The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-12-05
PRESIDENT TELLS CONGRESS 1T
CAN BE DONE.
POINTS OUT THE WAY
The Power to Regulate Commerce Be.
tween the States Gives the
Authority.

Washington, Dec. 2.-President
Roosevelt's message to congress deals
with the trust question as follows:
In my message to the present cor
gress at it's first session l discussed
at length the question of the regula-
ton of those big corporations com
monty doing al interstate business,
often with some tendency to mo-
nopoly, which are popularity known as
trusts. The experience of the past
year has emphasized, in my opinion,
the desirability of the steps l then
proposed. A fundamental requisite OF
social efficiency is a high standard of
individual energy and excellence; but
this is in no wise inconsistent with
power to act in combination for aims
which cannot so we'll be achieved by
the individual acting alone. A funda-
mental base of civilization is the in
vioability of property; but this is in
no wise inconsistent with the right of
society to regulate the exercise of the
artificial powers which it confers upon
the owners of property, under the
name of corporate franchises, in such
a way as to prevent the misuse OF
these powers. Corporations, and es-
pecially combinations of corporations,
should be managed under public reg
.ulation. Experience has shown that
under our system of government the
necessary supervision car not be OBJ
tanned by state action. 1t must there
fore be achieved by national action.
Sour aim is not to do away with cor
porations: on the contrary, these big
aggregations are an inevitable devel-
opment of modern industrialism, and
the effort to destroy them would be
futile unless accomplished in ways
that would work the utmost mischief
to the entire body polite. We can
do nothing of good in the way OF reg
ulating and supervising these corpora
lions until we fix clearly in our minds
that we are not attacking the corpora
tons, but ~endeavoring to do away
with an evil in them. We are moi
hostile to them; we are merely de-
termined that they shall be so handled
as to subserve the public good. We
draw the line against misconduct, not
against wealth. The capitalist who,
alone or in conjunction with his fell
lows, performs some great industrial
feat by which he wins money is a
welldoer. not a wrongdoer, provided
only he works in proper II legltl-
mate lines. We wish to favor such
a man when he does well. We wish
to supervise and control his actions
only to prevent him from doing i'll.
Publicity can do no harm to the hon.
est corporation; and We need not be
o%vertender about sparing the dishon-
est corporation.
We Must Be Careful.
In curbing and regulating the COM
binations of capital which are or
may become injurious to the public
we must be careful not to stop the
great enterprises which have legiti-
mately reduced the cost of produc-
ton, not to abandon the place which
our country has won in the leader
ship CT the international industrial
world, not to strike down wealth with
the result of closing factories n
mines, of turning the wageworker idle
in the streets and leaving the farmer
without a market for what he grows.
Insistence upon the impossible means
delay in achieving the possible, ex-
born defense alike of what is good
and what is bad in the existing sys-
TEN, the %resolute effort to obstruct
any betterment, betrays blindness to
the historic truth that wise evolution
is the sure safeguard against revolu-
ton.
No more important subject can
come before the congress than this
of the regulation Of interstate bust
ness. This country can not afford to
sit supine on the plea that under II
peculiar system of government we
are helpless in the presence of the
new conditions, and unable to grapple
with them or to cut out whatever of
evil has arisen in connection with
them. The power of congress to regu-
late interstate m is an abso-
Lutte and unqualified grant, and with
out limitations other than those pre-
scribed by the constitution. The con-
gress has constitutional Authority to
make all laws necessary and proper