The World Go-Day

VOLUME XIV

JANUARY, 1908

NUMBER 1

H

Reform in Overdoses

APPY is the man whose system can absorb the accumulation of cures which friendship dictates he shall take. Unrestricted by any diagnosis, we give headache powders for stomach complaints and lame-back remedies for toothache. Thin men adopt the regimen of fat men, and men with heart disease take acetanilid.

Why not? Each remedy has cured somebody!

Of late we have turned doctors of things financial. A few months ago we were all curing graft; and now it is financial stringency. No man of us is so poor as not to have some panacea.

In fact, we are in danger of being overdosed.

Perhaps that is the trouble with us, anyway. The after effects of some remedies are worse than the diseases they cure.

For the past year or two the country has been given rather a drastic treatment in the interest of reform. From the grocery-store philosopher to the president of a woman's club, from the space-writer to the President of the United States, everybody has been prescribing for his or her country.

Just as old maids and unmarried ministers teach parents how to bring up children, men on salary and women on committees have instructed the country in the management of railroads and the control of corporations. Men who never could escape last month's butcher bills have reorganized (in magazines) the stock market, and men who forget the dates of primaries have told us how to keep rascals out of office.

(Copyright 1907, by THE WORLD TO-DAY COMPANY.)

If we have not quite emulated the citizens of that happy island who make their living by taking in each other's washing, we have attempted to reform everything we could lay our hands on.

But now we face another side of the matter. We are in danger of taking an overdose of antidote for an overdose of cure.

If we need to guard against the amateur physician, even more do we need to guard against the ugliness of an unwilling convalescent.

Suppose we admit that the present financial situation is in some degree due to the excessive zeal of reformers. Shall we then throw reform out of the window?

Is it true that men will not invest in stocks because of the agitation against corporations?

Or is it true that now that we know how our Napoleons of finance pyramid their investments, reorganize their railroads, pocket the proceeds of stock issues, and make runs on trust companies to put rivals out of business, we prefer to put our money into farms?

Reforms can not be undone by attacking reformers. That is only to deepen the plain citizen's suspicion of the belligerents.

A farmer who can now-a-days afford to take his family on a visit to his brother-in-law is not likely to be very sympathetic when a railroad complains of the injustice of rate legislation. The wholesaler in the small town, who, because of reduced freight rates, finds himself no longer at a disadvantage in competing with the wholesaler in the metropolis, is not apt to look with much suspicion upon an Interstate Commerce Commission. And the nation that is getting the benefit of genuine enforcement of law is not likely to join in the lamentation of those who have been forced to abandon illegal practices.

We are learning something else besides the need of discounting the enthusiasm of reformers. We have been taught the advantages of reform.

The love of fair play guarantees that the effect of an overdose will be rectified. Self-interest should lead men who are exploiting the present unreasonable financial crisis in the interest of reaction to see that their criticisms will be taken for symptoms requiring still further treatment.

We expect convalescents to be cross, but when they try to kill their doctors we put them into strait-jackets.

ALBERT A. MICHELSON-PHYSICIST, WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE

Professor Michelson is the head of the department of physics of the University of Chicago and is recognized as the world's leading authority on light. He was given the Grand Prize at Paris in 1900, and in 1904 the Matteucci medal. He has received degrees from foreign and American universities, and in the present year has been awarded the Copley medal of the Royal Society of Great Britain and the Nobel prize. The work of no American scientist has received greater recognition. The Nobel prize was awarded Professor Michelson because of his discoveries regarding light

CHARLES D. CARTER-THE SCOTCH-IRISH INDIAN IN CONGRESS

The admission of the new state of Oklahoma has brought into public life a number of highly individualistic characters. Mr. Carter, who describes himself as being 7-16 Indian, and 9-16 Scotch-Irish, is likely to be something more than a Congressional curiosity. He has profound sympathies with the Indians and does not believe in the present policy of paternalism See the article on page 86

ROBERT R. McCORMICK-THE MATTER-OF-FACT YOUNG MAN IN POLITICS

Mr. McCormick is a young man who has been given the highly responsible position of President of the Board of Trustees of the Chicago Sanitary District. He is now engaged in a lively contest with various private interests for the purpose of developing the Drainage Canal as a water-power and as a shipping channel