The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. Wheeler P. Bloodgood
law was practically a dead letter and the interstate commerce law in as poor a condition. I had to revive both laws. I did. I enforced both. It will be easy enough to do now what I did then, but the reason that it is easy now is because I did it when it was hard. (Applause and cheers.)
"Nobody was doing anything. I found speedily that the interstate commerce law by being made more perfect could be a most useful instrument for helping solve some of our industrial problems with the anti-trust law. I speedily found that almost the only positive good achieved by such a successful lawsuit as the Northern Securities suit, for instance, was for establishing the principle that the government was supreme over the big corporation, but that by itself, or that law did not do—did not accomplish any of the things that we ought to have accomplished, and so I began to fight for the amendment of the law along the lines of the interstate commerce, and now we propose, we progressives, to establish an interstate commission having the same power over industrial concerns that the interstate commerce commission has over railroads, so that whenever there is in the future a decision rendered in such important matters as the recent suits against the Standard Oil, the sugar—no, not that—tobacco—the tobacco trust—we will have a commission which will see that the decree of the court is really made effective; that it is not made a merely nominal decree.
"Our opponents have said that we intend to legalize monopoly. Nonsense. They have legalized monopoly. At this moment the Standard Oil and Tobacco trust monopolies are legalized; they are being carried on under the decree of the Supreme Court. (Applause.)
"Our proposal is really to break up monopoly. Our proposal is to put in the law—to lay down certain requirements and then require the commerce commission—the industrial commission to see that the trusts live up to those requirements. Our opponents have spoken as if we were going to let the commission declare what the requirements should be. Not at all. We are going to put the requirements in the law and then see that the commission makes the trust. (Interruption.) You see they don't trust me. (Laughter.) That the commission requires them to obey that law.
"And now, friends, as Mr. Wilson has invited the comparison I only want to say this: Mr. Wilson has said that the states are the proper authorities to deal with the trusts. Well, about 80 per cent of the trusts are organized in New Jersey. The Standard Oil, the tobacco, the sugar, the beef, all those trusts are organized in New Jersey and Mr. Wilson—and the laws of New Jersey say that their charters can at any time be amended or repealed if they misbehave themselves and it gives the government—the laws give the government ample power to act about those laws and Mr. Wilson has been governor a year and nine months and he has not opened his lips. (Applause and cheers.) The chapter describing of what Mr. Wilson has done about the trusts in New Jersey would read precisely like a chapter describing the snakes in Ireland, which ran: 'There are no snakes in Ireland.' (Laughter and applause.) Mr. Wilson has done precisely and exactly nothing about the trusts.
"I tell you and I told you at the beginning I do not say anything on the stump that I do not believe. I do not say anything I do not know. Let any of Mr. Wilson's friends on Tuesday point out one thing or let Mr. Wilson point out one thing he has done about the trusts as governor of New Jersey. (Applause.)
"And now, friends, I want to say one special thing here——"
(Col. Roosevelt turned to the table upon the stage to reach for his manuscript, but found it in the hands of some one upon the stage. He demanded it back with the words: "Teach them not to grab," which provoked laughter.)
"And now, friends, there is one thing I want to say specially to you people here in Wisconsin. All that I have said so far is what I would say in any part of this union. I have a peculiar right to ask that in this great contest you men and women of Wisconsin shall stand with us. (Applause.) You have taken the lead in progressive movements here in Wisconsin. You have taught the rest of us to look to you for inspiration and leadership. Now, friends, you have made that movement here locally. You will be doing a dreadful injustice to yourselves; you will be doing a dreadful injustice to the rest of us throughout this union if you fail to stand with us now that we are making this national movement (applause) and what I am about to say now I want you to understand if I speak of Mr. Wilson I speak with no mind of bitterness. I merely want to discuss the difference of policy between the progressive and the democratic party and to ask you to think for yourselves which party you will follow. I will say that, friends, because the republican party is beaten. Nobody need to have any idea that anything can be done with the republican party. (Cheers and applause.)
John Flammang Schrank.
"When the republican party—not the republican party—when the bosses in the control of the republican party, the Barneses and Penroses last June stole the nomination and wrecked the republican party for good and all. (Applause.) I want to point out to you, nominally, they stole that nomination from me, but really it was from you. (Applause.) They did not like me and the longer they live the less cause they will have to like me. (Applause and laughter.) But while they do not like me, they dread you. You are the people that they dread. They dread the people themselves, and those bosses and the big special interests behind them made up their mind that they would rather see the republican party wrecked than see it come under the control of the people themselves. So I am not dealing with the republican party. There are only two ways you can vote this year. You can be progressive or reactionary. Whether you vote republican or democratic it does not make any difference, you are voting reactionary." (Applause.)
Col. Roosevelt stopped to take a drink of water and the doctors remonstrated with him to stop talking, to which he replied: "It is getting to be better and better as time goes on. (Turning to the audience) If these doctors don't behave themselves I won't let them look at me at all." (Laughter and applause.)
"Now the democratic party in its platform and through the utterances of Mr. Wilson has distinctly committed itself to old flintlock, muzzle loaded doctrine of states right and I have said distinctly that we are for the people's right. We are for the rights of the people. If they can be obtained best through the national government, then we are for national rights. We are for the people's rights however it is necessary to secure them.
"Mr. Wilson has made a long essay against Senator Beveridge's bill to abolish child labor. It is the same kind of an argument that would be made against our bill to prohibit women from working more than eight hours a day in industry. It is the same kind of argument that would have to be made, if it is true, it would apply equally against our proposal to insist that in continuous industries there shall be by law one day's rest in seven and a three-shift eight hour day. You have labor laws here in Wisconsin, and any Chamber of Commerce will tell you that because of that fact there are industries that will not come into Wisconsin. They prefer to stay outside where they can work children of tender years; where they can work women fourteen and sixteen hours a day, where, if it is a continuous industry, they can work men twelve hours a day and seven days a week.
"Now, friends, I know that you of Wisconsin would never repeal those laws even if they are to your commercial hurt, just as I am trying to get New York to adopt such laws even though it will be to New York's commercial hurt. But if possible, I want to arrange it so that we can have justice without commercial hurt, and you can only get that if you have justice enforced nationally. You won't be burdened in Wisconsin with industries not coming to the state if the same good laws are extended all over the other states. (Applause.) Do you see what I mean? The states all compete in a common market and it is not justice to the employers of a state that has enforced just and proper laws to have them exposed to the competition of another state where no such laws are enforced. Now the democratic platform, their speaker declares that we shall not have such laws. Mr. Wilson has distinctly declared that you shall not have a national law to prohibit the labor of children, to prohibit child labor. He has distinctly declared that we shall not have law to establish a minimum wage for women.
"I ask you to look at our declaration and hear and read our platform about social and industrial justice and then, friends, vote for the progressive ticket without regard to me, without regard to my personality, for only by voting for that platform can you be true to the cause of progress