Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-03-23
ASPiRANr TO REPUBLICAN PRES
IDENTIAL NOMINATION Up
HOLDS FORMER SPEECH
STRIKES AT TAFT
Address in New York Last Night Con-
tains Numerous References to
Views Of President on
Measures,

can be stated briefly. 1t is, Are thu
American people fit to govern them
selves, to rule themselves, to contro
themselves? l believe they are. Ny
iopponents do not"
With these words Theodore Roose
welt last night opened the. first
Ispeech he has delivered since the
public announcement of his willing
ness to accept the republican nomin
lation for president, His subject was
THE Right of the People to Rule.
The speech, delivered at Carnegie
hall under the auspices of the Civic
Forum, elaborated much that Colonel
Roosevelt said in his Columbus, Ohio
address, and answered in detail GER
tain arguments of President Taft In
reply. II stand on the Columbus
speech" said Col. Roosevelt, "the
principles there asserted are not new
but l believe that they are necessary
to the maintenance of free demo
cratic government"
After his opening declaration COL
Roosevelt continued:
| II believe in the right of the people
to rule. l believe that the majority OF
the plain people of the United States
will, day in and day out, make fewer
mistakes in governing themselves
than any smaller class or body OF
men, no matter what their training,
will make in trying to govern them.
| I believe, again, that the American
people are, as whole, capable of self.
control and Of learning by their mis-
takes. Our opponents pay lip-loyalty
to this doctrine, but they show their
real beliefs by the way in which they
champion every device to make the
nominal rule Of the people sham.
Crlticises Minorities.
81 have scant patience with this
talk Of the tyranny of the majority.
Whenever there is tyranny of the ma
jority, I shall protest against it with
all my heart and soul. But we are
today suffering from the tyranny Of
minorities. 1t is a small minority that
Is grabbing our coal deposits, our
water powers and our harbor fronts.
A small minority Is fattening on the
sale of adulterated foods and drugs
It is a small minority that lies be.
hind monopolies and trusts. 1t is a
small minority that stands behind the
present law of master and servant,
the sweat-shops and the whole calen-
dar Of social and industrial injustice.
1t is small minority that is today
using our convention system to de-
feat the will of a majority Of the peo-
pie In the choice of delegates to the
Chicago convention. The only tyran-
MES from which men. women and
children are suffering in real life are
the tyrannies of minorities.
mo sane man who has been ia
miliar with the government Of this
country for the last twenty years will
complain that we have had too much
of the rule of the majority. The trou-
BILE has been far different one-that,
at many times and in many localities,
there have held public Office in the
states and in the nation men who
have, in fact, served not the whole
people, but some special class or spe-
cial interest. I am not thinking only
of those special interests which by
grosser methods, by bribery and
crime, have stolen from the people.
I am thinking as much of their re-
spectacle allies and igureheads who
have ruled and legislated and decided
as If In some way the vested rights
of privilege had a first mortgage on
the whole United States, while the
rights of all the people were merely
an unsecured debt.
Gives Progress Program.
"To further the rule of the major
ity," continued the speaker, progress
sives of the Republican party In GER
tain states have formulated certain
for change in the form Of
the state government-certain checks
and balances which may check and
balance the special interests and
their allies.
First. there are the initiative and
which are so framed
that if the legislatures obey the COM
mand of some special interest and
obstinately refuse the will of the ma
jority, the majority may step in and
legislate directly. H ....'
"Then there is the direct primary
the real one, not the New York one
and that, too, the progressives offer
as a check on the special interests.
Most clearly of all does it seem to me
that this change is wholly good-for
every state. The direct
primary. if accompanied by strin-
gent corrupt practices act, will help
break up corrupt partnership of cor
porations and politicians.
$50 that no man may misunder-
stand me. let me recapitulate:
"1) I am not proposing anything
in connection with the supreme court
Of the United States or with the fed
eral constitution.
"(2) l am not proposing anything
having any connection with ordinary
suits, civil or criminal, as between
"(3) am not speaking of the recall
of judges
go I am proposing merely that in
a certain class of cases involving the
police power, when a state court has
set aside as unconstitutional a law
passed by the legislature for the gen.
eral welfare the question of the va
lidity of the law-which should de-
pend, as Justice Holmes so well phrases
it, upon the prevailing morality or pre-
ponderant opinion-be submitted for
final determination to vote of the
people, taken after due time for con-
"The president of me United States.