Show 1 ROOSEVELT GIVES HIS I 1 VIEWS OP THE TRUSTS milwaukee wit april 4 president roosevelt waff tho guest of tho milwaukee SIer chants and association at a banquet plankinton house last night the occasion being the climax of the presidents ten hours lisit to covers acro laid for representative citizens after tho banquet biad been served wadhams introduced arca ident who lo 10 tho toast the president of the united tho president took this occasion to gie his aws on the subject of trusts and spoke as follows sir toastmaster gentlemen today I 1 wih to speak to you on the question of the control and regulation ot choso great corporations which are popularly although rather vaguely known aa trusts dealing mostly with what lias actually been accomplished in the way of legislation and in the way of enforcement of legislation during the past eighteen the period covering the two sessions of the fifty seventh congress at the outset I 1 shall ask you to remember that I 1 do not the either from the standpoint of those who sak of themselves as antitrust or anti corporation people nor yet from the standpoint at those who are fond of denying the existence of evils in trusts or who apparently proceed upon the assumption that if a corporation is large enough it can do no wrong J think I 1 speak for the greater majority 0 the american people alien I 1 ay that we are not in the least against wealth as such whether individual or corporate that we merely desire to see any abu se of corporate or combined wealth corrected and remedied we do not desire the abolition or destruction of big corporations but on the contrary recognize them as being in many cases economic instruments the results ot an inevitable process of economic evolution and only desire to see them and controlled so far as may bo necessary to alie public good we should be false to tho historic principles of our government if we discriminated either by legislation or administration either for or against a man because ot either liis w balth or his poverty there is no proper place in our society either for the rich man who aies the power conferred by his riches to enable him to oppress and wrong ats neighbor nor yet for the demagogic agitator who instead ot attacking abuses as all abuses should be attacked wherever found attacks property attacks prosperity attacks men of wealth as such whether they be good or bad attacks corporations whether they do well or ill and seeks in a spirit of ignorant rancor to overthrow tho very foundations upon which rest our national well being in consequence of extraordinary industrial du changes of last half century and notably of the last two or oliree decades changes duo mainly to the rapidity and complexity of our industrial growth we are wn fronted with problems which in their present shape were unknown lo 10 our forefathers our great prosperity with its accompanying concentration 0 population and of wealtha its extreme specialization of faculties and ats of giuin industrial leader haai brought much good and mime evil and it is as foo lisTi to ignore the good as willfully to blind ourselves to the evil tho evil lias been partly the inevitable accompaniment fit the social changes and where this is tha it can bo neither by law nor by the administration of law t lin only remedy lying in the filow change of character and of economic environment but fora portion of the evil at least w think that remedies an be found we know well the of fale aid we aro against all violent radical and unwise changes but wo believe that by proceeding slowly yet resolutely with good we and moderation and also with a firm determination not to be swerved from conr course cither iby fool ih clamor or by any base or sinister influence we can accomplish much ifor the betterment of conditions nearly two years ago speaking at the state fair in minnesota Minne Aota I 1 mid it s probably true that the large majority of the fortunes now exist in this country hac been amassed not by injuring our people but as an incident to the conferring of great benefits upon the community ani tin no matter what may have been the on w ious purpose of those am amazing aging bliem is but alus justification for of the outcry against iha men of wealth as such and it ought to bo unnecessary to state that adv appeal which directly or indirectly acad i to MIS dicion aid hatred among which tends lo 10 limit opportunity and therefore to eliut the door of against poor men of talent and finally lh possibility of laslea nb ab and violence i an attak upon the properties of american citizenship our interests are at bottom common in ih e long run we go up or go down yet more and more it is evident that the taip and if n the notion lim pot to howess the right of supervision and on arol atti re bearda arda great corporations which arc ita creatures particularly sn the great combinations which derive a of their importance from the existence of some monopolistic po listic tendency alio right should bo exercised with caution and belf re but it exist BO may bo invoked it the need arises dast fall in sneaking nl cincinnati I 1 said alio necessary supervision and control in which I 1 firmly believe as the only method of eliminating the real elili ot the trust must coan through wisely and ic gia tion which shall aim in the fart place to give definite control c sov over the great corporations and which shall bc followed when once this power has been conferred by a system giving to the government alic full know 1 edge which is the essential for mals factory action alien when this knowledge one of the essential features ol 01 which is proper publicity has been gained what further steps of any kind arc necessary can bo taken with the confidence born of the possession of power to deal with the subject and of a thorough knowledge of aliat should and can bo done in the matter we need additional power and wo need knowledge such legislation whether obtainable BOW or obtainable only after a constitutional tut ional amendment should provide for a reasonable supervision the most prominent feature of which ot first should be publicity that is the making public bogli to the government authorities and to the people at large the essential facts in luch the public is concerned thia would gac us exact knowledge of many points which are not only in doubt but the subject of fierce controversy tro versy moreover the mere fact the publication would cure some very grave ev ils for the light of day i a deterrent to wrongdoing it would doubtless disclose other evils with which for the time being we could devise noway to grapple finally it would disclose others which could be grappled with and cured by further legislative action in luy message ito congress for 1001 I 1 said in the interest of the whole people the nation should without interfering with the power 0 tho tates in the matter itself also assume power of supervision and regulation over all eions doing an interstate business the views thus have now received direct by the wise conservative and yet far reaching legislation enacted by congress at its last session in its wisdom congress enacted the very important law providing a department of commerce and labor and fur there providing therein under the secretary of commerce and labor for a commissioner of corporations charged with the duty of supervision of and of making intelligent into the organization and conduct of corporations engaged in interstate commerce llis lowers to expose illegal or hurtful practices and to obtain all information needful for the purposes of further intelligent legislation beleiu adequate and the publicity justifiable and proper for public pur posca if satisfactorily guaranteed alie law was passed at the very end of alie session of congress Con grebs owing to the lateness of its passage condrea Con greA was not able to provide proper equipment for the new department and the first few months must necessarily be spent in iab work of organization and tho first investigations must mu st necessarily be of a tentative character the development of such a system requires time and great labor those who arc in trusted with the administration of the new law will administer it in a spirit of absolute cairne fa irne and jus tice and of entire fearlessness with the firm purpose not to hurt any corporation doing a legitimate on the contrary to help it and on tho other hand not to spare any corporation which may he guilty of illegal practices or the methods of which may make it a menace to the public welfare some substantial good will bo done in the immediate future and as the department gets fairly to work under the law an ever larger vista for good work will bo opened along jho lines indicated the enactment of this law is one of the most significant contributions which have been made in our time toward the proper solution of the problem of the relations to tho people of tho great abiona and corporate combinations but much though this is it is only a part of what lias been done in alic effort to ascertain and correct improper trust or monopolistic practice some eighteen months ago the industrial commission an able and nonparty an body reported to congress the result of their investigation of trusts and industrial combination one of the most important of their conclusions was that discriminations crimi nations in freight rates and facilities were granted favored shippers by the railroads and that these discriminations clearly tended toward the control of production and prices in miny fields of business by large combinations that this conclusion aoa justifiably was shown by the disclosures in the investigation of railroad methods pursued in the jail and winter of loob 1 11 was then shown that certain trunk anra had entered into unlawful as to alic transportation of food pro ducts from tho west to tho Atlantic sea board giving afew chipoc belov the tariff ahw imposed upon tha smaller dealers and tho general ru lic these unjust practices irad aliea to such an extent and for fco long a that many of the smaller shippers had been driven out of antl practically one anver of grain on caan railway sherem had boon able by legal advantage to acure a monopoly on the line with which his compact was made this monopoly enabling him to fix tho to both producer and consumer mandof the great packing house concerns arro shown to no in combination with each other and with inose great railway lines whereby they enjoyed large secret concessions in rates and thus obtained a practical monopoly of tl fresh and cured meat industry of the country these fusions though uola tive of the statute had prevailed unchecked for so many years that hey had become entrenched in trenched in and interwoven the commercial life of certain large distributing localities although this was of course at the expense ot the vast body of law abiding merchants the general public and particularly of localities under those circumstances it wasa serious problem to determine the wise course to follow in vitalizing a law which had in part become obsolete or proved incapable of enforcement of what the attorney general did in enforcing it I 1 s ha it speak later the decisions of the courts upon the law had betrayed weaknesses and imperfections some of them so serious as to render abortive to apply any effective remedy for the existing evils it is clear that corporations created for quasi public purposes clothed for that reason with tho ultimate power of the state to fake private property against alie will of the owner leold their corporate powers as carriers in tant fo the fairly impartial service of all the pubic in ane uso of euch powers unjustly enriching some and unjustly discriminating in favor of amo auces puces and against others if palpably viola tyve of plain principles bf justice such a practice unchecked is hurtful in many ways congress having had its attention drawn to the matter enacted a most important anti rebate law which greatly strengthens alie interstate commerce law this new law prohibits under adequate penalties the giving and as well tho demanding or receiving of such preferences feren ces and provides alic preventive remedy of injunction the vigorous id ministration of this law and it will be enforced will ibi hoped afford a substantial remedy for certain triet evils which have attracted public attention and have created public unrest alus law re presAs a noteworthy and important advance inward just and effective regulation of transportation moreover its pa s ago lias been supplemented by alio of a law to expedite the hearing of actions of public moment under ho antitrust anti trust act known as tho sharman jaw and under the act to regulate commerce at the rc quest of the borney general and furthermore have been appropriated to be expended under the direction of alie attorney general in the enforcement of these laws all of this represents a great and substantial Tad vanco jn legislation but more important even allun legislation is tiro tid ministration of the liw and I 1 nay in which the law has been administered by the profound jurist and fear leai public servant who now occupies the petition of attorney rai gene mr knox the enjoins he president that he ahall take upon that the laws be faithfully care executed and under this tho attorney ren arai formulated a policy which wa in aab your attention for a moment to the effect nothing but the rigid suits managed with consummate skill and ability both of the antitrust anti trust law and of the of hie act to regulate commerce provisions tho first step taken was tho tion of fourteen suite the principal railroads of the diddle west restraining them by injunction from further sola lions of cither of the laws in question about the same time tho cabe against tho securities company wag initiated this hafl corporation organized under the fewa of the of bew jersey with of four hundred million dollars the alleged purpose being to control the great northern and tho orthof pacific railroad conini cs two parallel aind competing linca extending across the northern of states from the mississippi river to the pacific ocean whatever the purpose its consummation would have resulted in the control of the two great railway systems upon which the people of the northwestern stoles were so largely dependent for their supplies and to get their products to market being practically hersca into the bew jersey corporation the eliat those independent systems of should bal merged under a dinglo control alarmed the people ot alic states concerned lest they be to what they deemed a monopoly of interstate transportation por tation and the suppression of competition the governor the states moat deeply affected held n meeting to consider how to prevent the merger becoming effective and pas d resolutions calling upon the national government to enforce the anti laws against the alleged combination when these resolutions were referred to the attorney general for consideration and advice he reported that in his opinion the northern securities company and ita control of the railroads mentioned was a combination in restraint of frado and was attempting n monopoly in violation of the national antitrust anti trust law thereupon a suit in equity which is now pending was begun by the government to test tho validity of this transaction under the fi herman law at nearly the same t nue the disclosures respecting the awret rebates enjoyed by the great packing bouso companies coupled with the very hi gh g h price of meats led tho attorney general to direct an investigation into the methods of the so called beef trust the ref ulac waa that he filed bills for injunction against six of tho principal packing house companies and restrained them from combining and upon prices at which they would sell their products in states other than chosso in which their meats prepared for market writs of injunction were issued accordingly and since then after |