MR. ROOSEVELT ON "FORCES OF EVIL."

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 151, 20 March 1908, Page 4

MR. ROOSEVELT ON "FORCES OF EVIL."

DENUNCIATION OF TRUSTS. SAPPING AMERICA'S MORALS!" ' Mr; Roosevelt sent a stinging Message to Congress early in February denouncing with a vehemence ho, has never yet equalled dishonesty in business and tho misdeeds of the great Trusts, several of which 110 named, and proposing sweeping measures of reform. .' He suggests that tho Inter-State' Com■morco Commission should be empowered to pass a veto upon any rate or practice of a railroad.' Railroads should no longer -be allowed to issuo stock's and bonds, save in tho manlier approved by the Federal Government. Laws should be framed for the supervision of all big Intor-State businesses. "It is possible, and certainly desirable, that measures should be taken to prevent least the grosser forms of gambling in securities and commodities, such as making largo sales of what men do not posses and 'cornering' a market. .. There is no moral difference 'between, gambling at cards,-in lotteries, and on the race-track, and gambling on the stock market. , TO STOP STOCK GAMBLING. . "It would seom'that the Federal Government could at least act . by forbidding the uso of tho mails and telegraph and telophono wires .for mere gambling in stocks and futures, just as it docs in tho caso of lottery transactions." ■ Noting that officers .of the Standard Oil Company'and of tho Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fo Railroad, after .a heavy fine had been 'infljeted on those concerns for rebato transactions, came out with widely circulated statements . protesting their innocence ■ and denouncing as- impropor tho ■ action of' tho courts in convicting them, Mr... Roosevelt declares that the .'attacks' upon the Administration's policy • cmanato , from purchased politicians and purchased newspapers. "They are but puppets which move wheii tho strings are pulled.' ' It is not tho puppets, but strong, cunning men and, mighty forces for evil behind those puppots, with which wo have to deal.

" The. kejnoto of, all these attacks is well expressed in the braxon protests against any offort ; for tho 4 moral -regeneration of tho business world on' the ground that it is unnatural,; unwarranted, and injurious, and that a-'business-panic is tho necessary, of such an offort. If. such words irieah anything, they mean that those whoso;, sentiments they represent stand against tho i bring about tho-.moral regeneration' of business which would prevont {a repeti-, 1 jtioii, of tho insuranco, : banking,' and street railroad scandals in' New .'York, aropetition of the Chicago and-Alton deal, a repc•tition of ..the''effort of tho Standard Oil people 'to crush out every competitor, to ; overawo I common, cavricvs,- and to establish - a monopoly .that, treats the' public. wjtli' the contempt' which tho ' liublic' deserves so long as ' it permits such principles to act on it with j impunity.

MILLIONAIRES) AND FELONS. '•'Just as the blackmailer and bribe-giver stand on the same oyil'.'ominence of infamy, so the.man who 'makes-an enormous fortune by corrupting legislatures and municipalities and fleecing stockholders and the public stands on. tho same moral level with tile creature .who .fattens,ion thb blood money of the gambling-houso saloon. '' "Both kinds of corruption are far more intimately connected than would appear at first sight-. Corrupt.'business and corrupt politics act and react with ever-increasing debasement ono on tho oth'or. A business which is hurt, by the movement for honesty is the kind of business which in tho long run it pays.tho country to liavo hurt." ■ In the .House of Representatives the Democrats received tho President's Message with every manifestation of approbation, cheering, laughing, ' applauding, and slapping their knees.

After the reading of tho Message in tho Senate, Senator Jefferson Davis, of Arkansas, declared ■ that it was the host Democratic document ever issued by a Republican President.