, 1908-01-31
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
TO SENATE AND HOUSE

Continued from page 81
republic; and such attacks become in.
evitable if decent citizens permit those
rich men whose lives are corrupt and
evil to domineer in swollen pride, I'M
checked and ~unhindered, over the des-
TIMES OF this country. We act in no
vindictive spirit, and w are no re-
specters Of persons.
Wrong Ways Opposed.
If a labor union does wrong, we op-
pose it as firmly as We oppose a cor
poration which does wrong; and we
stand equally stoutly for the rights OF
the man of wealth and for the rights
of the wageworker. We seek to pro-
tect the property of every man who
acts honestly, of every corporation
that represents wealth honestly ac-
cumulated and honestly used. We
seek to stop wrongdoing, n We de-
sire to punish the w~rong-doers only SO
far as is necessary to achieve this end.
Willing to Spend Freely.
There are ample material rewards
for those who serve with fidelity the
mammon of unrighteousness; but they
are dearly paid for by the people who
permit their representatives, whether
in public life, in the press, or in the
colleges where their young men are
taught, to preach n to practice that
there is one law for the rich and a
other for the poor. The amount of
money the representatives of certain
great moneyed interests are willing to
spend al be fauged by their recent
publication broadcast throughout the
papers of this country, from the At
lantic to the Pacific, of huge advertise.
ments attacking with envenomed bit
~terness the administrations policy oil
warning against successful dishonesty,
and by their circulation of pamphlets
and books prepared with the same oh.
ject; while they likewise push the cir.
culation of the writings and speeches
of men who, whether because they are
misled, or because, seeing the light,
they yet are willing to sin against the
light, serve these their masters of
great wealth to the cost of the plain
people.
Innocent Stockholders.
Much is said, in these attacks upon
the policy of the present administra-
ton, about the rights of innocent
stockholders" That stakeholder is not
innocent who voluntarily purchases
stock in a corporation whose methods
and management he knows to be cor
rupt; and stockholders are bound to
else are stopped from complaining
about the proceedings the government
finds necessary in order to compel the
corporation to obey the law.
Wronu to These Men.
There has been in the past grave
wrong lone innocent stockholders by
overcapitalizing, stock-watering, stock
jobbing, stock-manipulation. This we
have sought to prevent, first, by ex,
posing the thing lone and furnishing
the offender when any existing law
had been violated; second, by recon-
mending the passage of laws which
would make unlawful similar practices
for the future. The public men, law,
yers, and editors who loudly proclaim
their sympathy for the innocent stock
holders" when a great law-defying cor.
poration is punished, are the first to
protest with frantic vehemence against
all efforts by law to put a stop to the
practices which are the real and ulti-
mate sources of the damage alike to
the stockholders n the public.
Hurt Honest Business Men.
The apologists of successful dishon
esty always declaim against any effort
to punish or prevent it, on the ground
that any such effort will "unsettle bus
mess" 1t is they who by their acts
have unsettled business; and the very
men raising this cry spend hundreds
of thousands of dollars in securing, by
speech, editorial, book or pamphlet,
the defense by misstatements of what
lthey have done; and yet when public
n1swwnu