102 Presidential Addresses 



against combinations is entirely unwarranted. 

 Under present-day conditions it is as necessary to 

 have corporations in the business world as it is to 

 have organizations, unions, among wage-workers. 

 We have a right to ask in each case only this : 

 that good, and not harm, shall follow. Exactly 

 as labor organizations, when managed intelligently 

 and in a spirit of justice and fair play, are of very 

 great service not only to the wage-workers, but to 

 the whole community, as has been shown again and 

 again in the history of many such organizations ; 

 so wealth, not merely individual, but corporate, 

 when used aright is not merely beneficial to the 

 community as a whole, but is absolutely essential 

 to the upbuilding of such a series of communities 

 as those whose citizens I am now addressing. This 

 is so obvious that it ought to be too trite to mention, 

 and yet it is necessary to mention it when we see 

 some of the attacks made upon wealth, as such. 



Of course a great fortune if used wrongly is a 

 menace to the community. A man of great wealth 

 who does not use that wealth decently is, in a pecu 

 liar sense, a menace to the community, and so is 

 the man who does not use his intellect aright. Each 

 talent the talent for making money, the talent for 

 showing intellect at the bar, or in any other way 

 if unaccompanied by character, makes the possessor 

 a menace to the community. But such a fact no 

 more warrants us in attacking wealth than it does 

 in attacking intellect. Every man of power, by the 

 very fact of that power, is capable of doing damage 



