The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-06-10
President Roosevelt Addresses
National Editorial Association.
Advocates a Levy on Incomes
and InheritanceS.
NATION HAS A RIGHT.
To Say How Huge Fortunes
Shall Be Distributed.
Progressive System of France
Is Highly Recommended.

Exposition Grounds, jamestown,
Va, June 10.-President Roosevelt in
his address before the meeting of the
National Editorial ssociation spoke as
follows:
1t Is of course a mere truism to say
that no otEer body of our countrymen
WELD as extensive an influence as those
who write for the daily press and for
the periodicals. 1t is also a truism to
say that such power implies the graVest
responsibility. and the man exercising
1t should hold himself accountable. and
should be held by others accountable,
precisely as if he occupied any other
position of public trust. 1 do not in
tend to dwell upon your duties today,
however, save that 1 shall permit my
self to point out one matter where it
seems to me that the need of our peo-
pie is vital 1t is essential that the
man in public life and the man who
writes in the public press shall both of
them, if they are really good servants
of the people, be prompt to assail
wrongdoi1g and wickedness. But in
thus assailing WrOngdoing and wicked
ness. there are two conditions to be
and not good will result. In the first
place, be sure of your facts and avoid
everything like hysteria or exaggera-
ton; for to aSsafl a decent man for
to give aid and comfort to every
scOundrel, while indulgence in hysteri-
cal exaggeration serves to weaken not
strengthen. the statement of truth In
the second place, be sure that you base
your judgment on conduct and not on
the social or economic position of the
individual with whom you are dealing.
There are good and bad men in every
walk of life, and their being good or
bad does not depend upon whether
they have or do not have large bank
accounts. Yet this elemental fact, this
fact which we all accept as seIf-evi-
XT-17 fr11x IF Of Z he
people whom he himself knows in his
business and social relations, is often
completely ignored by certain public
men and certain public writer's. The
men who thus ignore it and who at
tack wickedness only when found in a
particular class are always unsafe,
and are sometimes very dangerous.
leaders. Distrust equally the man who
is never able to discover any vices OF
rich men to attack and the man who
confines himself to attacking the sins
and shortcomings of rich men, 1t is a
sure sign OF moral and mental diShOn-
esty in any man if in his public as
saults upon iniquity he is never able
to see any iniquity save that of Il
particular class; and this whether he is
able only to see the crimes of arrogance
and oppression in the rich or the crimes
of envy and violence in the poor. He
is no true American if he is a re-
specter of persons where right and
wrong are concerned and if he fails to
denounce the demagogue no less than
the ccrruptionist. to denounce alike
crimes of organized greed and crimes
of brutal violence. There is equal need
to denounce the wealthy man who swim
dies investors or buys legislatures or
Expresses wageworkers. and the needy
man who infiames class hatred or in
cites mob violence. We need to hold
the scales of justice even. and to weigh
them down on one side is as bad as to
weigh them down on the other
Two Great Movements.
So much for what 1 have to say to
you in your capacity of molders and
guides of public thought. In addition
] want to speak to you on two great
movements in our public life which I
feel must necessarily occupy no incon-
siderable part of the time of our public
men in the near future. One of these
is the question of. in certain ways. re-
shaping our system of taxation so as
to make it bear most heavily on those
most capable of supporting the strain.
The other is the question of utilizing
the natural resources of the nation in
the way that will be of most benefit to
the nation as whole
In utilizing and conserving the nat
ural resources of the nation the one
characteristic more essential than any