The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-11-02
CAUSE OF HIGH PRICES.
Colonel Roosevelt Says the Trouble Is
International in Character.

Buffalo. N Y, Nov. 2.-The Republic
can party is not responsible for the high
cost of living, Theodore Roosevelt as
serted in a campaign speech here last
night. The causes of high prices in the
main were international. Colonel Roose-
welt declared, in some instances, trusts
had forced up prices and pointed to the
record of Henry L. StimSon, Republi-
can candidate for governor, as a prose-
cutor of corporations which had VIOLA
ted the law, as proof that. if elected,
he would do all the governor of a state
could do to prevent initiation of values.
Colonel ROosevelt's declaration on this
subject, concerning which he has said
little previously during the campaign,
was made first at Niagara Falls and
then at Buffalo at the close of his last
speaking tour over the state of the
present campaign.
The colonel spoke twice here and
started for New York. whence he is, to
depart for Iowa three hours after his
arrival there.
In his speech here Colonel Roose-
welt said, in part:
Fourteen years ago 1 was in Buffalo
speaking in the campaign for Mr.. Nc
Kinley against Mr.. Bryan and at that
time our opponents held the Republicans
responsible because prices were too low
You remember that Mr.. Bryan's great
wheat up to the dollar limit. Now, IA
years after, the complaint is that prices
are too high. Real suffering has I'M
Questionably been caused by the fact
that prices have gone up, but the cost
of living has increased.
"A demagogue in Harry Stimson'S
place would have promised that impOs-
sible results would follow his success.
and our opponents play the demagogue
part, for they say we are to blame for
high prices and that if they are put
in power prices will be made low. They
know that what they promise they can
not perform.
World Wide Movement.
LAS Mr.. Stimson pointed out the other
night, there has been a worldwide
movement toward higher prices during
the last few years, a movement due to
various causes, some of which undoubt-
edly will be changed by time. 1t is
not in it's essence a, movement that af-
fects only this country. 1t affects other
countries just as it affects ours
Colonel Roosevelt spoke of Mr.. Slim
sons prosecution of the trusts while he
was United States district attorney in
New York and said that as a result
every big financial corporation of the
type that we speak of as a trust is now
doing all it can to back up Mr.. Dix and
to oppose Mr.. StimsOn. If Harry Slim
son were not menace to the big
trust controlled newspaper of New York
city against him. If Mr.. Dix was not
wanted in office by the great corpora
lions which have more effect in rails
ing the prices of living than any other
agency of purely national, as distin-
guished from international significance,
you would not find them supporting Mr..
Dix as eagerly as they are supporting
him in this campaign.
ut was not until I became president
that the first really serious effort was
made to enforce the antitrust law. And
while, as was perfectly inevitable in the
beginning of crusade Of that kind, we
sometimes failed and while it was
physically impossible for us to take up,
with the limited means at our disposal,
more than a small fraction of the cases
that we would have to take up, yet we
did accomplish a very great deal. We
fought suit after suit to successful con-
clusion and we made both interstate
commerce law and the antitrust law
realities and not Shams.
who have been the people who at
tackled me most violently? The plain
people or the men who represent the
trusts? 1t is the representatives of
great corporations, their representa-
tives in the press, their representatives
in private life, their representatives in
public life, the big corporations law
YerS. -