Imperial Valley press., 1912-03-26
PEOPLES VOICE MUST PREVAIL
Cheered for Speech in Opening
Active Campaign for Komina-
---QuoteS Taft as 0p-
posed to the Majority.
Stands SquareIy on His
Columbus, Ohio, Address

The salient passages in Colonel
Roosevelt's forceful campaign speech,
delivered in Carnegie Hall, New York,
Wednesday evening, March Goth, are
given below:
The great fundamental issue now
before the Republican party and be-
fore our people can be stated briefly
1t is: Are the American people fit to
govern themselves, to rule themselves
and to control themselves?
l believe they are. My opponents do
not. believe in the right of the people
to rule. | 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 similar class or body of men, no
matter what their training, will make
in trying to govern them. l believe
again that Me American people, as a
whole, are capable of self-control and
of learning by their mistakes. Our
opponents pay lip loyalty to this doc
trine, but they show their real be-
liefs by the way in which they cham
pion every device to make the NOM
inal rule of the people sham.
l have scant patience with this talk
of the tyranny of the majority. When
ever there is tyranny of the majority l
shall protest against it with all my
heart and soul. But we are today suf-
fering from the tyranny of the minori-
ties. 1t is 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. 1t is a
small minority that lies behind monop-
olies and trusts. 1t is a small minority
that stands behind the present law of
master and servant, the sweatShOpS
and the whole calendar of social and
industrial injustice. 1t is small mi
nority that is today using our conven-
ton system to defeat the will of ma
delegates to the Chicago convention.
My opponents charge that two things
in my program are wrong because they
intrude into the sanctuary of the judi
ciary.
The first is the recall of judges, and
the second the review by the people of
judicial decisions on certain excep-
tional questions. l have said again
and again that l do not advocate the
recall of judges in all states and in all
communities. The integrity of our
judges, from Marshal to White and
Holmes, and to Cullen and many
others in our State, is a fine page of
American history. Butt say it So
berly-democracy has a right to ap-
prOach the sanctuary of the courts
where a special interest has corruptly
found sanctuary, and this is ex-
actly what has happened in some of
the states where the recall of the
judges is a living issue. 1t is not
equally plain that the question whether
a given social policy is for the public
good is of judicial nature, or should
be settled by the Legislature, and in
the final instance, by the people them
selves.
The President of the United States,
Mr. Taft, devoted most of a recent
speech to criticism of this proposition.
He says that 1T is utterly without
merit or utility and, instead of being
in the interest of all the people and of
the stability of popular government, is
sowing the seeds of confusion and ty-
ranny.' BY this he, of course, meant
the tyranny of the majority-that is.
the tyranny of the American leople as
whole. He also says that my pro-
posal (Which, as he rightly sees it, is
merely proposal to give the people a
real, instead of only a nominal, chance
to construe and amend a state legisla-
ton with reasonable rapidity), would
make such amendment and interpreta-
ton depend on the. feverish, uncer-
tain and unstable determinations of
successive votes on different laws by
temporary and changing majorities,'
and that 1T lays the axe at the foot
of the tree of well-ordered freedom and
subjects the guarantees Of life, liberty
and property, without remedy, to the
fitful impulse of temporary majority
of an electorate"
This criticism is really less criti-
cism Of my proposal than a criticism
of all popular government. 1t is wholly
belief that the people are fundament-
ally nntrllstWorthv This is the nuas-