The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1908-02-06
WARM NESS.
President Roosevelt Sends
Communication to Congress
STlRS THE ANIMALS
Executive fleCtrifieS the Country
With a Dissertation on Evils
Of Predatory Wealth

President Roosevelt sent TO congress
last Friday special message winch
has electrified the country. 1t deals
at length the subject of predatory
wealth and kindred topics and calls
upon congress to act. The message
is an important state document ana
is probably the ''warmest' thing IN
that line that has ever been sent to
the national legislature. Following
are some of the most emphatic sent
ences it contains:
There is no moral difference etween
gambling at cards or in lotteries or
on tbe race track and gambling in the
stock market. One method is just as
nerujcious to the body polite as the
other in kind. and in degree the evli
worked is far greater
1T would seem that the government
could at least act by forbidding the
use of the mails. telegraph and tcle-
phone wires for mere gambling IN
stocks and futures, just as 1t does
in lottery transactions
Referring to recent attacks upon
the administration by capitalists and
monopoiists the president says: Ihe
administration and those who support
its views are not only not engaged
in an assault on property, but are
strenuous upholders of the rights OF
nronerty. Under no circumstances
would We countenance attacks upon
law-ab;ding property, or do aught but
condemn those who hold up rich men
as being evil men because OF their
riches. On the contrary, our whole
effort is to insist upon conduct, and
neither wealth nor property nor any
other class distinction, as being the
proper standard by which to judge
the actions of men. We attack only
the corrupt men of wealth who find in
the purchased politician the most eff
ficient instrument of corruption and
in the purchased newspaper the most
efficient defender of corruption.
Much is said. in these attacks upon
the policy of the present adminlstra-
ton. about the rights of innocent
stockholders. That stakeholder is
not innocent who voluntarily pur-
cbases stock in corporation whose
methods and management he knows
10 be corrupt: and stockholders are
bound to try to secure honest manage
ment. or else are estOpped from COM
pIaining about the proceedings the
government finds necessary in order
to compel the corporation to obey the
law
THE apologists of successful dis
honesty always declaim against any
effort to punish or prevent it, on the
ground that airy such effort will 'un-
settle business. 1t is they who by
+beir acrs have unsettled business;
and the very men raising this cry
sno,d thousands of dollars in secur-
lug. by speech, by editorial, BOOK or
namphlet. the defense by misstafement
of what they have done.
..Just as the blackmailer and bride
eiver stand on the same evil emln-
ence of infamy, so the man VINO
makes an enormous fortune by cur
rupting legislature and municipalities
and Fleeing his stockholders and the
nublic. stands on the same moral Level
with the creature who fattens ON the
blood money of the gambling house
and the saloon. Corrupt business
and corrupt politics act and react
with ever increasing debasement, one
on the other; the corrupt head OF
corporation and the corrupt labor
leader are both in the same degree the