Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-09-29
Roosevelt's Declaration
Made on Monday in
A Speech a t
Columbus
Criticizes Old Organizations as
"Fossilized" Says Progress
sive Platform Is Only One
Showing Way to True Reform
Explains His Opposition to
State Ownership "Unscien-
tific Legislation"

Columbus, O., Sept. 2S-Addressing
an audience in Memorial Hall here to-
night Colonel Roosevelt criticized the
old parties as ''fossilized;" found little
save inefficiency and impotency in
their program affecting labor, COM
blnations and the tariff, and pointed
to the Progressive platform as the only
one showing the way to true reform
The old parties, he said, cannot and
will not deal with new ideas in ade-
quate fashion.
They know, that if they put the
wine of the new ideas into the old
bottles of their organizations these
old organizations would burst asun-
der" he said The attitude of the
present Democratic administration on
the tariff and trusts he described "as
firing so to get 1t If it is bear
and to miss it if it is a calf y
The Colonel explained his opposition
to state ownership in most instances
because of the superior efficiency OF
most privately conducted enterprises.
The distribution of the mails, water
and light, he said fall naturally with
in the province of the state, but in
general state regulation and super
vision were to be preferred to state
ownership.
My own recent experiences in trav-
cling on a state owned railroad in
France, and in using the state owned
telephone in England, impressed me
with the marked comparative super
lority in service rendered by our own
private owned railroads and tele-
phones; but l am informed that in
Belgium the direct reverse obtains"
he said.
In pleading for an untrameled tar
III commission the speaker. declared
that the Democratic revision was ham
pered in the same manner that the
Aldrich-Vreeland adjustment was by
the conflict of sectional and private
interests
I'VE are a great nation" he assert
ed, and We must think nationally and
act nationally"
Colonel Roosevelt pointed to the
placing of sugar on the free list as an
example of unscientiflc legislation and
| declared that the advance in sugar
resulted because the American grower
simply quit business, and the law of
supply and demand did the rest He
described the policy of the Progressive
party as one of wise and cool-headed
radicalism.
Under the Republican scheme a few
men prosper too much. Under the
Democratic scheme nobody prospers
enough he asserted. He remarked
In passing that the Democrats had
failed in repeated promises to provide
a presidential primary, and charac-
terized the omission as an outrage"
On the subject of combinations the
former president said that the war
time advance in food stuffs and the
plight Of the cotton growers empha-
sized the need of properly regulated
and supervised combinations for the
benefit of great and small alike. The
war; he added, has shown the need
of combinations among bushes men,
especially small business men But,
he said. they were prohibited by laws
which prohibit all combinations. good
or bad.
Col. Roosevelt took the decision in
the International Harvester case. re-
Gently handed down, as an illustration
Of the evil effects of condemning all
combinations
The court in the Harvester case"
said the Colonel, decided that what
the Harvester Company had done was
beneficial to the country as a whole
but that 1t was Illegal