tha word control senator la follette does doea not say that the wealth of the country antry is in these few hands not e even vori the wealth upon which th tho edo domain of incorporated property rests for ita financial foundations were he to say say that ho he would be tar far wide of the truth for ware were it possible for all the banks and savings societies to pay baek back to the depositors at their present market prices the corporate se which through the small borrowing claas CIRSS a great part of tho the thirteen billian deposits have gone there hero would immediately turn up throughout every quarter of the country and in direct possession posse selon and ownership of those of our people who have saved anything at al in addition to the corporate bonds and stocks already held bethem a large part of the corporate securities and were there to be added to that what the employed emp loyes attached to every industry would get in the way of a proprietary share or dividend were an enlightened and just system of 4 diffusion of property once entered upon pon it could be truthfully said that the owners of the property of america were the people of america the property that Is incorporated as well as the property that Is IB unincorporated in europe the work of getting the people at large into direct participation in the proprietorship of industrial property has already begun the pressing problem with their most enlightened statesmen being how to get back the people into the proprietorship of the soil in america the people at large have always been the proprietors of the soil tho the pressing problem here being how to got get back the people into the direct proprietorships of tho the industries concluding judge grosscup said tha T ho problem raised by the great now new incorporated domain that has sprung up in the lifetime of this generation era tion more than any other question now before the people is the peoples problem thus far in the discussion of that problem the public mind has been divided divird into two camps the avowed purpose of the one being to exterminate all the b big corporations or so called trusts and the avowed re them and it looks now as it if along tome ome such line the pending presidential election Is to bo be fought out exactly what fiat Is meant by those who propose to exterminate I 1 do not know J unless it bo be that the people of ohp country are to be put into a pa political littral attitude persistently hostile to incorporated industry and commerce a political attitude that will strike the corporation a blow every time and at every point that opportunity offers exactly what Is meant by those who propose to regulate the big carpo corporations po rations and so called truis trusts ts to Is a matter that but for alie th e pending amendment to the sherman act said to have been formulated at confer ances at the white Vh ite house would have remained indefinite and uncertain something calculated to impress one set of minds as a big stick with which to practically put out of business the big corporations at the same time that it was impressing another set of minds mind sas as a poultice merely calculated to allay the peoples feeling but resulting sul ting in practice in no substantial interference with tha aha corporations as they exist today if the pending amendment to the sherman act sums up what the policy of regulation Is intended to do much of this un uncertainty certainty and indefiniteness Is done away with we know in that case what is meant by regulation and lot let ua see how tar far it goes towards solving the real problem that confronts the country |