Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1905-12-08

tive Document.
Following is In substance the an
nual message of President Roosevelt,
as read in both houses of Congress:
Introduction.
To the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives:
The people of this country continue
to enjoy great prosperity. Undoubt-
edly there will be ebb and flow in
such prosperity, and this ebb and flow
will be felt more or less by all mem
bers of the community, both by the
deserving and the undeserving.
Against the wrath Of the Lord the wis
dom of man can not avail; In times
of flood or drought human ingenuity
can but partially repair the disaster
A general failure of crops would hurt
us. Again, if the folly of man mars
the general well-being, then those who
are innocent of the folly will have to
pay part of the penalty incurred by
those who are guilty of the folly. A
panic brought on by the speculative
folly of part of the business COM
munity would hurt the whole business
community. But such stoppage of
welfare, though it might be severe,
would not be lasting. In the long
run the one vital factor in the per-
manent prosperity of the country is
the high individual character of the
average American worker, the aver
age American citizen, no matter
whether his work be mental or man
ual, whether he be farmer or wage
worker, business man or professional
man.
In our industrial and social system
the interests of all men are so closely
intertwined that in the immense ma
jority of cases a straight-dealing man
who by his efficiency, by his ingenu-
ity and industry, benefits himself must
also benefit others. Normally the man
of great productive capacity who be-
comes rich by guiding the labor of
many other men does so by enabling
them to produce more than they could
produce without his guidance; and
both he and they share in the benefit,
which comes also to. the public at
large. The superficial fact that the
sharing may be unequal must never
blind US to the underlying fact that
there is this sharing, and that the ben
eft comes In some degrees to each man
concerned. Normally the wage-work-
er, the man of small means, and the
average consumer, as well as the av-
erage producer, are all alike helped
by making conditions such that the
man of exceptional business ability
receives an exceptional reward for his
ability. Something can be done by leg
islation to help the general prosper
ity; but no such help of perman-
emily beneficial character can be given
to the less able and less fortunate,
save as the results of policy which
shall inure to the advantage of all in
dustrious and efficient people who act
decently; and this is only another
way of saying that any benefit which
comes to the less able and less for
tunate must of necessity come even
more to the more able and more for
tunate. If, therefore, the less for
tunate man is moved by envy of his
more fortunate brother to strike at the
conditions under which they have
both, though unequally, prospered, the
result will assuredly be that while
damage may come to the one struck at
it will visit with an even heavier load
the one who strikes the blow. Taken
as a whole we must all go up or go
down together.
Corporations.
Yet, while not merely admitting, but
insisting upon this, it is also true that
where there is no governmental re-
straint or supervision some of the ex-
ceptional men use their energies not
in ways that are for the common
good, but in ways which tell against
this common good. The fortunes
amassed through corporate organiza-
ton are now SO large, and vest such
power in those that WELD them, as
to make it matter of necessity to
give to the sovereign-that is, to the
Government, which represents the
people as a wholesome effective
power of supervision over their cor
porate use. In order to insure a heal
thy social and industrial life, every
big corporation should be held respon-
sible by, and be accountable to, some
sovereign strong enough to control its
conduct. I am in no sense hostile to
corporations. This is an age Of COM
bination, and any effort to prevent all
combination will be not only useless,
but in the end vicious, because of the