2y6 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



full stature unless that be so. It is not that we should dream 

 of forcing our neighbors to call us into council, much as po- 

 litical leaders have to take note of the votes they can com- 

 mand, but it should be looked to that we shall individually 

 and collectively make ourselves of such importance in those 

 lines that our opinions and our help should be sought. In 

 this way we shall come into our true position and importance 

 in the vital questions of the day, and do our ever-increasing 

 part in civic progress. 



There is much to do, and we should be unwilling to remain 

 inert and let others do it. Take for instance the huge aggre- 

 gations of industrial and transportation corporations of to-day. 

 On the one hand they have become so great that they are a 

 menace to our government and institutions. They must be 

 curbed, but without doing more harm in the curbing than in 

 allowing them to be without supervision. They have exer- 

 cised so much reckless power and oppression in their en- 

 deavor to grow greater that they have given birth to the 

 worst side of SociaHsm and to all sorts of sweeping doc- 

 trines which would immediately destroy the fabric of our 

 institutions. On the other hand, their very sweep and consoli- 

 dation have made them so supreme that they have exalted the 

 rights of property above the rights of man, and they tend to 

 make the workman a slave by depriving him of a just re- 

 ward for his labor and of the opportunity to labor in other 

 lines than the ones which they decree. The fruit of this has 

 been armed strikes, misery and a heritage of hate and dis- 

 content. Its side result has been the increased cost of living. 

 It is a subject which Catholics can study in the clear light of 

 the gospel with the intent to remedy the grosser wrongs and 

 the most crying abuses. 



Again, take city government. Any analysis of the figures 

 of our chief cities shows that the cost of governmental admin- 

 istration is rising year by year. It will not do to say that we 

 have more improvements, luxuries and benefits than our fore- 

 fathers ever dreamed of ; for most of these have been bought 

 by long-term bonds, which our descendants must pay, or they 

 are farmed out to rapacious corporations to operate. Yet the 

 daily price of municipal government mounts higher and higher. 

 At the same time there are ugly rumors of graft and pecula- 

 tion, and sometimes even demonstrated proofs of it in speci- 



