Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual
Meeting. 37
Steel Queen, Lee H. Brooks,
Slackwater, Frank Tyler, Margaret,
Return, Frank Fowler, Troubador,
Sunshine and Emily Jung.
The fleet was in command of Capt. James
A. Henderson.
The New Orleans was in command of
Melville O. Irwin, mate;
Thomas Walker, engineer, and T. Orville
Noel, steward.
Fortunately for those in attendance at
the Fifth Annual
Meeting, the Pittsburgh Chamber of
Commerce took the oppor-
tunity of President Taft's presence to
hold Tuesday evening its
annual banquet. The Historical Society
of Western Pennsyl-
vania generously provided tickets to all
members of the Ohio
Valley Association present in the city.
The banquet was held
in the Memorial Hall and the banquet
room presented a scene
of unusual beauty. The event of the
evening was the long-to-be-
remembered reply of President Taft to
the address of Congress-
man Littleton who advocated the repeal
of the Sherman Anti-
Trust law. These addresses have become
historic, but as they
are foreign to the subject of Western
history and the occasion
of the "New Orleans"
centennial, they are omitted from this
report.
Hon. Job E. Hedges followed President
Taft; speaking on
"The Third Party to the
Contract" as follows:
Much of the present day discussion is
wide from the mark, so
far as helping the solution of problems
is concerned, and especially so
if the endeavor is made to square it
with governmental tradition. I
do not believe that the foundation
stones of the Republic are crumbling.
I do not believe that the life of this
great Nation hangs in the balance.
I do not believe that vice has a
strangle hold on virtue, and that there
are only one or two men who can pull
vice off. When the adviser
on political and social problems becomes
so didactic that he is mentally
lonely, his diagnosis may be logical and
learned, but is useless in ad-
ministering his own remedy. The
impediment, if any, the danger, if
any there be, to a republican form of
government is its size and the
fact that by virtue of its very numbers
fewer people have the oppor-
tunity to make themselves felt by virtue
of the fact that they are limited
in their opportunities for discussing
the same topic at the same time
with others of the same belief, or those
whose belief they propose to
affect.
So great has governmental influence
become, so far-reaching, that
the law may be either a scourge or a
remedy. It seems to have escaped
38 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications.
popular contemplation that a man has a
duty to Government outside
of statute law, and outside of the
strict phrasing of the Constitution.
Under a Government with an unrestricted
male franchise such as ours,
it is impossible to think of a contract
which comes under the provisions
of law where the parties thereto do not
bear a political relationship to
all the rest. In other words, there is
always a third party to the con-
tract, and that third party represents
the rest of the Nation. In part
or in its entirety that contract must be
determined if there is anything
whatever in the duty of man to
government, according to whether after
the competitions between the contracting
parties have been phrased, the
result of that contract would be to the
detriment of the people at large.
We are getting away from the moorings of
simple things. We
are confused by the element of size and
numbers. We are disturbed
by the terrific power of personal
influence, and what can be done with
it and money. If we will but admit that
men like power, that men like
to accumulate, that men like influence,
that competitions may be so in-
tense that a man may think the Golden
Rule, but be so out of breath
he cannot utter it, we have gone far
toward solution. We are deceived
by proposed self-immolations on the
altar of government, by panegyric
on behalf of the common people, which is
supposed to bring about an
uprising. Men devote themselves
rhetorically to the interests of others,
and shed tears over the sadness of the
misfortune when they would
not contribute a dollar to the person
who is suffering.
There is a day far beyond the
Constitution and statutes in this
country, and it is a duty which if
recognized politically means nothing
more nor less than the practical
adoption of the Golden Rule. It is
well to practice virtue because it is
virtue. If we cannot get on as
high a plane as that it is better to
practice virtue from selfish reasons
and reasons of utility rather than not
to practice it at all.
Present conditions are the direct
results of the failure to observe
these two simple platitudes. Until every
election results in an expression
of opinion which means the actual
expression of actual people actually
living the part of citizens, law is a
guess and its enforcement a gamble,
and discussions as to its wisdom more or
less academical. Many men
before the public today are acting as if
they thought they were a
special providential dispensation.
Others appear to think and to act as
if our national existence was to close
with the closing of their eyes.
The human problem here is not the
problem of the poor and the suf-
fering, cost of high living, or the cost
of any living. It is the attitude
of mind and the conduct of people of
intelligence, refinement, wealth
and social position in their
relationship to the Government and the obli-
gations they will admit as a matter of
ordinary selfishness in working
out the life of this great nation.
Financiers tell us that capital is timid
and business predicated on
confidence. Yes, that is true. Business
depends, however, more upon
Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual
Meeting. 39
the confidence of the general public in
the man who controls the capital,
and its belief in his integrity
individually than it does in the contribu-
tion of a few dollars per capita, which
when lost makes up the added
capital of the leader of finance. I read
the other day that business was
at a standstill because of some decision
that had been rendered in con-
nection with a law called the Sherman
law, and the article went on to
say that no business could be done until
there was a law passed which
stated specifically what could not be
done in business, and that nothing
should be left to the so-called rule of
reason.
It seems to me that nothing is so safe
for the people at large
as a general proposition. If the highest court says what may not be,
and leaves to the lower court the
function of determining how the
"may not" be avoided, that is
about all that law can do. The hazard
of business can never be reduced to an
absolute certainty for one side
of the problem, when the advantages are
with it, and have the other
side take all the chances. The functions
of government are too much
relied on by the people and the people
rely too much on the penal code
to determine what they shall not do, and
too little on a sense of obliga-
tion of each man toward the public to
determine what they should do.
The third party to the contract is never
absent from its interpretation
and never should be.
With increasing numbers of population
this duty is to become
more and more apparent, and if the final
contest is to place upon the
statute books a law to give rights to
one class or that makes a distinc-
tion of rights, the inference is that
there is no equality of right; although
we know that there is no equality of
opportunity, the result will be
confusion, and, from that, confusion
worse confounded.
The only permanency in public opinion
and the only virtue that can
come from it, and which is a final and
lasting benefit is that kind of an
opinion which is formed regardless of
publicity, but by virtue of which
men of prominence and potential force
will refrain from doing what
they would not do if they were certain
that the entire public understood
the entire problem before they attempted
to work it out.
The prosperity of the country as such,
its uplift and moral growth
depend at this moment more upon the
people who are decrying the force
of law; who have all the advantages of
social, financial and intellec-
tual position, and who seem to be afraid
to enter into the competitions
of life without having every chance in
their favor, than they do upon
any other class of the community. The
man whose earning power is
limited to his hands, or who is forced
to walk in some of the plain
paths of life, however much he may yearn
to influence public opinion,
and therefore governmental functions, is
practically limited to casting
a "no" vote on something
submitted for his approval or disapproval.
The affirmative part of our national
life is passing away, and is passing
away because men will not stop to think
that most every human, bar-
40 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
ring a man's relationship to the God who
made him and the home over
which he presides, has a political
significance.
You might as well talk of removing
politics from business as to
talk of asking the sun to stop shining,
as long as a human being votes
upon the election of a man who will vote
for a law there is always
politics, and there always should be
politics. Instead of there being
too much politics in this country there
is too little politics in this country.
It is not a question of the volume of
political activity so much as it
is a question of the quality of it. If
we could amend the Constitution
and disfranchise the man who did not
vote, strike dumb the man who
criticises another for doing what he
does, and split the tongue of the
man who agitates the people for the
purpose of selling that agitation
at so much per year, some problems would
now disappear as the mist
before the sun.
Wednesday morning the chairman Harry
Brent Mackoy
called the meeting to order and
introduced Professor Callahan
of West Virginia University:
THE PITTSBURGH-WHEELING RIVALRY FOR
COMMERCIAL
HEADSHIP ON THE OHIO.
BY JAMES MORTON CALLAHAN,
Professor of History and Politics, W.
Va. University.
The Wheeling Bridge Case in the Supreme
Court in 1849-52 and
1854-56 is as interesting through its
relations to the industrial history
of the period as it is from the
standpoint of constitutional questions
involved. Its study introduces us to the
earlier rivalries of coast cities
to secure the trade of the West, the
systems of internal improvements
planned to reach the Ohio, the
development of trade and navigation
and the extension of improvements and
regulations by Congress on
the Ohio, and the rivalries of
Pittsburgh and Wheeling to obtain the
hegemony by lines of trade and travel
converging and concentrating at
their gates.
Pennsylvania was early interested in
plans of internal improvements
to connect Philadelphia with Pittsburg
and the free navigation of the
Ohio. Occupying a central position,
resting eastward on the Atlantic,
north on the Lakes, and flanking on the
Ohio which connected her with
the Gulf and the vast region of West and
South, she had advantages
over other states for both foreign and
domestic commerce. These ad-