ioo Presidential Addresses 



who prosper are never a pleasant sight. There is 

 every need of striving in all possible ways, individ 

 ually and collectively, by combinations among our 

 selves and through the recognized governmental 

 agencies, to cut out those evils. All I ask is to be 

 sure that we do not use the knife with an ignorant 

 zeal which would make it more dangerous to the 

 patient than to the disease. 



One of the features of the tremendous industrial 

 development of the last generation has been the 

 very great increase in private, and especially in cor 

 porate, fortunes. We may like this or not, just 

 as we choose, but it is a fact nevertheless; and as 

 far as we can see it is an inevitable result of the 

 working of the various causes, prominent among 

 them steam and electricity. Urban population has 

 grown in this country, as in all civilized countries, 

 much faster than the population as a whole during 

 the last century. If it were not for that Rhode 

 Island could not to-day be the State she is. Rhode 

 Island has flourished as she has flourished because 

 of the conditions which have brought about the 

 great increase in urban life. There is evil in these 

 conditions, but you can't destroy jt unless you de 

 stroy the civilization they have brought about. 

 Where men are gathered together in great masses 

 it inevitably results that they must work far more 

 largely through combinations than where they live 

 scattered and remote from one another. Many of 

 us prefer the old conditions of life, under which the 

 average man lived more to himself and by himself, 



