Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-06-18
WREST CONTROL
FROM EVIL RICH,
SAYS ROOSEVELT
FORMER PRESIDENT WRITES
OF NATIONS PERILS
PROPER PLAN NEEDED TO DEAL
WITH CORPORATIONS
Line Must Be Drawn to Insure Right
eous Conduct on Part of Citizens
Who Occupy High
Places
fBv Associated Press.)

(By Associated Press)
NEW YORK, June 17.-Discussion OF
the political problems confronting the
country through the development OF
the mower of large corporations is
made in vigorous language by former
President Roosevelt.
Taking for his subject, 1.-THE Thral-
dom of Names" Mr.. Roosevelt says, III
a letter sent to the United States, that
it behooves our people never TO pc
misled by designing men who appear 10
the reverence for or antlpatny toWaru
a given name in order to achieve some
alien purpose.
The rule of mob, he declares, may
be as tyrannical and oppressive as the
rule of a single Individual, and the rule
of an oligarchy, whether this ollgarchy
is a plutocracy of a bureaucracy, may
be as sordid and bloodthirsty as that
of mob, but the mob leaders usually
state that all they are doing is neces-
sary to advance the cause of liberty,
while the dictator and oligarchy usual
ly are defended on the ground tnat
the course they follow is absolutely
necessary to. secure order
MANY excellent people are taken IN
by the use of the word liberty at one
time" says Mr.. Roosevelt, and the
use of the word order at the other,
and ignore the simple fact that des-
potism is despotism; tyranny, tyranny;
oppression, oppression, whether COM
rnitted nv one individual or by many
individuals, by state or by private
corporation.
Gan forms of tyranny and cruelty
must alike be condemned by honest
men.
Have Been Fortunate
1--WE in this country have been very
fortunate Thanks to the teaching and
the practice of the men whom we
most revere as leaders, of the men ike
Washington and Lincoln, we nave
hitherto escaped the twin CULTS of des-
potism and mob rule, and we have
never been in any danger from the
worst forms of religious bitterness
But we should therefore be all the
more careful, as we deal with our IN
dustrial and social problems, not to
fall into mistakes similar to those
which have brought lasting disaster on
less fortunately situated peoples.
First, we must stand firmly on
basis of good sound ethics. If business
is hurt by the stern exposure of crook
edness and the result of efforts to pun
ish the crooked man, then business
must be hurt, even though good men
are involved in the hurting.
ION the other hand, we must beware
above all things Of being misled by
wicked or foolish men who would con-
done homicide and violence and apollo
gize for the dynamiter and the as
sassin, because, forsooth, they choose
to take the ground that crime Is no
| crime If the wicked man happens also
a shiftless and unthrifty or lazy man
who has never amassed property.
1T is essential that we should wrest
the control of the government out of
the hands of rich men, who use it for
unhealthy purposes, and should keep it
out of their hands, and to this and
the first requisite is to provide means
adequately to deal with corporations
which are essential to modern bust
ness but which under the direction of
the courts and because of the short
sightedness of the public have been the
chief factor In political and business
debasement.
Comparison Is Drawn
"But it would be just as bad to put
the control of the government into the
hands Of demagogues and Missionaries
who seek to pandor to ignorance and
prejudice by penalizing thrift and pusl-
ness enterprise and running all men or
means, with, as an attendant result,
the ruin of the entire community"
Mr.. Roosevelt quotes an article by
Stevens, an English journalist, on con-
ditions in the United States, written
in 1896, In which it was declared that
If individualism is left absolutely I'M
controlled as a modern business con-
dition, the result will follow that all
power of individual achievement and
Individual effort in the average man
will be crushed out.
On this line Mr.. Roosevelt continues:
"Those who advocate total lack OF
regulation, those who advocate law
lessness in the business world, them
selves give the strongest impulse to
what 1 believe would be the deaden-
ing movement toward state socialism.
"There must be law to control the
big man, and therefore especially the
big corporations in the Industrial
world. in the interest of our Industrial
democracy of today This law must be
efficient and therefore it must be aided
by executive officers and not by law
suits in the courts. The movement for
government control of the great bust
ness CORPORATIONS is not more a move
ment against liberty than movement
to put a stop to violence is a movement
against liberty The huge irresponsible
corporation which demands liberty
from the supervision of government
agents stands on the same ground as
the less dangerous criminal of the
streets who wishes liberty from police
interference"
Mr.. Roosevelt closes with a direct
reference to newspapers.
Province of Newspapers
~Yet another thing" he says, mo
movement ever has done or ever will
do good in this country where assault
is made, not on evil wherever found,
but simply on evil as it happens to be
found in select class. The big news
paper, owned or controlled in Wall
Street, which is everlastingly preaching
about the iniquity of laboring men.
which is quite willing to hound politi-
clans for their misdeeds, but which
with raving fury defends all the male
factors of great wealth, stands on an
exact level with, and neither above nor
below, that other newspaper whose
whole attack is on men of wealth,
which declines to condemn or else con-
dennis in an apologize, perfunctory and
wholly inefficient manner outrages
committed by labor.
This latter is the kind of paper
which by torrents of foul abuse seeks
to stir up a bitter class hatred against
every man of means simply because he
is a man of means, against evedy man
of wealth, whether he is ar honest man,
who nv industry and ability has honor
ahlv won his wealth and who honorably
snends 1t. or a man whose wealth rep
resents robbery and whose life repre-
sents either profiigacy or, at best, an In
ane, useless and tasteless extravaganza.
"This country cannot afford to let its
conscience grow warped and twisted, as
II must grow If 1t takes either one of
these two positions. We must draw the
line. not on wealth nor on poverty, but