The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-03-21
Declares Issue Is: ''ShalI the
People Govern Themselves"
REPLY TO PRESIDENT TAFT
Makes an Extended Attack on
the Toledo Speech.
Stands by His Own Previous
Utterance at Columbus.

ldore Roosevelt delivered an address
on the subject of The Right of the
People to Rule" in Carnegie hall in
this city last evening, before an en-
thusiastic audience that tested the
capacity OF the auditorium. Colonel
Roosevelt said:
The great fundamental issue now
before the Republican party and be-
fore our people can be stated briefly.
1t is, Are the American people fit to
govern themselves, to rule them
selves, to control themselves? I be-
Iieve they are. My opponents do not
I believe in the right of the people to
rule I believe that the majority OF
the plain people of the United States
will, day in and day out. make fewer
mistakes in governing themselves
than any smaller class or body of
men, no matter what heir training,
will make in trying to govern them.
believe, again, that the American
people are, as a whole, capable OK
self-control and of learning by their
mistakes. Our opponents pay Hp-loy-
atty to this doctrine; but they show
their real beliefs by the way in which
they champion every device to make
the nominal rule of the people a
sham.
have scant patience with this talk
of the tyranny of the majority.
Whenever there is tyranny Of the
majority, I shall protest against it
with all my heart and soul But We
are today suffering from the tyranny
OF minorfties. It is a small minority
that is grabbing our coal deposits. our
h1- 7t-
A small minority is fattening on the
sale of adulterated foods and drugs.
It is a small minority that lies behind
monopolies and trusts. 1t is a small
ity that stands behind the pres
emit law of master and servant, the
sweat-shops, and the whole calendar
of social and industrial injustice. 1t
is q small minority that is today us
ing our convention system to defeat
the will of a majority of the people in
the choice of delegates to the Chi
cago convention. The only tyrannies
from which men. women and children
are suffering in real life are the tyran-
MES of minorities.
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
foFefathers put into the constitution
could stay that tyranny.
No sane man who has been famiI-
lar with the government of this coun-
try fer the last twenty years will COM
plain that we have had too much Of
the rule of the majority. The trouble
has been a far different one-that. at
many times and in many localities,
there have held public office in the
states and in the nation men who
have, in fact, served not the whole
people, but some special class or
special interest. I am not thinking
only of those special interests which
by grosser methods, by bribery and
crime, have stolen from the people.
I am thinking as much of their re-
spectacle allies and figureheads, who
have ruled and legislated and decided
as II in some way the vested rights
of privilege had a first mortgage on
the whole United States, while the
rights of all the people were merely
an unsecured debt. Am 1 overstating
the case? Have our political leaders
always. or generally, recognized their
duty to the people as anything more
than duty to dispense the mob, see
that the ashes are taken away, and
distribute patronage? Have our lead
ers always, or generally, worked for
the benefit of human beings. to in
crease the prosperity of all the peo-
pie, to give to each some opportunity
of living decen-Iy and bringing uD his
children we'll? The questions need no
answer.
Now there has sprung up a feeling
deep in the hearts of the people-not
of the bosses and professional poIjti-
clans. not of the beneficiaries of spe-
cial privilege-a pervading belief of
thinking men that when the majority
of the people do in fact, as we'll as
theory, rule, then the servants of the
people will come more quickly to an
swer and obey. not the commands of
the special interests, but those OF the
whole people To reach toward that
end the Progressives OF the Repub-
Hcan party in certain states have
formulated certain proposals for
change in the form Of the state GOV
ernment-certain new checks and
balances" which may check and bad
ance the special interests and their
allies. That is their purpose.
First, there are the initiative and
referendum" which are so framed
that if the legislatures obey the com
mand of some special interest. and
obetinately refuse the will of the ma
jority. the majority may step in and
legisIate directly. No man would say
that it was best to conduct all legis-
latoa by direct vote of the pecple-ii