Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1902-08-29
TO CONTROL TRUSTS.
President Roosevelt Says Present
LAWS Are wcni< - Government
Should lie Given More Power.


Monday afternoon, when he departed
| from the summer home of the junior
| senator of Massachusetts, Hon. Henry
Cabot Lodge, at Nahant, and, amid
| the enthusiasm of the greatest num-
ber of people he had faced since the
Pittsburg visit, on July 4, rode into
Lynn under cavalry escort and spoke
from a platform at city hall. Then
he was taken to Boston by special
train, and on arrival went to SYM
phony hall, there addressing a great
gathering of Boston business men. His
speech here was devoted almost en-
tirely to consideration of the trust
question. From the hall the president
went to Hotel Touraine, where lit
tie later in the evening he was the
guest of Gov. Crane at dinner. This
morning bright and early the presiden-
tial party will start for Maine.
The president in his address at SYM
phony hall said in part:
81 am far from being against property
| when i ask that the question of trusts be
| taken up. l am acting in the most con-
servative sense in property's interest.
| When a great corporation is sued for
| violating the antitrust law 1t is not a
move against property; 1t is move In
| favor of property; because when you can
make 1t 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 II evident that no
man shall be excused for violating the law
you make 1t evident that every man will
| be protected from violation of the law.
81 am inclined to think that much tho
greatest trouble in any immediate hand
ling OF the question of the, trust comes
| from our system of government. Let me
go back one moment. want to guard what
| L am saying. l want you to understand
| that my words are being taken al their
exact face value. Remember l am not
| saying that even If we had all the power
We could completely solve the trust ques-
| ton.
Now. when this government was found
ed, 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 Nine
veh and Babylon stood In the Mesopot m
ian valley. There was no particular thing
at that time to bother as to whether the
nation or the state had control of the cor
porations. They were easy to control.
Now, however, the exact reverse is the
case, and remember, l say 'corporations.'
do not say merely trusts, merely combina-
tions or corporations or corporations under
certain peculiar conditions. For instance,
some time ago the Encouragement took
action against certain trust. Inere has
been considerab BILE discussion as to whether
the trust aimed at would not seek 10 get
out from under the law by becoming a
single corporation.
II want laws to enable us TO deal with
1t, no matter what shape 1t takes. i want
to see the government able to get at IL
definitely, so that the action of the gov
ernment cannot be evlGed by any turning,
within or without the federal or state stat
utes. AT present We have really no efficient
control over big corporation which does
business IN more than one state. FIRE.
quently the corporation has nothing what
ever TO DO with the state In which II is in
corporated except to get incorporated, and
its actions may be taken in entirely diff
ferent commmnities-commu which
may object very much to the methods OF
incorporation in the state named. l dc
not think you can get action by any state
action by all the states, that will give
us satisfactory control of the trusts or
big corporations. and the result is at pres
ent that We have great, powerful artih-
cial creation, which has no creator TO which
: IL is responsible.
"Of course 1t is a mere truism that the
corporation is the creature of the state
that the state is sovereign. Now, i want
, TO make real and not nominal sovereign
to have some one sovereign to which the
corporation shall be really, and not NOM
; inally responsible. At present If We pass
laws nobody can tell whether they will
|
bad effects. In the first place the cor
> poratlon becomes Indifferent TO the law.
making body, and in the next place, gen.
tlemen, the law-making body gets into
that most pernicious custom of passing a
law, not with reference to what will be
done under II, but with reference
] to Its effects on the opinions OF
the voters That is bad thing
! When any body of law maker.
passes a law not solely with reference tc
4 uyh la n In l,,i
} with the knowledge that not much will
come of II, and yet that, perhaps, the peo
pie, as a whole. will likely think 1t wa:
good, 1t does not speak we'll for the Law
for the people either. What hope to see Il
power given to the national legislator,
which shall make the control real.
THE first thing we want is publicity, and
i do not mean publicity as favor by som,
corporations. l mean II as a right from al
corporations affected by the law, / wan,
9 publicity as to the essential facts In which
the public has an interest. l want tn,
knowledge given to the accredited repre-
: sentatives of the people of facts on which
those representatives can, If they see fit
base their actions later. The publicit.
itself would cure many evils. Some of these
e things l have said can be done now. 4
Y good deal is being done now. As far as tn,
antitrust laws go they will be enforced
No suit will be undertaken for the SAX,
4 of seeming to undertake 1t. Every sui
, that is undertaken will be begun becaus
I the great lawyer ard upright man whom
we are so fortunate as to have as attor
I ney-general, Mr.. Knox, believes that ther,
$ is a violation of the law which we can ge
, at. and when the suit is undertaken 1t won
: be compromised excepting on the basis tina
the government wins.
!, 81 believe 1t is possible to frame nationa
n legislation which shall give us more powe
than we have now, at any rate over cor
porations doing interstate business.
d think we have got to make up our minds
+ to the fact that no matter what our rever
ence to the past may be. our duty to tn,
present and to the future Will force us I
see that more power is conferred upon tn
national administration. When the powe
e has been conferred 1t Will rest with tn
- national government TO exercise II.
+. Wise laws can do something, and W
are not TO be excused II we fail to insis
:. upon these wise laws Honest administra
i tion of the laws can do something more
= and still less are We to be excused as
people. II We condore or connive at fail
= ure to administer the laws by the publ
servants of the people,"