The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1913-07-03
R. RIDICULES
WILSON SCHEME
DECLARES sERFDOM OF MINERS
IN WEST VIRGINIA Is FAIR
ILLUSTRATION OF THE
PRESIDENTS "NEW
FREEDOMS"

Newport, r. Navy Day., with
which the progressives three-day con-
ference opened today, brought thou
sands of visitors to Newport to hear
Theodore Roosevelt speak twice, to
partake of the Rhode Island clam
bake, to listen to the speeches OF ST.
witness the drill of navy apprentices
at the naval training station.
The demand made in the first ma
tional platform of the progressive
party for regulation of corporations
and combinations to ENSURE their 40
ing justice to their rivals, to their
customers and to their employees"
has been emphasized, Theodore
Roosevelt declared this afternoon at
the clambake which opened the nat
ional conference of the progressive
party, by what has occurred since
election in the West Virginia bitum-
inuos coal fields.
In opening his speech, Coroner
Roosevelt pointed to the progressive
platform upon which he ran for the
presidency last fall as a document
which upholders of social and indus
trial justice in the future will recog-
nize as one of the great documents
of American political history. From II
he cited two demands-the first that
the national government undertake
on a gigantic scale the work of har-
Messing the flood waters of the Ohio
and Mississippi rivers, using for that
the outfit that has been used
in the construction of the Panama
Canal. The second demand already
referred 20, Colonel Roosevelt dwelt
upon at considerable length. He quot
that he wished he could make the
men of property understand that in
fighting such decisions and such con-
ditions as in West Virginia he WAS
fighting against anarchy in favor of
law and order and for property.
1.-The utter futility of the plan of
action, or rather non-action, advocat-
ed in both the republican and demo-
cratic platforms last year, and christ
ened by President Wilson with mag
niloquent vagueness The New Free
dom, has been s%trikingly shown by
what has thus occurred in West Vir-
ginia," Colonel Roosevelt declared.
/" The New Freedom is nothing what
ever but the right of the strong to
prev on the weak, of the big men to
crush the little men, and to shield
their iniquity beneath the cry that
they are exercising freedom
"Under the pressure of an unen-
lightened capitalistic opinion, the
West Virginian courts have rendered
decisions-in strict accordance with
the principles of the new freedom
which themselves serve as the
most striking object lessons of the
need of the widespread application OF
progressive principles. In the district
where the rioting has occurred the
employing operators have %endeavor-
ed to keep the mineds in a state of
practical serfage by the use of the
company stores. This fact has been
recognized and the practice forbidden
in most civilized countries; in Eng
land, for instance Legislation was
passed forbidding this practise more
than seventy years ago. The West
Virginia legislature did its duty by
passing laws requiring the cash pay
ment of wages, and prohibiting per-
sons and corporations engaged in
mining and manufacturing from sell
ing any merch andise or supplies
from stores to their employees at a
greater percentage of profit than to
outsiders. These laws were contested
in the courts as unconstitutional.
"As a whole the West Virginia
court has declared that they were in
effective, as in contravention of the
constitutnin. The court explicitly
states that a contrast for labor is
property. thereby putting the life
blood of men, women and children
on a level with the commodities they
produce.
in 33 West Virginia 179 and 1888,