The American Goose-Step
544 T H E C O M M O N W E A L October 2, i929 whether a national outlook which favors rather than offsets these developments may stand in need of correc- tion ? It is hard, in this day and...
...The reply indicates that the new owners intend to deal openly and squarely with the public, discountenancing all tunneling and dodging...
...WEEK BY WEEK O MUCH has been written by way of summary regarding Mr...
...John E. Edgerton's recent Manufac-comment upon the southern industrial turers and situation is nevertheless sober and senthe South sible...
...But then we should certainly become aware that the processes of undermining, or of decay, had been evident in a score of moral fissures too small and too little troublesome to worry about...
...Above all, we need to be ready for a shock, when that comes...
...It has been written that man shall be unconscious of the evil he does until it has been visited upon his head...
...There are reasons why a ship-building corporation should enjoy a contract or two...
...but the officers of the navy apparently did not even realize that a mortal named Shearer was on the globe...
...As is usual in such instances, collapse is likely to be made impressive by the pressure of economic sacrifice and curtailment it would involve...
...By comparison, the manifesto issued by the Niagara Hudson Power Corporation, an amalgamation of public utilities which is controlled by J. P. Morgan and Company, is a genuine indication that business executives of the highest character remain deeply conscious of social obligations...
...Never in all history was financial power so compactly organized, or so efficiently locked in what may be termed a credit goose-step...
...The farmer and the small merchant have not yet proved themselves masters of co6perative method...
...We need to measure the walls of our social house anew...
...While we do not entirely agree with the Foreign Mr...
...We do not scorn a naval officer who wants a first-class fleet...
...The National Security League is not all hot air...
...He has demonstrated, to begin with, how superficial are the contacts between man and man...
...But they all made one blunder in tying up with Mr...
...If only a little more than 3 percent of the manufactured articles we purchase come from abroad, then we are really living under an "embargo," and there is little need for doing anything further...
...So far, however, they have avoided the blunder of mistakenly identifying themselves as candidates for big bank accounts...
...And the willingness of all to respect the higher unity of the moral and civic law seems to be decreasing even while the imperative need for it is more manifest...
...One concludes that if American business generally were sincerely governed by such a policy, the scramble for new tariff schedules and public utility valuations would have become a totally different story...
...While the disarmament conference was in progress at Geneva, he wrote articles which did so much to evoke pessimism and opposition that the British government entered an official protest...
...At all events, one feels that Senator Borah's speech has once more made a subject for conversation out of the implications of the tariff---and that ultimately the stability of Republicanism may depend upon what attitude it decides to take...
...dressesmto help out, the several committees being so favorably impressed by his good intentions that they permitted the poor fellow to have his say...
...THOUGH optimism goes with the job of being president of the National Association of Manufacturers, Mr...
...William B. Shearer that one more morsel may be added without apology...
...Shearer and another in ridding themselves of him so clumsily...
...On the other hand, the process of welding labor together is impaired by numerous slipshod concessions to influence...
...We need to plan for the future...
...They maintain that equalization and lowering of existing rates will prove the economic rightness of the new merger...
...There is implied here the wellknown sincerity with which some financial and industrial leaders have faced their responsibilities...
...Though he was confessedly in the employ of great ship-building firms as a "reporter," his job dwindled into a mere microscopic nothing the moment he was labeled a "propagandist...
...Holding that the rapid change from rural to factory life is accountable for much of the trouble, Mr...
...Shearer's Policy Association in holding that "he has probably done more for the cause Connections of disarmament than all the organized pacifist efforts," we cannot help feeling that the nation is deeply indebted to him...
...The pacifist spellbinders are sometimes woful cranks with a notion that the world consists of taffy...
...And yet a system of customs levying which invites such an attack as Senator Borah addressed to his brethren of the Senate is profoundly wobbly somewhere...
...The argument favoring some measure of protection for manufacturing enterprise follows so naturally from our prevalent basic economic assumptions that it can hardly be challenged without contravening these...
...544 T H E C O M M O N W E A L October 2, i929 whether a national outlook which favors rather than offsets these developments may stand in need of correction ? It is hard, in this day and age, to take the tariff very seriously...
...But to how great an extent are the profits reaped under this system socially legitimate ? Do they militate seriously against the buying power of large numbers to whom some increase in that power is vitally necessary...
...In order that the National Security League might be appropriately entertained, he delivered several ad...
...The point at issue has been control of the power and navigation resources of the Saint Lawrence River: Feeling that so powerful a merger could endanger the interests of New York state, Governor Roosevelt issued a statement in which the rights of the commonwealth were affirmed and the purposes of the Corporation challenged...
...But the truth that such sincerity is not yet characteristic of our economic activities as a whole makes one radically distrustful of the current trend to monopoly...
...Edgerton reported that a letter urging manufacturers to accept as a duty the...
Vol. 10 • October 1929 • No. 22
