The Colorado statesman., 1912-02-24
WILL OF PEOPLE SHOULD Be COURT
OF LAST RESORT, SAYS ROOSEVELT
Ex-President Gives Views on Legislation in Address
Before Ohio Constitutional Convention
Strict Government Supervision Of big
Business Recommendations.

we must pay equal attention to the
proper distribution of prosperity. This
is true. The only prosperity. worth
having Is that which affects the mass
of the people. / hold 1t to be our
duty to see that the wage-worker, the
small producer, the ordinary consum-
er, shall get their fair share Of the
benefit Of business prosperity. But it
either is or ought to be evident to
every one that business has to pros
per before anybody can get any bene-
fit from It, Therefore l hold that he
is the real progressive 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 unfairness and tyranny
in the business world (for of course
we can only get business put on a
basis of permanent prosperity when
the element of injustice is taken out
of it,
Regulating Big Business.
What is needed Is, first, the recog-
milton that modern business conditions
have come to stay, in SO far at least
as these conditions mean that business
must be done in larger units, and then
the cool-headed and resolute deter
mination to introduce an effective
method Of regulating big corporations
so as to help legitimate business as an
incident to thoroughly and completely
safeguarding the interests of the peo-
pie as whole.
1t is imperative to exercise over
big business a control and su-
pervision which is unnecessary as
regards small business. All busi-
ness must be conducted under
the law, and all business men, big or
little, must act justly. But a wicked
big interest is necessarily more dan
gerous to the community than a
wicked little interest big business"
| IN the past has been responsible for
much of the special privilege which
| must be unsparingly cut out of our
| national life. / do not believe in max
| ing mere size of and by itself GRIMM
al. The mere fact of size, however,
does unquesionably carry the po-
tentiality of such grave wrong doing
that there should be by law provision
made for the strict supervision and
regulation of these great industrial
| concerns doing an Interstate business,
| much as we now regulate the trans
portation agencies which are engaged
in Interstate business. The antitrust
law does good in so far as 1t can be
invoked against combinations which
really are monopolies or which restrict
production or which artificially raise
prices But in so far as Its workings
| are uncertain, or as 1t threatens cor
porations which have been guilty of
anti-social conduct, 1t does harm
Moreover, it cannot by itself accom-
plish more than trifling part of the
governmental regulation of big bust
ness which is needed The nation and
the states must cooperate in this mat
ter. Among the states that have en-
tered this field Wisconsin has taken a
leading place.
All business into which the element
of monopoly in any way or degree en-
ters, and where 1t proves in practice
impossible totally to eliminate this ele-
ment of monopoly, should be carefully
supervised, regulated and controlled
by governmental authority; and such
control should be exercised by admin
istrative, rather than by judicial, Off
GERS. No effort should be made to de-
stroy big corporation merely be-
] cause 1t is big, merely because 1t has
| shown itself peculiarly efficient
business instrument. But we should
not fear, II necessary, to bring the
regulation Of big corporations to the
point of controlling conditions so that
the wage-worker shall have a wage
more than sufficient to cover the bare
| cost of living, and hours of labor not
SO excessive as to wreck his strength
by the strain of unending toll and
leave him unfit to do his duty as a
| good citizen of the community.
We also maintain that the nation
and the several states have the right
to regulate the terms and conditions
of labor, which is the chief element of
wealth, directly in the interest of the
common good. You, trainers of this
constitution, be careful SO to frame 1t
that under 1t the people shall leave
themselves free to do whatever is
necessary in order to help the farmers
of the state to get for themselves and
their wives and children not only the
benefits of better farming but also
| those of better business methods and
better conditions of life on the farm.
Moreover, shape your constitutional
action SO that the people will be able
through their legislative bodies, or,
] failing that, by direct popular vote, to