The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-02-23
WILSON TO EDITORS
EHervescent Period In Politics Has
Passed, He Says.

Kansas Democrats heard Governor
Woodrow Wilson for the first time late
Thursday when he talked to members
of the Democratic Editorial association
at the Throop hotel Perhaps 100 of
the visiting banqueters heard the short
speech of the New Jersey governor.
The room was not nearly filled and
Wilson's welcome was in fact a bit
timid.
In the course of the Is minute talk,
the little crowd in the hotel parlor
he was Interrupted by handclapping
but once. That was when he suggest
ed a searching corporation investiga-
ton. The crowd seemed to be sizing
up the speaker They studied his
manner and style in a manner charac-
terfstic of a Kansas audience and at
the end of his talk gave courteous ap-
plause.
There wasn't the fire and personal
magnetism in Wilson's talk that ap-
preached the Clark tactics when he
made things happen in Dodge City
There was just plain, ordinary, com
mon, every day talk And perhaps
Kansas wasn't accustomed to the STYLE
The newspapers that are trying to
serve the people the truth rather than
to queer individuals, are the only ones
that can sustain" said Wilson as he
began his talk to the editors. Papers
devoted to private purposes will fail,
but those which aim at the public good
vii survive The people of the Unitet
States are interested in individuals
and their fortunes These people are
going to get just what the common
interest demands.
'fYoU are all trying to do just what
am to unite people in one common
body, under one eomOn policy and IN
der a true statement of the facts The
only debatable thing before the people
q t this time is methods and how men
do things The people want to know
and viii know. It is a case of put up
or shut up with US all. Tt is a case
of putting up principles that will wash
and bear inspection. People speaking
in general terms have put suspicion on
all business and the basis of our bust
ness is credit and belief. You shake
that and you shake every foundation
of business.
I'VE must find upon whom suspicion
Justly Hes-whO is to blame. Under
standing that our laws were not prop
er1y enforced was because We dealt in
generalities and not individuals. We
see the gates of effort and credit block
ed to the worthy man and must find
the individual who blocked the way It
IS not the corporation we. must seek.
but the individual within the corpora
tion. No more should we strive to de-
stroy the corporation than an auto
mobile because the chauffeur was
guilty of speeding or JOY riding We
che corpora ton. lest we might wrong
fully injure innocent parties and the
suffering would fall not on the guilty
parties. but on the stockholders and the
consumers We are not going to de-
stroy this great delicate fabric, but we
must get at its ills and see that they
are remedied.
'-The efTervescent and rhetorical
period of our politics is passed. Men
formerly talked facts that people did
not know existed. Now they know they
exist and demand relief. They demand
the removal of the gum shoe official
and a right to see the manner in which
their business is handled"
After the talk, a short reception for
Wilson was held in the hotel uarlor