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do as the present Congress and its immediate predecessors have done; that is, sternly to disregard alike the self-interest of those who have profited by the present evils, and the wild clamor of those who care less to do away with them than to make a reputation with the unthinking of standing in extreme opposition to them. But this is precisely what the present Congress has done. Instead of enacting anti-trust laws which were either so vague or so sweeping as completely to defeat their own objects, it has given us an interstate commerce law which will enable us to exercise in thorough fashion a supervision over the common-carriers of this country, so as, while scrupulously safeguarding their proper interests, to prevent them from charging excessive rates; to prevent their favoring one man at the expense of another, and especially a strong man at the expense of a weak man; and require them to be fully accountable to the public for the service which, to their own profit, they render the public. The previous Congress, by the enactment of the Elkins Law and by the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor, including the Bureau of Corporations, had enabled us to make great strides in advance along the path of thus bringing the use of wealth in business under the supervision and regulation of the National Government-for, in actual practice, it has proved a sham and pretense to say that the several States can thus supervise and regulate it. The strides taken by the present Congress have been even longer in the right direction. The enactment of the Pure Food Bill and the passage of the bill which rendered effective the control of the Government over the meat-packing industries are really along the same general line as the passage of the Interstate Commerce Law, and are second only to it in importance.

Perhaps the peculiar merit of these laws is best shown by the fact that while they have aroused the deepest anger of the reactionaries, of the men who make a fetish of wealth, they have not satisfied the unwise extremists; and the present Congress, in achieving this merit, has acted in the exact spirit of Abraham Lincoln, who was never to be frightened out of going forward by the cries of those who feared progress, nor yet to be hurried into a precipitate advance by the demands of the crude-thinking, though often well-meaning, men who are not accustomed soberly to distinguish between phrasemaking and action. To the men who come in the latter category all we need say is to bid them possess their souls in peace. They have advocated action; but we have taken action; and the fact that this action has been sober and temperate has been in no small degree the cause of its far-reaching efficiency. To the former class-to the reactionaries, who seem to fear that to deal in proper fashion with the abuses of prop

erty is somehow an attack upon property-we would recall the words of Edmund Burke: "If wealth is obedient and laborious in the service of virtue and public honor, then wealth is in its place and has its use. But if this order is changed and honor is to be sacrificed to the conservation of riches, riches, which have neither eyes nor hands nor anything truly vital in them, cannot long survive the well-being of their legitimate masters. If we command our wealth we

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shall be rich and free. poor indeed."

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If our wealth commands us we are

In addition to thus dealing with the proper control of capitalistic wealth, Congress has also taken important steps in securing to the wage-workers certain great rights. At the session that has just closed, an employers' liability law was enacted which puts the National Government in its proper place as regards such legislation. An eight-hour law was already on the statute books; but, as is almost inevitable with such laws, there was at first great confusion as to whose duty it was among the different public officials to enforce it. This confusion has now been remedied and the law is in process of thorough enforcement. If this enforcement demonstrates the need of additional legislation to make this eighthour law effective, I shall ask for such legislation. I may add that next year I shall ask Congress to put in the permanent form of law the provision I have made by executive order for securing to the wage-workers under the Government half-holidays during the Summer months, just as regular holidays are now secured by law for the salaried clerical workers in the classified service. No Congress has ever more clearly shown its practical appreciation of the fact that the welfare of the wage-workers, and the welfare of the tillers of the soil, make the real basis of the welfare of the nation as a whole. We will do everything that can be done to further the interests of the farmer and the wage-worker; and this declaration is subject only to one reservation-which is, that for no man, and no body of men, will we do anything that is wrong. Our constant aim is to do justice to every man, and to treat each man as by his own actions he shows that he deserves to be treated. We favor the organization of labor, as we favor the organization of capital; but on condition that organized labor and organized capital alike act in a spirit of justice and fair dealing, and with due regard to both the letter and the spirit of the law. We heartily favor trades unions, and we recognize in them, as in corporations, when properly conducted, indispensable instruments in the economic life of the present day; but where either type of organization i guilty of abuse we do not propose to weaken the remedial pow ers of the Government to deal with such abuse. We are anx

ious to help, alike by law and by executive action, so far as in our power lies, every honest man, every right-dealing labor union, and, for the matter of that, every right-dealing corporation. But, as a corollary to this, we intend fearlessly and resolutely to uphold the law, and to strengthen it, so that we can put down wrong, whether done by rich or poor; if done by the most powerful corporation or the most influential labor union, just as much as if done by the humblest and least influential individual in the land. The fact that we heartily recognize an organization or a kind of organization as useful will not prevent our taking action to control it or to prevent its committing abuses when it uses in wrong fashion the power which organization confers.

The enactment into law of the bill removing the tax on alcohol used in the arts will ultimately be of marked benefit to us in more ways than one. It shows likewise the entire willingness of those responsible for the handling of the present Congress to alter our revenue system, whether derived by taxation on imports or internal taxation, whenever it is necessary so to do.

We stand unequivocally for a protective tariff, and we feel that the phenomenal industrial prosperity which we are now enjoying is not lightly to be jeopardized; for it would be to the last degree foolish to secure here and there a small benefit at the cost of general business depression. But whenever ■a given rate or schedule becomes evidently disadvantageous to the nation, because of the changes which go on from year to year in our conditions, and where it is feasible to change this rate or schedule without too much dislocation of the system, it will be done; while a general revision of the rates and schedules will be undertaken whenever it shall appear to the sober business sense of our people that, on the whole, the benefits to be derived from making such changes will outweigh the disadvantages; that is, when the revision will do more good than harm. Let me add one word of caution, however. The question of revising the tariff stands wholly apart from the question of dealing with the so-called "trusts”— that is, with the control of monopolies and with the supervision of great wealth in business, especially in corporate form. The only way in which it is possible to deal with those trusts and monopolies and this great corporate wealth is by action along the line of the laws enacted by the present Congress and its immediate predecessors. The cry that the problem can be met by any changes in the tariff represents, whether consciously or unconsciously, an effort to divert the public attention from the only method of taking effective action.

I shall not pretend to enumerate all the good measures of

less importance which the present Congress has enacted into law, although some of these measures, as, for instance, the Consular Bill and the Naturalization Bill, are of wide-reaching effect. I have said enough to show why, in my judgment, you and your colleagues are entitled to the good wishes of all those American citizens who believe that there are real evils in our industrial and economic system, and that these evils can be effectively grappled with-not by loose declamation, but by resolute and intelligent legislation and executive action. Sincerely yours,

(Signed)

Hon. James E. Watson, M.C.,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Rushville, Ind.

Uncle Joe Cannon's new platform: "Put none but homemade cake in the pantry."

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