The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1912-03-21
RULE OF THE PEOPLE
THEME OF ROOSEVELT
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DE-
LINERS ADDRESS BEFORE
THE CIVIC FORUM.
The Right Of the People to Rule Is
the Fundamental Issue-They
Are Capable of Self
Control.
Associated Press Special.

! ft5SotidLCu iCoS Nypt'Slht-
| New York. March 21.-In an ad-
4 dress delivered in Carnegie Hall
under the auspices of the Civic
/ Forum, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt,
discussing THE Right of the Peo-
pie to Rule" in part said:
1.-THE great fundamental issue
now before the republican party
| and before our people can be stated
briefly. 1t is, are the American peo-
| pie fit to govern themselves, to rule
themselves, to control themselves?
| | believe they are. My opponents do
not. believe In the right of the
people to rule believe that the
majority of the plain people of the
United States will, day in and day
out, make fewer mistakes in govern
ing themselves than any smaller
class or body of men, no matter
what their training, will make in
trying to govern themselves. be-
lieve, again, that the American peo-
pie are, as whole, capable of self
control and of learning by their
mistakes
'If the majority of the American
people were in fact tyrannous over
the minority, if democracy had no
greater self-control than empire,
then indeed no written words which |
our forefathers put into the consti-
tuition could stay that tyranny.
mo sane man who has been fa-
miIliar with the government of this
for the last twenty years
will complain that we have had too
much of the rule of the majority.
rhe trouble has been far differ
snt one--that, at many times and in
many localities, there have held
public office In the states and In the
lation men who have, in fact, serv-
ID not the whole people, but some
special class or special interests.
am not thinking only of those spec
ial interests which by grosser meth |
DDS, by bribery and crime, have
stolen from the people. l am think
ing as much of their respectable al
lies and figureheads, who have ruled
some way the vested rights of priv
ilege had first mortgage on the
| whole United States, while the
rights of all the people were merely
an unsecured debt
'In the long fight for righteous
ness the watchword for all of us is
spend and be spent. 1t is Of little
matter whether any one man fails
or succeeds: but the cause shall not
fail, for it is the cause of mankind.
We. here in America, hold In our
hands the hope of the world, the
fate of the coming years; and shame
and disgrace will be ours If In our
eyes the light of high resolve is
dimmed, If we trail in the dust the
golden hopes of men. If on this new
continent We merely build another
country of great but unjustly divid-
have done nothing; and we shall do
as little If we merely set the greed |
of envy against the greed OF AFRO |
gance, and thereby destroy the ma
terial well-being of all Of us. To
turn this government either into
government by plutocracy or gov
eminent by mob would be to re-
peat on larger scale the lament
able failures of the world that is
dead. We stand against all tyranny,
by the few or by the many. We
stand for the rule of the many in
the interest of all of us, for the rule
of the many in spirit of courage,
of common sense, of high purpose,
above all is a spirit of kindly JUS
| tiee towards every man and every
| woman"