The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-09-21
MIR. ROOSEYELI'S,
 CURE FOR ||RUSTS
The President Says Constitutional Amendment is Necessary to
 Properly Solve Question.

DeHeNe tildt iney see nothing put evil in all the existing system, and who, if given their way, would destroy the evil by the simple process of bringing ruin and disaster to the entire country. The evils att andant on over -capitaii- zation alone are, in my judgment, suffi- cient to warrant far closer supervision and control than now exists over the great corporal tions. Wherever a sub- stantial monopoly can be shown to exist, we should certainly try our utmost to devise an expedient by which it can be controlled. Doubtless some of the evils existing in or because of the great cor porations, cannot be cured by any legis- lation which has yet been proposed, and doubtless others, which really have been incident to the sudden development in the formation of corporations of all kinds will. in the end, cure themselves. But others will remain that can be cured if we only set about curing them with sanity.
 The surest way to prevent the possi- bility of curing any of the evils is to ap- proach the subject in spirit of violent rancor; complicated with total igno- rance of business conditions and of fun damental incapacity or unwilingess to uderstand the limitations or the power of all law-making bodies. No problem, and, least of all, so difficult a problem as this. can be solved. if the qualities brought by it's solution are panic, fear. | envy, hatred and ignorance. And there can exist in a free republic no man more wicked, no, man more dangerous to the people than he who would arouse these feelings in the hope that they may redound to his own political advantage. Benetcent Corporations. Corporations that are handled hon. SD | evil, are natural business evolution and make for the general prosperity of our | land. We do not wish to destroy the corporations. We wish to make them subserve the public good. All individuals, | rich or poor, private or corporate, must | be subject to the law of the land; and | the government will hold them to a rigid | obedience thereto. The biggest corpora | tion, like the humblest private citizen, must be held to strict compliance with the will of the people as expressed in | the fundamental law.
 "The savings banks show what can be | done in the way of genuinely beneticent | work by large corporations when intel | Hgently administered and supervised. They now hold over twenty-siX hundred | millions of the peoples money, and pay | annually about 100 million of interest or profit to their depositors. There is no 
 yet they possess greater power, holding over three times the amount of our pre- sent national debt; more than all the cur rent gold, silver, greenbacks, etc., in cir culation in the United States. The chief reason for there being no talk of danger from them is that they are faithfully administered for the benefit of all under wise laws which require frequent and full protection of their condition and which prescribe certain needful regulations with which they have to comply, while at the same time giving full scope for the business enterprise of their managers within these limits
 Now of course savings banks are as highly specialized a class of corpora tions as railroads and we cannot force too far the analogy with other corpora dons; but there are certain conditions which I think we can lay down as in- dispensibe to the proper treatment of all corporations which from their size have become important factors in the social development of the community
 Before speaking, however. of what can be done by way of remedy, let me say a word or two as to certain proposed remedies which in my judgment would he ineffective or misChicVous. The first thing to remember is that If We are to accomplish any good at all 1t must be by resolutey keeping in mind the inten- tion to do away with any evils in the conduct of big corporations, while stead fastly refusing to assent to indiscriminate assault upon all forms of corporate capi- tai such.
 The Line of Demarkation.
 The line of demarkation We draw must always be on conduct. not on wealth: our objection to any given corporation must bp haf ic bip hrf hab badly.
 "A remedy much advocated at the moment Is to take off the tariff from all articles which are made by trusts. To do this 1t will be necessary first to define trusts. The language commonly used by the advocates of the method i'm plies that they mean ali articles made by large corporations, and that the changes in tariff are to be made with punitive intent toward these large cor poratOns.
 "Of course if the tariff Is to be changed in order to punish them. it should be changed so as to punish those that do it, not merely those that are prosperous. Il would neither be just nor eXpcdlont to punish the big corporations as bag cor porations; what we wish to do is to pro- tect the people from any evil that may grow out of their existence or maladmlh- iStratiOn. Some of these CoEpOfdtoIS lp well and othors do ill. If in any case the tariff is found to foster a monopoly which does i'll, why of course no protec- tionist would object to a modification of the tariff sufficient to remedy the eVll. But in very few cases does the so-called trust really monopolze the market.
 '"Take any vigorous big corporations which control. say, something over half the products of given industry.
 Surely in rcarranging the schedules af- fectinG such big corporation. it would be necessary to consider the interests of it's smaller competitors which control the remaining part and which being weaker, would suffer most from any tariff de- signed to punish all the producers; for. of course, the tariff must be made light or heavy for big and little producers alike. Moreover, such corporation nee essarilv employs very many thousands of workmen, and the minute We pro- ceeded from denunciation to action it would be necessary to consider the in- terests of these workmen. Furthermore. the products of many trusts are unpro- tected and would be entirely unaffected by any change in the tariff or at most very slightly so.
 Standard Oil Company.
 "The Standard oil Company offers a case in point; and the corporations which control the anthracite coal output of-