as to respect the equal rights of others the duty to reverence the laws of benevolence and justice. The historical facts are: First, man, by the laws of psychology, is more solicitous of what concerns himself and his own than of what concerns others. Secondly, human affairs are more orderly and more successfully conducted when to each man the charge of what concerns himself is committed. Lastly, "social peace is better preserved and social prosperity is better promoted when each man can normally satisfy his instinct of possession." These historical facts simply manifest impulses which are inherent in human nature. They are capable of abuse as is every human impulse, without exception. Their abuse, however, cannot justify us in ignoring their existence and closing our eyes to the fact that they are a part of our nature and have a providential purpose. It would be idle and fatuous to attempt to build a social structure in which these principles and facts are not inwoven. Such a structure would inevitably crumble. No doctrinaires or reformers can remake human nature. At best we can only restrain its excesses and its tendency to make self the center of things. Now an institution seems needful in order that man, as history and sane psychology reveals him, "may exercise effectively, orderly and peacefully his connatural rights and social duties is based on moral law." Such an institution is the institution of property-the exclusive and stable proprietary rights over some of the material goods of life. The personal right of supplying his present and future needs, of calling his own what he has produced, of exercising his social duties towards the family and towards his fellow men are better secured by the right of ownership than by any of the devices that have been proposed as substitutes. As a matter of fact, civilization has advanced with the evolution of the institution of property and retrogrades with every movement that tends to weaken that institution. As already noted, there are abuses that attend its growth. These are the diseases of civilization. They are not due to the right of ownership itself. But to the contempt of man's primal rights, of jural principles and historical facts"by the morally undeveloped or perverted." It is not the

right of ownership reasonably understood and exercised, but disregard of it that has given rise to our economic evils.

The rights and duties of men, the right of private ownership and the purpose and duty of government are set forth in the Declaration of Independence, and to secure these rights and to confine governmental power within its proper sphere, the Constitution was established. The movement of democracy in America is not against the principles of constitutional government, but against the diseases of government; against the wrongs which have crept into its administration. It is a protest against the application to our personal, political and industrial life of the principles and practices of the old paganism.

Our manufacturing, commercial, transportation, financial and farming interests have reached a stage of development never dreamed of in the early days of the republic. Mechanism, the arts and sciences have uncovered and utilized the rich material deposits of nature-the coal, the iron and the precious metal. They have applied the coal as a motive power to engines upon land and sea, and in millions of furnaces, in our great industrial plants, and sent the precious metal coursing through all the veins of trade and commerce. They have utilized the silent forces of nature to light our homes, our streets and cities--have used them as efficient agents in building up the greatest transportation and manufacturing industry in the world.

But grave social and industrial wrongs have grown out of this wonderful civilization and mighty industrialism-wrongs which have excited popular indignation and widespread social unrest. These are the diseases of the body politic, and the problem which has confronted us is to discover the source of the disease and to apply the proper remedy. The principal causes of the social injustices which have been inflicted upon the masses are: First, the relation of the public service and industrial corporations to the national and state governments. Secondly, their attitude towards the wage earner with respect to the rate of wages and the conditions under which the workman is compelled to work. Thirdly, the injustice and unsuitableness to our circumstances and conditions of the common-law doctrine of master and servant

in its application to work accidents occurring in industrial works and public-service corporations.

Beginning in the early seventies the public-service and industrial corporation went into politics. Whether it did this in defense of legitimate business-for we had demagogues in those days as we have them now and the corporation-baiting craze was prevalent then as it is now-or whether it was actuated by a deliberate purpose to acquire the power to lay unfair and burdensome exactions upon the general public, and thereby enormously increase the wealth of the few at the expense of the many, it is not necessary now to inquire. Suffice it to say that its unrestrained and uncontrolled activity of the politics and business of the country had precisely that effect. It resulted in building up a great industrialism in which the rights of man were, in a large measure, sacrificed to the rights, not of the state, but to the rights of property-to the interests of a privileged class. This was accomplished by an unrighteous alliance in practically every state of the union between political machines and the corporations—a partnership in which the corporations furnished the money and the machine delivered the power by which the corporations controlled the government in all matters in which it was interested. In this way it was able to seize and retain the representative principle of the government and establish an imperium in imperio-a government of the many by the few and for the few-a government in which business and the interests of business. counted for practically everything, and the rights of men for little. It seized the taxing power of the government and prostituted it to personal and private uses; it exacted excessive rates in transportation; it inaugurated a system of rebates to build up private fortunes or to crush competing business; it fleeced the confiding public by over-capitalization and the fraudulent issue of securities, and in numerous other ways, disclosed by the adjudged cases, great wrongs were inflicted upon the public.

To accomplish these things our politics was demoralized and corrupted by the lavish use of money. Its purification, in the language of one of the cleanest and ablest men then in public life, "was an iridescent dream." Things became so bad in the late

nineties that Mr. Bryan was led to say that one of the chief functions of government " was to put rings in hogs' noses."

Since then the sleeping giant-the American democracy—has awakened, and has broken the shackles placed upon him by an indefensible selfishness, and is moving towards the Declaration of Independence and the reassertion of the rights of men secured by the Constitution. Nothing can stop this movement, and deep down in our hearts we know it is right. The duty of wise leadership is to set the metes and bounds of this movement, and to direct it into right channels.

Many of the evils to which I have referred have been corrected, and others will be redressed in due course. The people are now pretty well free-they have, in a very large measure, recovered their political power. They are not bent upon revolution or destruction, but upon national recuperation by reasonable social and political reform. The state and national governments have full control of the situation, and full power to deal with and correct the public wrongs of which the people complain. The problems which have agitated the public mind and produced widespread dissatisfaction and restlessness, will be eventually settled upon just principles, preserving what is good and correcting the public wrongs which have resulted from unrestrained corporate and business power, and the corporations, the necessary and indispensable agents in the development of our commerce, industry and civilization, will be protected by public authority in the peaceful enjoyment of all their rights.

As to the second cause of social unrest and social injustice, viz., the attitude of consolidated wealth towards the wage earner in respect to the rate of wages and the environment in which he must work, cannot be discussed within the limits of this paper. If the principles I have stated be sound, it necessarily follows that the relation between labor and capital is primarily a moral question; it must be based upon the principles of justice, and, whenever these principles are disregarded, either in the demands of labor or by the heartlessness and greed of capital, public disorder will inevitably ensue. Our great industrialism has been made

possible by the co-operation of labor and capital. The Master has taught us that the oppression of the poor and the defrauding of laborers of their wages are sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance.

When we contemplate the amazing work of the American people -the cities they have built, the diversified manufacturing plants they have established, the canals they have dug, the railroads and mighty steamship lines they have carried well-nigh to perfection, and reflect upon the part that labor has had in these accomplishments, it must be conceded that the laborer is, in justice, entitled to receive a full share in the profits of his toil and to all the consideration and protection that the public authority and just and humane men can properly afford him. But it must be remembered that capital is the fulcrum upon which labor rests, and that its free employment, in all the activities of commerce and industry, is essential to progress, prosperity and peace.

Upon this subject I subscribe to two propositions which appeal to me as self-evidently just and humane: First, that the laborer is entitled to a wage sufficient to maintain himself and family in reasonable and frugal comfort with decent surroundings, and to enable him, by prudence and economy, to lay by something for a rainy day; secondly, if, through necessity or fear of a worse evil, the workman accepts a lesser wage and hard conditions, because his employer, though able, will give him no better, he is the victim of force and injustice. Under such circumstances public disorders will inevitably ensue. I believe the great body of workingmen are fair and honest, and that if the relation between capital and labor were governed "by the sense of justice and right which is graven on the heart by the supreme law-giver," much of our industrial troubles would disappear.

There is a general concurrence of opinion in all quarters that the rules of the common law, which have heretofore governed recovery for work accidents occurring in corporate and industrial work, should be replaced by fair and effective workmen's compensation acts. The application of the old rules is generally conceded to be unsuitable to our changed conditions, and has resulted in injustice to all parties. It has filled the courts with litigation; it has been the fruitful source of perjury; it has engendered bit