The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1912-03-01
ROOSFVFLTS GREAT
SPEECH AT COLUMBUS
In Which He States His Position on the
Recall, Initiative and Referendum
and Direct Nominations
Colonel Roosevelt chose as his sub

Of what he termed big business
Colonel Roosevelt had this to say:
THE antitrust law does good, in so
far as it can be invoked against COM
binations which are really monopolies or
which restrict production or which arti-
ficially raise prices. But in so far as its
workings are uncertain or as it threatens
corporations which have not been
guilty of anti-social conduct, it does
harm.
There should be a fixed govern
ment policy to clearly define and punish
wrong doing and give in advance full
information to any man as to just what
he can not legally and properly do.
Following Senator LaFollete num-
Der Of practical workers and thinkers
in Wisconsin have turned that state
into an experimental laboratory of wise
governmental action in aid ofsocial and
industrial justice. They have initiated
that kind Of progressive government
which means not only the preservation
of true democracy, but its extension
into industrialism as we'll as politics" :"
Colonel Roosevelt said in part:
Il hold it to be the duty of every
public servant and of every man who
in public or private life holds position
of leadership in thought or action to
endeavor honestly and fearlessly to
guide his fellow countrymen to right
decisions. But I emphatically dissent
from the view that it is either wise or
necessary to try to devise methods
which, under the constitution, will
automatically prevent the people from
deciding for themselves what govern
mental action they deem just and
proper.
st is impossible to invent constitu-
tional devices which will prevent the
popular will from being effective for
wrong without also preventing it from
being effective for right. The only
safe course to follow in this great Ameri-
can democracy is to provide for max
ing the popular judgment really efec-
tive. But it is false constitutionalism,
a false craftsmanship, to endeavor, by
the exercise of a perverted ingenuity
to seem to give the people full power
and at the same time to trick them OUT
of it.
Il hold that he is the real progress
sive, that he is the genuine champion
OF the people, who endeavors to shape
the policy alike Of the nation and Of
the several states so as to encourage
legitimate and honest business at the
same time that he wars against all
crookedness and injustice and unfair
ness and tyranny in the bu siness world.
This is the reason l have for so
many years insisted that it is both futile
and mischievous to endeavor to correct
the evils OF big business by an attempt
to restore business conditions as they
were in the middle OF the last century,
before railroads and telegraphs had rem
dered larger business both inevitable
and desirable.
THE effort to restore such condi-
tons and to trust to justice solely to
such proposed restoration is as foolish
as if we should attempt to arm our
troops with the fintlocks Of Washing
toms contintentals instead of with
modern weapons Of precision.
'Flintlock legislation, Of the kind
that seeks to prohibit all combinations,
good or bad, is bound to fail and the
effort, insofar as it accomplishes any
thing at all, merely means that some ol
the worst combinations are not checked
and that honest business is checked.
what is needed is, first, the recog-
milton that modern business condition:
have come to stay, in so far at least a:
these conditions mean that bushes:
must be done in larger units, and ther
the cool-headed and resolute deter
mination to introduce an effective
method of regulating big corporation
so as to help legitimate business a