ot always with conspicuous
success or fortunate results. You can use the Government of the United
States by influencing its legislation. That has been a very active
industry, but it has not always been managed in the interest of the
whole people. It is very instructive and useful for the Government of
the United States to have such means as you are ready to supply for
getting a sort of consensus of opinion which proceeds from no particular
quarter and originates with no particular interest. Information is the
very foundation of all right action in legislation.

I remember once, a good many years ago, I was attending one of the local
chambers of commerce of the United States at a time when everybody was
complaining that Congress was interfering with business. If you have
heard that complaint recently and supposed that it was original with the
men who made it, you have not lived as long as I have. It has been going
on ever since I can remember. The complaint came most vigorously from
men who were interested in large corporate development. I took the
liberty to say to that body of men, whom I did not know, that I took it
for granted that there were a great many lawyers among them, and that it
was likely that the more prominent of those lawyers were the intimate
advisors of the corporations of that region. I said that I had met a
great many lawyers from whom the complaint had come most vigorously, not
only that there was too much legislation with regard to corporations,
but that it was ignorant legislation. I said, "Now, the responsibility
is with you. If the legislation is mistaken, you are on the inside and
know where the mistakes are being made. You know not only the innocent
and right things that your corporations are doing, but you know the
other things, too. Knowing how they are done, you can be expert advisors
as to how the wrong things can be prevented. If, therefore, this thing
is handled ignorantly, there is nobody to blame but yourselves." If we
on the outside cannot understand the thing and cannot get advice from
the inside, then we will have to do it with the flat hand and not with
the touch of skill and discrimination. Isn't that true? Men on the
inside of business know how business is conducted and they cannot
complain if men on the outside make mistakes about business if they do
not come from the inside and give the kind of advice which is necessary.

The trouble has been that when they came in the past--for