The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1912-10-22
ROOSEVELT'S
PROGRESSIVE
PLATFORM
Continued from page three)

dnc6 commissioned. IL was 4uCo-
ton if could get any other appoint
ment through the Legislature. A
respectable young gentleman came
up from New York, representing
one of the insurance companies. He
said: "We'd support some other
man, if we were sure YOU could
put him through, but we're afraid
of opposing Payn, for fear he may
take it out on us in case he wins |
said. Legislature or no legislature,
I'll stick it out. If they don't con-
firm my man, then III try another
and it won't be Payn.' He said, In
that case, we'll support your APP
pointee. We can deliver four sena-
tors and three assemblymen. The
next day, the president of that COM
pany gave out statement endorsing
Pawn. | sent down to find what it
meant. Hesaid, oh, that's alright;
we're only guarding ourselves in case
Payn should go in. Well deliver
our senators and assemblymen just
the same Do you get it? Four
senators and three assemblymen-not
bought casually as they used to buy
men in the legislature during my
time, but the servants of the cor
poration.
las ] look back on it now, must
have gone pretty far, unconsciously,
before went down to Washington
as President and President.
Pretty far for those times, | mean.
! wasn't so far from the right idea,
after all. Look up my letter of ac-
ceptance and notice that | was after
the trusts even then. My growth is
all in my successivemessages. was
looking them over the other day and
realizing how | went on from point
to point in seven years.
When l started to clean up the
Postofice Department, for example,
found that every time | cut into
anything, l struck a big interest do
ing something crooked and unfair
Then there was the matter of judges.
appointed them just as Cleveland
and Mckinley had done Cleveland
and Mckinley had no idea of corrup-
ton, ofcourse. They only saw-con-
scientiously-that men were appoint
ed who wouldn't disturb the conser-
vatiye and orderly course of business
used to follow something the same
system. picked my judges on the
recommendation of bar associations
and chambers of commerce, and all
that. Then we broke into that land
graft situation in the West. Frank
Heney took off his coat and went to
work. And | found out about some
of those judges-and I'd appointed
part of them myself found what
considerations governed their deci-
sions."
Here Roosevelt whirled in hischair
clicked his teeth and letinto his voice
that strident note which comes when
he is dead in earnest.
why" he said, 81 got my first
taste of that long ago, when | was
trying to regulate that tenement
house tobacco business in the State
Legislature, The higher courts de-
clared our bill unconstitutional be-
cause it violated the sanctity of the
home. There they were, two fami-
lies and lodger living and working
in one dark. fifteen.foot room, men
and women crowded together, leaf
tobacco packed under the beds where
their children slept, no sanitary ar
rangements, filth heaped in the cor
ners, disease, flies and misery every
where-but we mustn't do anything
to ameliorate their condition could
n'tdo anything for fear of violating
the sanctity of homes like these!
Went The Entire Course
"As | went on, | absorbed the
other articles of the Progressive
platform. took up with some other
fellows ideas in which, perhaps. |
hadn't seen much at first. The ini-
tiatiye md referendum, the popular
election of senators, and woman suf-
frage, for example. Understand, I
was always in favor of woman suf-
frage as an ultimate social justice,
but ! didn't regard it as important.
1t was such women as Frances Kellor
and Jane Adams who showed me