Some Important Facts

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 18, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 32.

Some Important Facts

THE “Wall Street Journal” is a daily paper which sells for five cents. Its circulation is small, probably not over fifteen thousand. But those fifteen thousand buyers of the paper are the richest men in the United States. The “Journal’s” regular daily readers have an aggregate wealth greater than that of any other daily paper. It is the trade journal of Wall Street, and it is alone in its premiership. Its contents consist of the New York Stock Exchange quotations, running comment on the day’s events on the Exchange, news of corporation meetings, dividends declared, the trend of the bond market, a mass of financial advertising, and finally, each day a few very able editorials. It is from these editorials during the past few weeks that the following paragraphs are taken. We think they will surprise any one who does not know the “Wall Street Journal” and has read our description of it. First, about the $29,000,000 fine against Standard Oil:

“The Landis decision was the fruit of a popular state of mind brought about by methods of corporation activity of which the life insurance inquiry gave the first illuminating exposition. Corporations in those times were in many cases being conducted with an utter indifference to the laws of God and man. If a corporation were only strong enough, its managers assumed that anything was right which they could bring about without actually incurring prosecution. It was thought in some financial circles proper to own the representatives of the people in state legislatures or in Congress, and, indeed, we had established a condition so rotten as to bring about a violent revulsion of public sentiment.”

This concerning the tariff which the Senate has been making:

“We have only to glance at the tariff discussion in the Senate to see how far we have fallen back, after the moral upheaval of a few years ago. The spectacle there is so base, so utterly without patriotism or principle, so far from the ideals of either party, so crudely self-seeking, and so callously ready to sacrifice the interest of an entire nation for the benefit of a small part of it, the interest of a state for a small influential portion of that state, and even the interest of a Congressional district for a few contributors to a campaign fund, that it points to the establishment of a new tyranny. This moral rot in our commercial system, so indecently displayed in the United States Senate, is one of a number of signs which should cause us to think. The spectacle at present afforded by the United States Senate is an insult to every self-respecting American. It exhibits statesmen supposed to be acting in a national capacity owned in soul and pocket-book by petty local interests, while one corporation after another shows that it can snap its fingers at the promises made by the Republican President and all his party before election, and accepted by the American people.”

Finally, this about commercial and political conditions:

“There is, however, evidence patent enough to any observer that favored interests are trying to establish a return to conditions which were most properly suppressed within the past four years.”

“There is, in fact, a shameless revival of that association of selfish corporate interests with legislation and legislators, such as dared not show its head twelve months ago.”

These quotations suggest many thoughts. Probably it is proper first to express appreciation of a newspaper which, although its clientele consists of men of great wealth exclusively, is yet independent and outspoken. We know of no newspaper, even among those that appeal to the public in general, which is so frank and forceful. . . . Finally, the intrinsic truth of the “Journal’s” words is important. We trust the character of their source will carry conviction where a more radical publication’s utterances might be read with some reservation.—Collier’s Weekly.