The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-01-31
VIGOROUS DEFENSE or
POLICIES IS MADE BY
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
Continued From Page OneD


OF certain notorious railroad comblua.
lions, but they also defend other indi-
Nldual6 and corporations Of great
wealth that have been guilty of Wron@
doing. From the railroad-rate law II
the pure-fOOd law, every measure for
honesty in business that has been
passed during the last six years has
been opposed by these men on it's pass
age ana in its administration with ev-
cry resource that bitter and unscrupu.
loUS craft could suggest and the com
mand of almost unlimited money Sc
cure. But for the last year the attack
has been made with most bitterness
upon the actual administration Of the
law. The extraordinary violence of
the assaults upon our policy contained
in these speeches, editorials, articles
advertisements, and pamphlets, and
the enormous sums of money spent in
these various ways, give a fairly &C
curate measure Of the anger and ter
ror which our public actions have
caused the corrupt men Of vast wealth
TO feel in the very morrow of their be
ing. When We are able to put the real
wrong doer in prison this is what We
strive to do; this is what we have act
uaIy done with some very wealthy
criminals, who. moreover, represented
that most baneful Of all alliances, the
alliance between the corruption of or
ganiZed politics and the corruption Of
high finance.
The keynote of all these attacks up
on the effort to secure honesty ip
business and in politics is we'll eX,
pressed in brazen protests against any
effort for the moral regeneration Of
the business world, on the ground that
it is unnatural, unwarranted, and in
furious, and that business panic is the
necessary penalty for such effort to
secure business honesty. The moral
ity OF such a plea is precisely as great
as if made on behalf of the men
caught in a gambling establishment
when that gambling establishment is
raided by the police. If such words
mean anything they mean that those
whose sentiments they represent
stand against the effort to bring about
a moral regeneration Of business,
which will prevent a repetition of the
insurance, banking, and street rail
road scandals in New York; a repe-
titiOn of the Chicago and Alton deal; ;
repetition of the combination be-
tween certain professional politicians,
certain professional labor leaders, and
certain big financiers, from the dis
grace of which San Francisco has just
been rescued.
Inc Outcry against stopping diSnOn-
est practices among grOngdoers who
happen TO be wealthy is precisely sim
liar to the cutlery raised against every
effort for cleanliness and decency in
city government, because, forsooth. it
will hurt business"
The business which is hurt by the
movement for honesty is the kind or
business which, in the long run. it
pays the country to have hurt.
The laws must in the future be ad-
mlnistered as they are now being ad-
min1stered. SO that the department of
justice may continue to be, what 1t
now is, in very fact the department Of
justice. where so far as our ability per
hand to great and small rich and
poor, weak and strong Moreover,
there should be no delay in supple
menting the naws now on the statute
books by the enactment of further leg
lslation as outlined in the message I
sent to congress on it's assembling.
Under the existing laws, very much
has been actually accomplished during
the past six years, and it has been
shown by actual experience that they
can be enforced against the wealthiest
corporation and the richest and most
powerful manager or manipulation of
That corporation, as vigorously and
fearle5sly as against the humblest Of
fender. Above all, they have been en-
forced against the very wrongdoers
and agents Of wrongdoers who have for
so many years gon scot-free and flout-
ed the laws with impunity, against
great lawdefying corporations of i'm
mense wealth, which, until within the
last half dozen years, have treat them
selves and have expected others to
treat them as beyond and above all
possible check from the law.
1t is especially necessary to secure 10
the representatives of the national gov
eminent full power to deal with the
great corporations engaged in inter-
state commerce, and above all, with
the great interstate common carriers.
The first course is to abandon all
effort to oversee and control their &C
tions in the interest of the general pub
lie and to permit a return to the ut
ter lack of control which would OBJ
tain If they were left to the common
law
We have just passed through two
months of acute financial stress At
any such time it is a said fact that en-
tirely innocent people suffer from no
fault of their own: and everyone must
feel the keenest sympathy for the
large body of honest business men. Of
honest investors, of honest wagework-
ers, who suffer because involved in a
crash for which they are in no way re-
sponsible. At such a time there is a
natural tendency on the part of many
men TO feel gloomy and frightened at
tho nIJtlnnl-. bTIf t. s,,e