p. 16 | Not Hopeful by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Nov 1, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 44.

Not Hopeful.

By Editor

An editorial in a recent Independent does not present a very hopeful picture for the future of the great Republic. Referring to the men who compose the great commercial organizations as the "pillars of society," it plainly declares what is self-evident to every thoughtful person:

1. "The major part of the industrial corporations is owned by a small minority of that group which is called 'the business world.'"

2. The former "captains of industry" "have become monarchs of industry and no longer even constitutional monarchs. They are 'absolute monarchs.'"

3. "So ruling, they have done what absolute monarchs always do: they have forgotten the distinction between 'mine' and 'thine'; they have grown oblivious to the rights and interests of those whose property and lives they hold in trust, and they have ceased to render a true and full account of their stewardship. So it has happened that this absolutist plan on which modern business is conducted, this existing order, which its beneficiaries have defended as not only the best possible, but even as the only possible order, turns out to be an arrangement on all fours with political absolutism—a system for the easy exploitation of the struggling and toiling subjects of these mighty and self-sufficient potentates."

4. "The monarchical plan turns out to be morally rotten." It "robs and crushes," and the conclusion to which these exploiters of republicanism have come in consequence of their success is that democracy is a failure, and unworkable both in business and in politics.

Of course out of this the Independent thinks that good will come some way, and that these men must be held accountable; but the spirit of these dominant men is in the mass, and while individuals may be brought to account, the evil is not touched. If democracy in name was democracy in fact, there would have been no power in these tremendous industrial corporations to continue them so long or permit them to exploit the people as they have done. The same spirit which allows it is unable to check it. This is in perfect harmony with the scriptures which point out the corruption of the last days.