Under the head of corporate management, Mr. Fish says:
I need not repeat that the country is prosperous, and likely to continue so. While fully appreciating these facts, we cannot shut our eyes to the trouble that has been going on in the center of our financial system.
Having looked into the matter myself somewhat carefully of late, I beg to say to you in all seriousness that not only in the insurance companies, but in many other corporations, there is need of the advice and probably the knife of the trained surgeon. Without pretending to any superior knowledge on the subject, I think that the root of the evil lies in too few men having undertaken to manage too many corporations; that in so doing they have perverted the powers granted under corporate charters, and in their hurry to do a vast business have in many cases done it all.
We who--as breadwinners, as taxpayers, and as stockholders--provide the wherewithal suffer because we have set others to rule over us without holding them to that strict accountability for the discharge of their trust which the common law and common sense alike demand. Indeed, things have come to such a pass that in certain quarters it is now considered indecorous and ill-bred for us, the many, even to discuss, much less to correct, the shortcomings of the elect few. Such was neither the theory nor the practise on which our forefathers ordered the economy of this republic.
The Author of "The Simple Life" Sets Forth in Friendly Terms His Impressions of America.
Charles Wagner, the author of "The Simple Life," has published a volume, "Vers le Coeur de l'Amérique" ("Toward the Heart of America"), in which are recorded his impressions of the United States as gathered during his visit here in the fall of 1904. He is no globe-trotting critic, nor is he a collector of statistics; he gives merely an account of what he has seen.
Of President Roosevelt the famous French pastor holds a high opinion, as this bit of appreciation indicates:
A man in sympathy with the humble; equal to all emergencies; as great as the greatest; truly a man, one of those who do most honor to the human family.
One feels that he is ready for any struggle; willing to step behind the gun himself, if need be. Thus in regard to subjects relating to public spirit, nothing which might contribute to promoting a mutual understanding among American citizens leaves him indifferent. He often says that that which is important for the welfare and the power of the people is not so much the existence of a few isolated characters of extraordinary powers as a good general level of public spirit.