 | Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 |  |
III
AT SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON, AUGUST 25, 1902
Governor Crane, Mayor Collins, men and women of Boston:
I want to take up this evening the general question of
our economic and social relations, with specific reference
to that problem with which I think our people are now
greatly concerning themselves—the problem of our complex
social condition as intensified by the existence of the
great corporations which we rather loosely designate as
trusts. I have not come here to say that I have discovered
a patent cure-all for any evils. When people's
minds are greatly agitated on any subject, and
especially when they feel deeply but rather vaguely
that conditions are not right, it is far pleasanter in addressing
them to be indifferent as to what you promise;
but it is much less pleasant afterwards, when you come
to try to carry out what has been promised. Of course
the worth of a promise consists purely in the way in
which the performance squares with it. That has two
sides. In the first place, if a man is an honest man he
will try just as hard to keep a promise made on the
stump as one made off the stump. In the second place,
if the people keep their heads they won't wish promises
to be made which are impossible of performance. You
see, one side of that question represents my duty, and
the other side yours.
Mankind goes ahead but slowly, and it goes ahead
mainly through each of us trying to do the best that is in
our republic upon the theory that the average man will,
as a rule, do the right thing, that in the long run the majority
will decide for what is sane and wholesome. If our
fathers were mistaken in that theory, if ever the times
become such—not occasionally but persistently—that the
mass of the people do what is unwholesome, what is
wrong, then the republic cannot stand, I care not how
good its laws, I care not what marvellous mechanism its
Constitution may embody. Back of the laws, back of the
administration, back of the system of government lies
the man, lies the average manhood of our people, and in
the long run we are going to go up or go down accordingly
as the average standard of our citizenship does or
does not wax in growth and grace.
The first requisite of good citizenship is that the man
shall do the homely, every-day, humdrum duties well.
A man is not a good citizen, I do not care how lofty his
thoughts are about citizenship in the abstract, if in the
concrete his actions do not bear them out; and it does
not make much difference how high his aspirations for
mankind at large may be, if he does not behave well in
his own family those aspirations do not bear visible fruit.
He must be a good breadwinner, he must take care of his
wife and his children, he must be a neighbor whom his
neighbors can trust, he must act squarely in his business
relations,—he must do all these every-day, ordinary
duties first, or he is not a good citizen. But he must do
more. In this country of ours the average citizen must
devote a good deal of thought and time to the affairs of
the State as a whole or those affairs will go backward;
and he must devote that thought and that time steadily
and intelligently. If there is any one quality that is not
admirable, whether in a nation or in an individual, it is
hysterics, either in religion or in anything else. The
man or woman who makes up for ten days' indifference
duty is of scant use in the world. Now in the same way
it is of no possible use to decline to go through all the
ordinary duties of citizenship for a long space of time and
then suddenly to get up and feel very angry about something
or somebody, not clearly defined, and demand reform,
as if it was a concrete substance to be handed out
forthwith.
This is preliminary to what I want to say to you about
the whole question of great corporations as affecting the
public. There are very many and very difficult problems
with which we are faced as the results of the forces which
have been in play for more than the lifetime of a generation.
It is worse than useless for any of us to rail at or
regret the great growth of our industrial civilization during
the last half century. Speaking academically, we
can, according to our several temperaments, regret that
the old days with the old life have vanished, or not, just
as we choose; but we are here to-night only because of
the play of those great forces. There is but little use in
regretting that things have been shaping themselves differently
from what we might have preferred. The practical
thing to do is to face the conditions as they are and
see if we cannot get the best there is in them out of them.
Now we shall not get a complete or perfect solution for
all of the evils attendant upon the development of the
trusts by any single action on our part. A good many
actions in a good many different ways will be required
before we get many of those evils even partially remedied.
We must first of all think clearly; we must probably experiment
somewhat; we must above all show by our
actions that our interest is permanent and not spasmodic;
and we must see that all proper steps are taken toward
the solution. Now of course all this is perfectly trite.
Every one who thinks knows that the only way in which
any problem of great importance was ever successfully
given end—effort that did not cease with any one election
or with any one year, but was continued steadily, temperately,
but resolutely, toward a given end. It is a little
difficult to set clearly before us all of the evils attendant
upon the working of some of our great corporations, but
I think that those gentlemen, and especially those gentlemen
of large means, who deny that the evils exist, are
acting with great folly. So far from being against property
when I ask that the question of the trusts be taken
up, I am acting in the most conservative sense in property's
interest. When a great corporation is sued for
violating the anti-trust law, it is not a move against
property, it is a move in favor of property, because
when we make it evident that all men, great and small
alike, have to obey the law, we put the safeguard of the
law around all men. When we make it evident that no
man shall be excused for violating the law, we make it
evident that every man will be protected from violations
of the law.
Now one of the great troubles—I am inclined to think
much the greatest trouble—in any immediate handling
of the question of the trusts comes from our system of
government. Under this system it is difficult to say
where the power is lodged to deal with these evils. Remember
that I am not saying that even if we had all the
power we could completely solve the trust question. If
what we read in the papers is true, international trusts
are now being planned. It is going to be very difficult
for any set of laws on our part to deal completely with
the problem which becomes international in its bearings.
But a great deal can be done in various ways even now—
a great deal is being done, and a great deal more can be
done—if we see that the power is lodged somewhere to do
it. On the whole, our system of government has worked
marvellously well—the system of divided functions of
Louisiana, Oregon, Idaho, New York, Illinois, South
Carolina, can all come together for certain purposes, and
yet each be allowed to work out its salvation as it desires
along certain other lines. On the whole this has worked
well, but in some respects it has worked ill. While I most
firmly believe in fixity of policy, I do not believe that that
policy should be fossilized, and when conditions change we
must change our governmental methods to meet them. I
believe with all my heart in the New England town meeting,
but you can't work the New England town meeting
in Boston—it is too big. You must devise something else.
If you look back in the history of Boston you will find that
Boston was very reluctant to admit this particular truth for
some time in the first decades of the nineteenth century.
When this Government was founded there were no great
individual or corporate fortunes, and commerce and industry
were being carried on very much as they had been
carried on in the days when Nineveh and Babylon stood
in the Mesopotamian Valley. Sails, oars, wheels—these
were the instruments of commerce. The pack-train, the
wagon-train, the rowboat, the sailing craft—these were
the methods of commerce. Everything has been revolutionized
in the business world since then, and the progress
of civilization from being a dribble has become a torrent.
There was no particular need at that time of bothering
as to whether the Nation or the State had control of corporations.
They were easy to control. Now, however,
the exact reverse is the case. And remember when I
say corporations I do not mean merely trusts, technically
so-called, merely combinations of corporations, or corporations
under certain peculiar conditions. For instance,
some time ago the Attorney-General took action against
a certain trust. There was considerable discussion as to
whether the trust aimed at would not seek to get out
from under the law by becoming a single corporation.
evil no matter what shape it takes. I want to see the
Government able to get at it definitely, so that the action
of the Government cannot be evaded by any turning
within or without Federal or State statutes. At
present we have really no efficient control over a big corporation
which does business in more than one State.
Frequently the corporation has nothing whatever to do
with the State in which it is incorporated except to get
incorporated; and all its business may be done in entirely
different communities—communities which may object
very much to the methods of incorporation in the State
named. I do not believe that you can get any action by
any State, I do not believe it practicable to get action
by all the States that will give us satisfactory control of
the trusts, of big corporations; and the result is at present
that we have a great, powerful, artificial creation which
has no creator to which it is responsible. The creator
creates it and then it goes and operates somewhere else,
and there is no interest on the part of the creator to deal
with it. It does not do anything where the creator has
power; it operates entirely outside of the creator's jurisdiction.
It is, of course, a mere truism to say that the corporation
is the creature of the State, that the State is
sovereign. There should be a real and not a nominal
sovereign, some one sovereign to which the corporation
shall be really and not nominally responsible.
At present if we pass laws nobody can tell whether
they will amount to anything. That has two bad effects.
In the first place, the corporation becomes indifferent
to the law-making body; and in the next place,
the law-making body gets into that most pernicious
custom of passing a law not with reference to what
will be done under it, but with reference to its effects
upon the opinions of the voters. That is a bad thing.
with reference to whether that law will do good or ill,
but with the knowledge that not much will come of it,
and yet that perhaps the people as a whole will like to
see it on the statute books—it does not speak well for
the lawmakers and it does not speak well for the people
either. What I hope to see is power given to the national
legislature which shall make the control real. It would
be an excellent thing if you could have all the States act
on somewhat similar lines so that you would make it unnecessary
for the National Government to act; but all of
you know perfectly well that the States will not act on
similar lines. No advance whatever has been made in
the direction of intelligent dealing by the States as a
collective body with these great corporations. Here in
Massachusetts you have what I regard as on the whole
excellent corporation laws. Most of our difficulties would
be in a fair way of solution if we had the power to put
upon the national statute books, and did put upon them,
laws for the nation much like those you have here on the
subject of corporations in Massachusetts. So you can
see, gentlemen, I am not advocating anything very revolutionary.
I am advocating action to prevent anything
revolutionary. Now if we can get adequate control by
the nation of these great corporations, then we can pass
legislation which will give us the power of regulation and
supervision over them. If the nation had that power,
mind you, I should advocate as strenuously as I knew
how that the power should be exercised with extreme
caution and self-restraint. No good will come from
plunging in without having looked carefully ahead. The
first thing we want is publicity; and I do not mean publicity
as a favor by some corporations—I mean it as a
right from all corporations affected by the law. I want
publicity as to the essential facts in which the public has an
interest. I want the knowledge given to the accredited
representatives can if they see fit base their actions later.
The publicity itself would cure many evils. The light of
day is a great deterrer of wrong-doing. The mere fact of
being able to put out nakedly and with the certainty that
the statements were true a given condition of things
that was wrong, would go a long distance toward curing
that wrong; and even where it did not cure it it would
make the path evident by which to cure it. We would
not be leaping in the dark; we would not be striving
blindly to see what was good and what bad. We would
know what the facts were and be able to shape our course
accordingly.
A good deal can be done now, a good deal is being done
now. As far as the anti-trust laws go they will be enforced.
No suit will be undertaken for the sake of seeming
to undertake it. Every suit that is undertaken will
be begun because the great lawyer and upright man whom
we are fortunate enough to have as Attorney-General,
Mr. Knox, believes that there is a violation of the law
which we can get at; and when the suit is undertaken it
will not be compromised except upon the basis that the
Government wins. Of course, gentlemen, no laws amount
to anything unless they are administered honestly and
fearlessly. We must have such administration or the law
will amount to nothing. I believe that it is possible to
frame national legislation which shall give us far more
power than we now have, at any rate over corporations
doing an interstate business. I cannot guarantee that,
because in the past it has more than once happened that
we have put laws on the statute books which those who
made them intended to mean one thing, and when they
came up for decision by the courts it was found that the
intention had not been successfully put into effect. But
I believe that additional legislation can be had. If my
belief is wrong, if it proves evident that we cannot under
sufficient power to deal with these great corporations,
then, no matter what our reverence for the past, our duty
to the present and the future will force us to see that
some power is conferred upon the National Government.
And when that power has been conferred, then it will
rest with the National Government to exercise it.
| Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 | |