Evening star., 1902-04-30
The President and the Trusts.

Theodore RooseveIts political career IL
Illustrates the truth of the popular belief
that consistency wins in the end. AS civil
service commissioner he insisted upon such
an absolute enforcement of the law that
his political friends feared he had closed his
career. When he was made police commits
soner of New York city he demanded the
execution of the statutes even at the ex-
pense of his immediate popularity, urging
that the best way to secure the repeal of
bad laws was to enforce them rather than
ignore them. Notwithstanding this course
he remained sufficiently alive as political
quantity to be chosen assistant secretary
of the navy. and later IN consequence of his
thorough-gOiEg administration of that office
ne was highly praised. although he rubbed
some conventions the wrong way. AS sec
ond and later first in command of a regi-
ment of volunteers during the war with
Spain he stood for exact performance of
duty When he found a grievance he un-
dertOok to secure it's redress. His round
robin'' petition to the government for relief
from intOerable conditions at Santiago an
nOyed many persons, but it brought results.
He was elected governor of New York and
served throughout his term with the same
fidelity to an ideal of good government. He
called for legislation assessing the semi
public franchises at their real value, and
Immediately the cry arose from the poll
ticians that he was sounding his own death
knell. He won his fight and saved the
small taxpayers of the state many mil
lions.
Now that he is President Mr. Roosevelt
is displaying very much the same quality
OF requiring enforcement of the law. He
has caused the legal machinery of the gov
ernment to be put in motion against two
notorious trusts. believing that the Sher-
man antitrust law was enacted for that
purpose and that the shortest way to as
certain its efficacy or its inadequacy is to
test it in practice. For this he is being be-
rated by the interests which are threatened
In this connection. The news reports de-
scribe one Of the railroad magnates of the
northwest as busy at the Capitol criticising
the President for the institution of the
merger suits and forecasting his over
whelming defeat for a second term through
the influence of the powerful corporations
The beef trust has begun to below rather
family yet, but menacingly. If these
great combinations believe they can fright
en- the President off the path of his duty
10 the people. they are probably very much
mistaken. He was not driven off In New
York city when the liquor interests and
the Tammany crew howled in unison for
his political death. Nor at Albany when
the richest corporations in the state threat
ensd his annihilation.
The enemies that Mr.. Roosevelt made as
civil service commissioner as police COM
missioner and as governor have never hurt
him Nor are those he may make in this
latest undertaking to enforce the law.
while powerful. likely to hurt him. They
are OF the sort to make friends by the
hundreds of thousands for a political can
c!date. If the next presidential campaign.
either In the nominating conventions or at
the polls, is TO be fought along the lines
OF trust antagOnism and trust support il is
We'll that events are today forecastins the
issues 50 that the vote-casting public NAV
b well informed before the fall of 1904
secretary Long has had an exciting and