3^ 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



inauguration of a movement for the political salvation of the com- 

 monwealth by the only method which appears to be practical today, 

 and that is by the enrollment of the business men of the country 

 intd a political organization whose purpose shail be to exert a 

 •controlling influence over legislation and administration within the 

 domain of the federal government, and, as far as possible or neces- 

 :3ary, of every statCj county, town and community, so as to shape its 

 policy and practical operations in accordance with natural law, and 

 so far as relates to business matters to see to it that the same are 

 conducted in the interest and at times seems hopeless of remedy. 

 The nation has been endowed with wonderful natural resources and 

 a beneficent climate; it has au industrious and intelligent popula- 

 tion and every blessing imaginable except a good political system. 

 Our political system is anything but a blessing; it is notoriously 

 wasteful End corrupt, and the administration of our cities is said 

 to be the worst of business and of business men and to the increas- 

 ing and strengthening of commerce, manufacture, and industries 

 throughout the United States, and not, as is now too often the 

 «^ase, in a way to discourage and injure those enterprises. 



You all know the deplorable political condition of this country 

 -and how that condition has lasted for years in the civilized world. 

 How business is practically affected by this state of things you 

 are also well aware. The American people is a business people. 

 In art and in science this does not take the front place among the 

 nations, but yet its civilization is, taken on the whole, probably 

 the highest in the world, and this is due entirely to its business 

 life, and its business men, who are the creators of the truest and 

 most far-reaching civilization; namely, that which reaches the great- 

 est number of individuals and the Ir.rgest number of homes. The 

 business men of our country are its life and glory; through them 

 its people obtain food, sustenance and clothing; the dwellings in 

 which live and are sheltered the children, women, politicians, grafters, 

 demagogues, blatherskites and all other non-producers, whether or 

 not they recognize their obligations, are built and largely paid for 

 by them; all the institutions of learning, benevolence and religious, 

 are of their providing; without them the country could scarcely 

 «xist, iind through them it lives and is prosperous. 



And yet American business men arc not free from hour to hour 

 from the fear of assaults upon them, and upon the system they 

 have built up and the work they are carrying on, by ignorant, 

 corrupt and stupid politicians and the legislatures and administra- 

 tions under their control. By means of ill-advised and wasteful 

 expenditures, foolish and oppressive taxation, quack and ignorant 

 legislation, stupid administration of government and judicial niachin- 

 ■ery, improper appointments to office, frequent and unnecessary 

 •changes in laws, rules, ordinances and procedure, and general careless 

 and incompetent management, supplemented by occasional rascality, 

 the whole extending over a long period of years, our government 

 system has been brought into just contempt, and not only have 

 business and its votaries been harassed and plundered, but capital 

 has been so alarmed and annoyed that its employment has been 

 seriously hampered and the business hopes and future of the country 

 have been interfered with. Our government is absolutely grotesque 

 in its inefficiency. Pretended lawyers who are really inferior political* 

 adventurers or the favorites of politicians are placed in offices which 

 they are utterly incompetent to fill. The cabinet officials are nearly 

 always political lawyers without previous training or experience in 

 the departments over which they are placed. It is related of one 

 secretary of the navy that when he went on his first official visit 

 to a warship he burst out into astonishment, saying, "By golly, 

 the darn thing is hollow." Next year the same man might be 

 made secretary of the treasury. Dozens, scores — aye, hundreds — 

 of new laws are passed yearly by legislatures the majority of whose 

 members are ignorant of their intent or meaning. During the Civil 

 war Congress passed a law abolishing sales of gold on the exchange; 

 a panic was produced and they repealed it next week, in absolute 

 ignorance of what they were doing either time. When political 

 mismanagement results in a great scandal, reforms are loudly prom- 

 ised and, the rumpus over, everything goes on as before. Day by 

 day capital is threatened and scared away, and when business seeks 



redress it must actually purchase fair treatment or stand hat in 

 hand in Ihe anterooms of legislation while politicians decide its 

 fate. The legislation of the country' has of late years become almost 

 entirely business legislation and the old parties are incompetent to 

 deal with it. All the remedies designed to make the party system 

 decent and efficient have failed and will all fail. 



Neither the masses, through referendum or otherwise, nor their 

 party representatives, are fit to legislate on business proposals. What 

 is needed is that the business men of the country cease to divide 

 their vote between the old parlies, cut loose from them altogether 

 and organize, not a new political party, but a business men's union 

 or federation, which, extending through all the United States, shall 

 dictate to all the political parties and change this government from 

 a corrupt political machine into .a clean business institution. You 

 have often admired the fathers of 1861 or the great-grandfathers 

 of 1776; you can do as much as they did to redeem your country 

 for your children. Aren't you tired of hearing of the corruption 

 of American politics? Aren't you ashamed of reading of officials 

 being sent to the penitentiary, of seeing your representatives in 

 stripes, of reflecting that you elected them, of being told and feeling 

 in your hearts that they are no worse than others who escape, and 

 that they are merely the product of a wretched system? Doesn't 

 it nauseate you to be compelled to read in the newspapers day 

 after day appeals to this or that prominent man behind the bars; 

 that your city is under the control of a greedy, criminal boss; that 

 your aldermen are thieves; that 3"0ur police officials are blackguards 

 and ruffians; that everywhere is graft, graft, graft, and that the 

 whole political mess smell foully to heaven? Aren't we all ashamed 

 as Americans to see incompetents in high places, to have this or 

 that state represented in the United States Senate or the governor's 

 chair by a worthless politician; to read now and again in the daily 

 papers the report of a public utterance by a high official which all 

 intelligent men and even the newspapers repudiate as utter nonsense? 

 And if so, aren't you willing to turn in and help clean it all u|) 

 and be the helpers in making this country what it ought to be 

 among the nations of the earth? If you are willing, you can do it. 

 I say you, because j'ou are representative men, you are strong men, 

 you are moneyed men, you are! business men, and what you believe 

 in and undertake other similar men will believe in and follow. 



Here I might well stop and leave to some of you to work out 

 if you care to the details of a remedial movement appropriate to the 

 situation, for 1 am only a practicing lawyer, and though not entirely 

 without means or practical experience, I can not compare in either 

 with any of you gentlemen here present, and you are all supposed 

 to know better how to proceed in such a matter than a professional 

 man like myself. But I may, perhaps, go as far as to sketch roughly 

 the outlines of the project I have in mind, and to answer some 

 possible objections to it. For, after all, the whole plan and scope 

 of such a movement can not be foreseen ; it wUl take shape and 

 develop as time goes on. 



What is needed and all that is needed is a j-atriotic business 

 organization founded on the principles I have outlined and com- 

 mitted to the object dear to us all; namely, redemption of the whole 

 American political system from the twin vices of corruption and 

 inefficiency. To have any influence in polities you must be organ- 

 ized. First, for the eflfect on yourselves, so that you may be led to 

 think in harmony; to select the objects for united action and to 

 act together in an enlightened way; and, second, for the effect on 

 the politicians who respect nothing that is not organized, or at 

 least concentrated so as to be made effectual. We have all hoard 

 of the legislative influence of the Grand Army vote, the labor vote, 

 the church vote, which are more or less organized, and of the Irish 

 and German votes, which are somewhat concentrated in various ways. 

 Now let us have the vote which will really count for something of 

 value — the business vote. 



Its primary organization in villages might consist of business 

 clubs, including all the business men in the locality. In cities the 

 different branches of business might be organized, each after its 

 own fashion. It should include in every town, city and county sub- 

 stantially all the merchants, bankers, brokers, manufacturers, insur- 



