Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1908-02-07
IN SPEc|AE: MESSAGE
President Urges Necessity Of Ger.
tain Labor Legislation.
FOR ENFORCING THE LAWS
Refers to the Bitter and Persistent
Attacks Now Being Made on
the Administration.

"aouAu6lOu, CoO. 1. TTeS1OcQl
Roosevelt has sent special message
to congress in which he again calls
attention to- the abuse of injunctions
In labor cases and urges remedial leg
islation. The president also recon-
mends the re-enactnent Of the EN-.
ployers' liability act; recently de.
| clared- unconstitutional, limited in
scope to apply only to interstate com.
MERGE. He refers at length to gam.
bling in stocks and futures and urges
| that action be taken to prevent at
least the making of large sales OF
what men do not possess and corner
ing the market. In recommending the
Strengthening of antitrust laws he
calls attention to the bitter and per.
sistent attacks on the administration
| now being made by corporations
brought to the bar of Justice for viola.
ton of law. On this subject he says.
in part:
The attack by the great corpora.
tions on the administration actions
have been given wide circulation
throughout the country, in the news
papers and otherwise, by those writer's
| and speakers who, consciously or un-
consciously, act as the representatives
of predatory wealth-of the wealth
accumulated on a giant scale by all
forms of iniquity, ranging from the
oppression Of wage workers to unfair
and unwholes omemethods of crushing
out competition, and to defrauding
the public by stock jobbing and the
manipulation of securities. The ad-
| ministration and those who support
it's views are not only not engaged In
an assault on property, but are siren.
Nous upbolders of the rights of prop
erty. The books and pamphlets, the
| controlled newspapers, the speeches
by public or private men to which
refer, are usually and especially In
the interest of the Standard Oil trust
and of certain notorious railroad COM
binations, but they also defend other
individuals and corporations of great
wealth that have been guilty of wrong
doing. 1t is only rarely that the men
responsible for the wrongdoing them
selves speak or write. Normally they
hire others to do their bidding or find
others who will do it without hire.
Every Honest Measure Opposed.
From the railroad rate law to the
pure food law every measure for hon
esty in business that has been passed
| during the last six years has been op.
posed by these men on it's passage
and in its administration with every
| resource that bitter and inscriptions
| craft could suggest and the command
of almost unlimited money secure. But
for the last year the attack has been
! made with most bitterness upon the
| actual administration of the law, espe-
! cially through the department of JUS
| tice, but also through the interstate
| commerce commission and the bureau
of corporations. The extraordinary
violence of the assaults upon our pol
| icy contained in these speeches, edi-
| torials, articles, advertisements and
pamphlets and the enormous sums of
| money spent in these various ways,
| give fairly accurate measure of the
anger and terror which our public ac-
! lions have caused the corrupt men
of vast wealth to feel in the very mar
! row of their. being: ..
We act in no vindictive spirit and
we are no respecter of persons. We
: seek to stop wrongdoing and we de-
sire to punish wrongdoers only so far
as 1t is necessary to achieve this end.
, We seek to control law defying
| wealth; in the first place to prevent
| its doing dire evil to the republic and
in the next place to avoid the vindic-
, tive and dreadful radicalism which, If
left uncontrolled, 1t is certain in the
; , end to arouse.
The methods by which the Standard
, OH people and others have achieved
great fortunes can only be justified by
the advocacy Of d system of morals
; which would also Justify every form
, of criminality on the part of a labor
! union and every form Of violence. COR
; ruption and fraud from murder to
, bribery and ballot box stuf1ng In poll.
tics.