The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-12-04
PRESIDENT ROOSEvELTS
MESSAGE.
Continued from Page One.)


ers Successful enterprise, of the type
which benefits all mankind, can only eX-
list If the conditions arc such as to offer
great prizes as the rewards of success.
The captains Of industry who have
driven tho railway systems across this
continent, who have bull. UP cur com
merce, who have developed our manu-
features, have on the whole done great
good to our people. Without tnem the
material development OF which we are so
Justly proud could never have taken
place. Moreover, we should recognize the
immense importance to this material ce-
velopment of Leaving a. unhanpered as
is compatible with the public good the
strong and forceiul men upon whom the
success of business operations inevitably
rests. The slightest study of business
conditions will satisfy anyone capable of
forming a Judgment that the personal
equation is the most important factor in
business operation that the business
ability of the man at the head of any
business concern. big or little. is usually
the factor which fixes the gulf between
striking success and hopeless failure.
An additional reason for caution in
dealing with corporations is TO be found
of today. The same business conditions
which have produced the great aggrega-
tons of corporate and individual wealth
have made them very potent factors in
international commercial competition.
Business concerns which have tie largest
means at their disposal and are managed
by the ablest men are naturally those
which take the lead in the strife for COM
mercial supremacy among the nations OF
the world. America has only just be-
gun to assume that commanding posi-
tion in the international business world
which we believe will more and more
be hers. 1t is of the utmost Importance
that this position be not jeopardized, es
pecially at time when tn. overlooking
abundance of our natural resources and
the skill, business energy, and mechani-
cal aptitude of our people make foreign
markets essential. Under such conditions
it would be most unwise to cramp or to
fetter the youthful strength OF our Ma
ton
Moreover it cannot too often be point.
ed out that to strike with ignorant viO-
lence at the interests of one set of men
almost inevitably endangers the interests
Of all. The fundamental rule in our ma
tiCnal life-the rule underles all others
lis that, on the whole, and in the long
run, we shall go up or down together.
There are exceptions; and in times of
prosperity some will prosper far more,
and in times of adversely some will suffer
far more, than others; but speaking gen.
orally period of good times means that
share more or less in them, and in pc
Rod of hard times all feel the stress
to a greater or less degree. 1t surely
ought not to be necessary to enter into
any proof of this statement; the memory
of the lean years which began in 1893
is still vivid, and We can contrast them
with the conditions in this very year
which is now closing. Disaster to great
business enterprises can never have its
effects limited to the men at the top.
1t spreads throughout. and while lit is
bad for everybody, it is worst for those
farthest down. The capitalist may be
shorn of his luxuries; but the wage
worker may be deprived of even bare ne
ccssities.
The mechanism of modern business is
so delicate that extreme care must be
taken not to interfere with it in spirit
of rashness or ignorance. Many of those
who have made it their vocation to de-
nounce the great industrial combinations
which are popularity, although with tech
meal inaccuracy, known as trusts" APP
peal especially to hatred and fear. These
are precisely the two emotions, particu-
larly when combined with ignorance,
which unfit men for the exercise of cool
and steady judgment. In facing new in
dustrial conditions, the whole history Of
the world shows that legisla-
ton will generally be both un-
wise and ineffectively unless I'M
dertaken after calm inquiry and with
sober self-restraint. Much of the legis-
lation directed at the trusts would have
been exceedingly mischievous had it not
also been entirely ineffective. In accord
ance with a well-known sociological law
the ignorant or reckless agitator has
been the really effective friend of the
evils which he has been nominally oppos-
ing. In dealing with business interests,
for the Government to undertake by
crude and ill-consdered legislation to do
what may turn out to be bad would be
to incur the risk of such reaching
national disaster that it would be prefer
able to undertake nothing at all The
men who demand the impossible or the
undesirable serve as the allies OF the
forces with which they are nominally at
war, for they hamper those who would en-
dcavor to find out in rational fashion
what the wrongs really are and to what
extent and in what manner It Is plac-
ticable to apply remedies.
All this is true and yet J, is also
true that there are real and grave evils,
one of the chief being over capitalization
because of it's many faleffi consequences;
and resolute and practical effort must
be made to correct these evils.
Trusts Should be Supervised
There is widespread conviction in the
minds of the American people chat the
great corporations known NJ .rus.s, are
in certain of their features and tenden-
cies hurtful to the general welfare. This
springs from no spirit OF envy or un-
charitableness, nor lack o. pride in the
great industrial achievements that have
placed this country It the head of the
nations struggling fer commercial SUI
premacy. 1t does not rest Jpn lack of
intelligent appreciation of the necessity
of meeting changing and changed con-
d,ticns of trade with new methods nor
upon ignorance of the fact that combi-
nation of capital in the efforts to accom-
n1ich Uroaf thippc 10 npaaSCary when