Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-01-31
President for Federal Control
of Rates and Trusts.
PHILADELPHIA SPEECH
ADDRESS AT UNION LEAGUE AN
NIVFRSARY BANQUET.
Declares That Business Men Should As
sist in Settlement of Vexed Cues
tions-Ovation.

President Roosevelt was the guest of
honor and principal speaker at the forty
second anniversary banquet of the Union
League in Philadel-h ia last night.
An immense crowd greeted Mr.. Roosevelt
at the railroad station, and he received an
ovation on his way to the Union League
which he acknov lodged by continually rails
ing his hat. At the club house he passed
through two lines of cheering members to
the reception room, where, from 6;15 to
o'clock. he stood and shook hands with
several hundred prominent citizens. The
list Troop, Philadelphia City Cavalry, acted
as the Presidents ezcort while he remained
in the city.
The banquet room was a marvel of the
decorators art. The national colors pre-
dominated in the floral and electrical eff
fects, and the tables were designated by
letters in red. white and blue, forming the
name Roosevelt
Many Prominent Men Present.
President Roosevelt occupied a seat in
the center of the guests table, with Presi-
dent E. T. Stotesbury of the Union League
on his right and United States Senator Pen
rose on his left. Seated at the same table
were former Postmaster General Charles
Emory Smith, Representative Bingham,
Surgeon General RiXey, Maj Gen. Fred
erick D. Grant Lieut. Gen s. B. NJ. Young,
Governor Lea OF Delaware, Governor
Stokes of New Jersey and Mayor Weaver
of Philadelphia. Governor Pennypacker of
Pennsylvania was indisposed and could not
attend
Former Postmaster General Smith
also one OF the speakers of the evening. His
address was devoted to history of the
Union League.
In introducing President Roosevelt MIR.
Stotesbury referred to him as the only Vice
President who, having succeeded to the Of
flee of President through the death of his
predecessor, retained that office by the
votes of the people.
When President Roosevelt arose to make
his address he was greeted with long-con-
tinued applause. Then the entire assembly
stood and sang the Star Spangled Ban
ner." accompanied by the LIST Regiment
Band, \. G. p. He spoke follows:
This club was founded to uphold the
hands of Abraham Lincoln when he stood
as the great leader in the struggle for
union and liberty. We have a right,
therefore, to appeal to this club for aid
in every governmental or social effort
made along the lines marked out by Lin
coin The great President taught many
lessons which we who come after him
should learn. Among the most important
of these was the lesson that for veal or
for woe we are indissolubly bound to-
gether, in whatever part of the country
we live, whatever our social standing,
whatever our wealth or our poverty.
whatever form of mental physical
activity our life work may assume. Lin
coln who was. more emphatically than
any other President we have ever had,
the President of the plain people, was yet
as far removed Washington himself
from the slightest faint of dema gogy
With his usual farsighted clearness of
vision he saw that in republic such as
ours permanent prosperity of any part of
our people was conditioned upon the
prosperity of all; and that on the other
hand any effort to raise the general level
of happiness by striking at the well-be-
n Of ,11a, "a
but be in the end disastrous to all
The principles which Lincoln applied to
the solution of the problems of his day are
those which we must apply if we expect
successfully to solve the different problems
of our own day-problems which are so
largely industrial. Exactly as it is impos-
sfble 10 develop a high morality unless we
nave as a foundation those qualities which
give at least a certain minimum of material
prosperity, so it is impossible permanently
to keep material prosperity unless there is
back OF it a basis of right living and right
thinking. In the last analysis, of course
the dominant factor in obtaining this good
conduct must be the individual character
Of the average citizen.
Character in Citizenship.
If there is not this condition of individual
character in the average citizenship of the
country all effort to supply its place by the
wisest legislation and administration will
in the end prove futile But given this
laws and the honest administration of the
laws can and do much to supplement it, If
either the business world or the world of
labor loses its head, then 1T has lost some
thing which cannot be made good by any
governmental effort Our faith in the future
OF the republic is firm. because we believe
that on the whole and in the long run our
people think clearly and act rightly
tnquestionably, however, the great de-
Nelopment of industrialsm means that
there must be increase in the suneryI-
SION exercised by the government over bust
ness enterprises. This supervision should
not take the form of violent and ill-advised
interference; and assuredly there Is danger
lest 1t take such form if the business lead
ers of the business community confine
themselves 10 trying 10 thwart the effort
at regulation instead of guiding it Alright
Such men as the members of this club
should lead in the effort to secure proper
supervision and regulation of corporate ac-
tivity by the government not only because
IL is for the interest of the community as
u whole that there should be this superTi-
sion and regulation, but because In the long
run it will be In the interest above all of
the very people who often betray alarm
and anger when the proposition is hr-
made.
Vast Power of Wealth.
Neither this people nor any other free
people viii permanently tolerate the use
OF the vast power conferred by vast wealth
and especially by wealth in it's corporate
form, without lodging somewhere in the
government the still high power of seeing
that this power. in addition to being used
in the interest of the Individual or indiyid-
uals possessing it. is also used for and not
against the interests of the people as a
whole.
Our peculiar form of government gov
eminent in which the nation Is supreme
throughout the Union in certain respects
while each Of nearly half a hundred states
is supreme in its part of the Union in GER
tain other respects renders the task of deal
ingwith these conditions especially difficult
No finally satisfactory result can be ex-
pected from merely state action The ac
ton must come through the federal gov
eminent. The business OF the country is
now carried on in way of which the
founders of our Constitution could by no
possibility have had any idea.
All great business concerns are engaged
in interstate commerce, and 1t was beyond
question the intention of the founders of