Evening star., 1902-08-26
PRESIDENT IN BOSTON
Delivers Another Address on
the Trusts.
IN SYMPHONY HALL
REITERATES THE NEED OF MA
TIoNAL LAWS.
Little Hope for Concert of Action
Among the States Against
Combines.
IN SYMPHONY HA

All SS ElphohS nan, BOSTON, last hlSht, au-
dressing a great gathering of Boston busi-
ness men. His speech was devoted almost
| entirely to consideration of the trust ques-
t;on.
From the hall the President went to the
Hotel Touraine where a little later in the
evening he was the guest OF Gov. Crane at
dinner.
In his speech the President said:
Il can say In all sincerity that when
come here to New England-when L come to
Boston-I like to go over as many subjects
as possible. so that L can get light on them.
l have great faith in your Judgment.
II want to take up this evening the gen.
eral question of our economic and social re-
iations, with specific reference to that prob
lem with which l think our people are
greatly concerning themselves-the prob
lem of our complex condition as intensified
by the existence of the great corporations
which we rather loosely designate trusts.
But L wish to say one or two things as pre-
lminary. In the first place, l have not
come here to say that l have discovered a
patent cure-all for the trusts.
when peoples minds are greatly agi-
tated on any subject, and especially when
they feel deeply but rather vaguely that
conditions are not right, II Is far pleasanter
in addressing them to be Indifferent to
what you promise. but 1t Is much less pleas
ant afterward OF course, the worth of a
promise consists purely in the way in which
the performance squares with it That has
got two sides to it. In the first place. If
man is honest he will try just as hard to
keep a promise made on the stump as one
made of the stump. In the second place
If the people keep their heads they will not
wish promises to be made which are i'm
possible of performance. Now you see that
one side of that question is my duty and
the other side is yours.
Citizens Are Responsible.
Mankind goes ahead but slowly. and II
goes ahead mostly through each of US try
ing to do, or at least through each of the
| majority Of us trying to do the best that
is in him. and doing 1t in the most intelli-
gent and sanest way. We founded our re-
public on the theory that the average man
will, as rule. do the right thing: that in
the long run the majority are going to de-
eide for what is sane and wholesome. II
our fathers were mistaken in that theory
II ever the mass of the people do what is
unwholesome what Is wrong then the re-
public cannot stand.
There is but little use in regretting that
things have not shaped themselves differ
entity. The practical thing to do is to face
the conditions as they are and see IL We
cannot get the best there is in them out of
them. We are not going to get any COM
plete or perfect solution for all of the evils
which come to our minds when We think
OF the trusts by any single action on our
different ways will be required before we
get many Of these evils even partially rem
edied.
I'VE have got. first of all. to think clear
ly: We have got probably to experiment
somewhat We must above all. show by
our actions that our interest Is permanent
and not spasmodic. and we have got to see
that all the steps are taken toward the So
luton. Every one who thinks knows that
the only way in which any problem of great
importance was ever successfully solved
was by consistent and persistent effort to-
ward a given end-effect that did not end
with any one election or with any one year
but was continued steadily, temperately
and reSolutely.
Declares the Evils Real
'It is little difficult to set clearly be-
fore us all of the evils, but I think that
those gentlemen, and especially those gen.
tlemen Of large means, who deny that the
evils exist are acting with great folly. L
am far from being against property when L
ask that the question of trusts be taken up
| acting in the most conservative sense
in property's interest. When great cor
porat tion is sued for violating the antitrust
law it is not move against property; it is
a move in favor of property, because when
you can make it evident that all men. big
and small alike, have to obey the law, you
are putting the safeguard of law around all
men. When you make it evident that no
you make it evident that every man will be
protected from violation of the law.
Il am inclined to think that much the
grea test trouble in any immediate handling
of the question of trusts comes from our
system of government Let me go back one
moment. L want to guard what l am say
ing. / want you to understand that my
words are being taken at their exact face
value. Remember, l am not saying that
even If we had all the power We could COM
pletely solve the trust question.
''Gentiemen. if what We read in the pa
pers is true. they are speaking of a number
of international trusts now. 1t would be
very difficult for any set of laws, On our
part, to deal completely with a problem
which becomes international in its bearings,
but a great deal can be done in various
ways now. great deal is being DONE and
a great deal more can be done, II We can
see that the power is put somewhere to do
it.
ION the whole, our system of government
has worked marvelously well; the system
of dividing the functions of government, of
arranging scheme under which Maine,
Louisiana, Oregon, Idaho. New York and
South Carolina can all come in together for
certain purposes and yet each be al owed
to work its salvation as 1t desires. along
certain lines. But while I most firmly be-
that that policy should be fossilzed. and
if IT is to be changed We must change cur
governmental method to meet it.
Where the Town Meeting Fails.
81 believe with all my heart in the New
England town meeting, but you cannot
work the New England town meeting In
Boston. You have got to try something
else.
Now when this government was founded
there were no great individual or cor
porate fortunes, and commerce and indus
try were being carried on very much as
they had been from the days when Nineyeh
and Babylon stood in the Mesopotamian
valley. The wagon train and the pack
train and the sailing craft-those we're the
methods Of commerce. Everything has
been revolutionized in the business world
since, and the progress Of civilization from
being trickle has become a torrent.
There was no particular thing at that
time to bother as to whether the nation or
the state had control of the corporations
They were easy to control. Now, however
the exact reverse is the case, and, remem-
Der, I say corporations I do not say
merely trusts, merely combinations Of cor
porations or corporations under certain pc
culiar conditions.
For instance, some time ago the Attor-
ney General took action against a certain
trust. There has been considerable discus
sion as to whether the trust aimed at would