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Show PROGRESSIVE BIRTHDAY Theodore Roosevelt Sounds the Keynote of the New Party's Policies Answers Recent Re-cent Magazine Article By President Wilson Newport, R. T, July 2 "The demand de-mand in the first national platform of ih Progressive party for regulation regula-tion of corporations and combinations lo 'insure their -doing justice to their rivals, to their customers and lo their employes' has been emphasized Theodore Theo-dore Roosevelt declared this afternoon it the clam bake which opened the national conference of the Progres-s)e Progres-s)e party, by what has occurred since election lu the West Virginia bituminous bitum-inous coal fields. In opening his speech, Colonel Roosevelt pointed to the Progressive platform upon which he ran for the presidency last fall as a document which upholders of social and Industrial Indus-trial justice in the future will recognize recog-nize as one of the great documents of American political history. From It he cited to demands the first that the national government undertake on a gigantic scale the work of harnessing har-nessing the flood waters of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, using for that purpose the outfit that has been used in the construction of the Panama canal. The second demand already referred to. Colonel Roosevelt dwelt uoon at considerable length. He ouoted from court decisions and declared de-clared that he wished that he could make the men of property understand that In fighting such decisions and such conditions In West Virginia he was fighting against anarchy in favor of law and order and tor property "The utter utility of the plan of action, ac-tion, or rather non-action, advocated in both the Republican and Democratic Democrat-ic platforms, last year and christened by President Wilson with magniloquent magnilo-quent vagueness ' The new freedom" har been strikingly shown by what has thvis occurred in West Virginia," Colonel Roosevelt declared. "The new freedom" is nothing whatever but the right of the strong to prey on the weak, the big to crush the little men and to shield their Iniquity beneath the crv that they are exercising freedom." free-dom." Colonel Roosevelt s speech this afternoon af-ternoon sounded the keynote of the Progressie policies and opened the dhision of party ideals and Ideas that will continue two days. Referring again to President Wilson's article on "the new freedom" Colonel Roose-el Roose-el siiid: "A careful study of the articles thai have appeared by President Wilson Wil-son dealing with this subject since he was president has left me somewhat some-what puzzled as to what he really does mean, but of course I assume that there must be meaning, and if ;hls assumption is warranted then 'the qi w .freedom' means nothing what-. what-. v. r but the old Ucem;e translated into in-to terms of pleasant rhetoric " Dealing with the regulation of cor porations and combinations and using us-ing the West Virginia strike as the basis for his arguments for the adoption adop-tion of progressive principles, Colonel Roosevelt said in part: "What Ib needed Is the thorough rooting out of the conditions which iMwuKiM auom ine areaoiui stare oi affairs In the West Virginia bituminous bitum-inous fields In the district where the rioting has occurred the employ-in employ-in operators have endeavored to keep the miners in a state of practical prac-tical serfage by the use of the company com-pany stores. This fact has been recognized rec-ognized and the practice forbidden in most civilized countries; in England Eng-land for instance legislation was passed pass-ed forbidding this practice more than 7n years ago'. "Our proposal is to put the government govern-ment acting for the general public in buch shape that it will not ask justice, as a favor but demand It as a right which it Is ready and able to enforce. The constitution belongs to the people peo-ple and not the people to the constitution; con-stitution; and the courts are the servants of the people precisely as is true of all other public servants, legislative leg-islative and executive alike. It is for the people and not the courts to say whether we shall have such laws in the Interest of social and industrial justice, acts providing for cash payment pay-ment in wages and abolishing these company stores. "In the words of braham Lincoln, we propose that the people shall control con-trol both the legislators and the courts, not to pervert the constitution, constitu-tion, but to overthrow those who themselves pervert the constitution into an Instrument for perpetuating injustice, Instead of making it what It must and shall be made, the most effective of all possible means for securing se-curing to the people of the whole country the right everywhere to create cre-ate conditions which will tend for the i pllft of the ordinary, the average men, women and children of the United States." |