precarious pursuit of politics, that public
interests have a tendency to suffer from being in weak hands, while
private interests have a tendency to assert themselves unduly, from
being in the hands of men of superior force. Thus it happens that it is
often difficult for the State to maintain that dignity, that mastery,
that high position, as the impartial arbiter and dispenser of justice,
which it is now even more necessary than ever that it should maintain,
in order that the whole social organization should keep a true harmony
and a safe balance.

At present, the State is largely concerned with the maintenance of
conditions under which the economic and business life may operate
equally and prosperously. The State in one sense is the master of the
people. In another sense it is merely their creature and their agent
for such purposes as they choose to assign it. Is the State, then, to
absorb the industrial functions, and are we to develop into a
socialistic commonwealth? Or, shall the political democracy and the
cooperative organization of business life go on side by side, related
at many points but in the main distinct from each other? Whatever the
relation of the State to industry may be destined to become in the
distant future, we may be sure that there will be no rash upheavals, no
harmful socialistic experiments, if the potent business world clearly
sees how necessary to its own salvation it is that the State shall be
maintained upon a high plane of dignity and honor, and that the
official dispensation of justice, as well as the official
administration of the laws, shall be prompt, just and impartial.

There is no higher duty, therefore, incumbent upon the business man of
today than to bear his part in promoting and maintaining the purity of
political life. The modern business man should regard good government
as one of the vital conditions of the best economic progress. Yet
scores of instances are at hand that show to what a painful extent
certain business interests again and again, for purposes of immediate
advantage,--to secure a franchise, to escape a tax, or to procure some
improper favor or advantage at the hands of those in political
authority,--have employed corrupt methods and thus stained the fair
escutcheon of American business honor, while breaking down the one most
indispensable condition of general business progress,--namely, honest
and efficient free government.

I will not dwell upon these things