The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-03-28

| HrSt, that the people nave the TlSHI u
| rule, and that through the exercise OF
| this right we must obtain social and
| industrial justice, and, second, that our
aim must be to control businessmen
to strangle it.
1.-THE three great classes of the Amer
lean community are the farmers. the
| wage workers and the business men,
BIZ and little, wholesale and retail. 1t
is essential that all three prosper.
LAS regards prosperity, there are two
| things to remember, first, there must
be a division of prosperity so that all
shall benefit, and, second, there can be
no such division of prosperity unless
| the prosperity is there to divide.
at is curious to see how often the ex-
] tremists on both sides combine against
the sane and moderate men who are
striving to fight a real battle for Jus
honest big business men are alike in
terested in securing a settled govern
mental policy about. business.
Our present policy of chaos can not
permanently continue. We are giving
about 75 per cent of Our time to fight
| ing among ourselves about ourselves
and only about rs per cent to promot-
| ing our foreign trade.
I'VE must place before the business
men an accurate chart of what they
| can do and Whit they can not do in the
business world.
There should be absolute clearness
of the law; there should be a competent
administrative body, an Interstate in
dustrial commission or something of
the kind, which would do for the world
of industrial production what the in
terstate commerce commission is do
ing for the world of industrial transpor-
tation.
1T should be the policy of the gov
eminent clearly to define and punish
wrong doing, to give in advance full
information to every man just what he
can and what he can not legally do.
People Are Not Afraid.
THE people of this country are not
afraid of the mere size of a business
enterprise provided it is honestly or
ganized and honestly managed But
they feel that such size carries with it
potentiaIity of wrongdoing that
n axes it necessary that the nation and
if necessary the state shall exercise
over big business control and super
vision which are unnecessary as re-
CARDS small business.
Nov, I am not speaking as a matter
of theory, I am speaking in view of
what has actually happened in connec-
ton with the utter failure of the suits
against the tobacco trust and the
Standard Oil trust , accomplish a re-
suit of real worth.
In my message to congress and in
my speeches while president l again
and again pointed out that the anti
trust law by itself. and without such
additional legislation, could not do
anything of permanent value. The re-
suit has exactly and precisely justified
what I then said.
THE senate committee unanimously
voted aginst making any changes in
the antitrust law. The nominal radi-
Gals of the kind that are at this mo-
ment most frantic in their denUncia-
ton of the trusts, took the same posi-
ton that was taken by the reaction
a l. 4
to pose as the irreconcilable enemies
of all trusts, and the reactionary and
standpatters knew that my proposal
did really propose an effective device
to regulate big business.
The Fight on Trusts.
The antitrust law should not only
be kept on the statute books but
should be strength ened and made
more effective against trusts guilty
of anti-social practices; but the real
good, the greatest good, will have to
come through totally different legisla-
ton modelled in part upon that which
has worked so well in connection with
our national banks and in connection
with interstate commerce.
THE effort to strangle big business
according to the methods of the ex-
tremists only has been successful to
the extent of alarming all business,
and has failed completely as regards
adequate controlling the very kinds of
to control
1T is curious to see the worst of
the big interests and the least wise of
the extremist agitators playing into
one another's hands in trying to pre-
serve the present system of chaos in
business law in preference to system
of ordered supervision and control
which I have advocated and under
which we would secure definitenesS of
legal policy for all business and would
nj % business
treatment as an incident to exacting
proper behavior from it.
"It is the duty of the federal and
state governments each in its own
sphere at once to begin a policy of
supervising the organization and man
agement of big corporations so as to
make it possible for small investors to
participate safely in the ownership of
which are subject to governmental
control
More Important Subject.
$50 much, friends, for what 1 have
to say about business. 1t is a very
important subject but there is still a
more important subject that I wish to
touch upon. Now, the fundamental is
sue in the fight is an issue of honesty.
decency, fair play. Have the people
the right to rule? Have the masses of
the Republican party, the rank and
file, the plain people in whom Abra
ham Lincoln trusted. the right to ex-
press their will as to who the nomi-
nee for president SHALL be? Or are they
to be buIlied and defrauded out of that
right and is the nomination to be en-
trusted to the representatives of politi-
cal and financial privilege, the repre-
sentatives of the powers of piIlage, the
men, who, with the backing of the big,
crooked business, work through the
lowest kind of political machinery and
count on the silence or support of ev
erv newspaper that is owned or con-