The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-09-02

ment that 1t was ruining the business in terests of the country, we got the re- bate practice definitely stopped. | Hnrdships to Many
 | "Of course no great change of that | kind has been made without incidental hardship being suffered by many good people. You cannot make change and not suffer from the dislocation. Some good people and some communities did suffer and l think Kansas City was | the community that for the time being suffered considerably. Kansas City had rebe tes that l think at times. were 1s i..Sii as 35 per cent and l was quite prepared for an outburst or dissat's- l faction from Kansas City But 1t Is immensely to your credit that I receive unanimous approval. Your people said this change was right, that the thing ought to be done and that they were | for it.
 T think it was as fine an exemplf- | fcation as one could desire of the will | ingness of your people to squarely face | a moral issue.'
 At the conclusion of Colonel Roose- velt's speech he was driven to the
 
 address.
 Speech at Auditorium
 l At the auditorium Colonel Roosevelt spoke as follows:
 | There are certain matters which | should never be treated as party mat 1 ters; and foremost among these is the l great and vital virtue of honesty. Hon. esty should be treated as a prime ne- cessity to our success as a nation. The I I,,,in honesty n against dishonesty Is involved then We must all act together as Americans | without the slightest regard to party affiliations. Honesty is not a party | matter; and the first man to attack a scoundrel of any party should be the honest man of that party. When in office I always proceeded upon the the. | ory that there would be no need of my | opponents raising the cry of Turn tn e rascals out because I would turn them | out myself just as soon as, by vigilant and intelligent industry, I could dis cover them.
 The present Senator Bristow, for | instance, was in the postoffice depart | ment when information reached me | which convinced me that there was | extensive rascality being practiced in the department. This information came to me through the then First Assistant l Postmaster General, MT. Wynne, an ad . mirable man whose honesty 1 knew to | be beyond proof. The active work of the investigation was done by anorh- CT postoffice official in whose honesty, courage and energy I had absolute con- | fidence-the present Senator Bristow. When he got through I knew that all the rascals whose rascality could be detected were out of office and that all of, them that had committed acts
 which we could proceed against as | criminal were indicted or imprisoned | As we dealt with the crooked public | official, so we dealt with the crook q private citizen; with the rich swindler in New York or Chicago as with the horse thief or homicide in Indian Ter ritory. We never attacked man be- cause he was a man of one political
 faith or another, because he did or did not possess wealth; and we never shielded him because he was poor or rich, because he belonged to any par ticu1ar church or to any particular party. But l also wish you especially
 to remember that we never hesitated to shield him and stand up for him once we were convinced that he was improperly attacked.
 Foe of Honesty
 There is no greater foe of honesty than the man who, by any reason, in any capacity, attacks, or seeks to at- tack, an honest man for Q crime which
 he has not committed. Falsely &C., cusing an honest man of dishonesty is an act which stands on the same level of infamy with that of the dishonest man himself; and it is no higher duty to attack the dishonest man than 1t Is to eXonerate the honest man falsely
 accused; and I should be ashamed to
 hesitate the fraction of a second long, len f~.
 Remember that honesty cannot be . ,milateral. Good citizens should cordially ,listrust the man who can never see dis honesty excepting in men of the class he oisikes. The reckless agitator who in
 variably singles out men of wealth as
 furnishing the only examples of dishon- esty; and the equally unscrupulOus-but no more unscrupulous-reaction who can see dishonesty only in blackmaitng politician or a crooked labor leader; both
 stand on the same plane of obnoxious
 ness, You will never get honesty from
 politicians until you; exact honesty from business men, On the other hand, you
 brand yourselves as fools or as hypo- critics if you say that the corporation
 owner or the employer, is always the
 dishonest man, and the poor man never,
 that it is only the wealthy man who cor ! rupts the politician and never the poi-
 tician who blackmails the corporation.
 Bribing Legislatures
 Any man in his senses knows that
 there are plenty of corporations in this
 country who prosper by bribing legisla-
 lures just as they prosper by swindling
 he public: and any man in his senses $ ught to know, in addition. that there re plenty of corrupt men of small means
 who. in legislative or other bodies. try
 to blackmaIl corporations-and try to
 blackmail the other people as well. If they doubt this let them look at the : revelation of corrupticnin my own state