Ashtabula High School - Dart Yearbook (Ashtabula, OH)

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The real secret, then, of this marvelous American activity is not greed nor thought of gain but the spirit of initiative which the pioneers of our country bequeathed to their sons and daughters. Is it worth while to foster, to preserve this spirit, or shall it he allowed to die out. smothered by the power of capital and corporation? Individual proprietorship was once the day-star of every American boy. The farmer's son looked anxiously forward to the time when he should | ossess a farm of his own; the artisan owned his small shop, and his apprentice toiled hard for little or no money, hut with the joyful expectation of sometime being himself the master. Then every clerk behind the counter or at the desk was eagerly awaiting the moment when he might be the proprietor of an establishment of his own. That day has gone, and with it has gone the best hope of the American boy, that of an individual career. The corporations own half of the country. The trust has untold power. It can, at will, force any business to sell out at its own terms. Should one dare to refuse, it would Ik- swept out of existence. Even the farmers, the most independ-ent class of ] cople in the United States, are compelled to accept the dictation of the trust. Figures show that in recent years individual enterprises have become fewer and fewer, and the number of men in the service of the corporations greater and greater. Skilled labor forms only the more intricate parts of the mechanical network. Conditions are threatening; a great problem is to Ik.- solved. 'Flic American people arc not asking that corjiorations shall Ik- done away with or that competition shall cease; but they are asking that the country's corjxjration |K licy be reformed, that the government, by a national commission or by direct legislation, shall exercise a real power over these vast business interests, and that every man shall have the op| ortunity to share in the fruits of his own toil. Unless this is done there is no other |K ssibility but that Americans shall become a race of dependents. I hojK , not merely for my own sake because I am young, not alone for the sake of the many thousands of American lx ys who are facing the future with me, but for the sake of our country. America, that you and I shall not see the day when individual hope and prospect shall Ik numlx-red among the memories of the past; when the young man who starts in life jxx r shall see before him no independence, but only years of servitude stretching on to the grave. May our country grow in knowledge and in power, but may she be spared the time when, oppressed by the grandeur of factories which supply the world, cloyed with the beauty of public halls and rulers’ palaces, her people shall l x»k back with longing eyes upon the farms and the little shops and stores of their forefathers which gave every man a chance. When the rulers of the United States, amid dangers and temptations, are seeking to curb the jxmers of boundless wealth, may they remember that in their hands lies the spirit of American Independence. Grit.form G. Kinusiu'ky.

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The hirst Prize Oration of County Contest in 1907. AMERICAN INITIATIVE ()f the many prominent men of affairs in the I'nitcd Sjates today, one of the most interesting is Judge Peter S. Grosscup. of Chicago. 11 is interpretation of the law notably in the Chicago Strike and the Beef-Trust Injunctions—and his grasp of American problems have won for him the confidence of the people. In discussing corj orations. Judge Grosscup said: The proprietorship of the private projK rty of the country by the bulk of the | cople is radically narrowing. Corporate dominion comprises now nearly one-half the wealth of the I’nited States.” Today twelve million men are laboring for the corporations and supporting, by the income gained, twenty-four millions of dependents. Moreover, in 1900 an inventory of agricultural interests from Maine to California showed eighteen billions of dollars, while the capital invested in corporations was twenty-two billions. These statistics prove that cor| orate dominion is rapidly over-shadowing private ownership. But private ownership is the rock on which Republican America rests. It is individual enterprise that has made her men and women strong to build and to sustain a mighty nation. The colonists were men of exceptional bravery who were willing to leave a country where they had no chance and make the opjx r-tunity they wanted. They found this country a wilderness. Boundless forests must lx.' felled, great marshes drained, ami the soil, which had never been broken, must l c tilled. They caught their own fish and hunted their own game. While the men labored to establish their homes, the women too were toiling. Theirs was a noble lalx r. Each day found those loyal women going earnestly about their household work. Spinning wheel and loom were ever busy making the cloth which was to protect them from the cutting wind and burning sun. This economic independence reacted on the natures of men and women and evolved that mixture of keenness and ability and energy, aggressiveness and independence which is known as American character. The idea of each man, in so far as possible, doing for himself has found expression in our local government, our bills of rights, our representative system, and in the Monroe Doctrine, which is a declaration of the individual ability of our continent to take care of itself. It was our ability to supjx rt ourselves that won for us in the Revolution and made the North victorious in the Civil War. The same idea of the responsibility of man created the self-determination with which the colonists wrested from France every foot of her magnificent possessions on this continent. In the French colonies a man could not build his own house or reap his own grain without the permission and supervision of prefects. No public meetings of any kind were | ermiitcd. As a result, French dominion in America was annihilated. The French were overthrown by the self-governing colonists of England. John Fiskc says. The town meeting pitted against bureaucracy was like a Titan overthrowing a cripple.” 24

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PHYSICAL LABORATORY CHEMICAL LABORATORY