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JUNE' 9kl 908
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The Commoner.
9
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'The Good and Bad of the President's Polici
lcies
Written by W. B. Fleming and published in
the Arena for December, 1907.
That' good has come out of the administra-,
tion of President Roosevelt is evident from the
popular approval accorded it.
The public declaration of the president that
under no circumstances would he accept a third
term, marked the beginning of this approval.
His friendly offices in the settlement of the
Russo-Japanese war made him a world figure,
and gave him more prestige at home than all
of his "big stick" performances in connection
with our army and navy.
The steps taken to preserve the public lands
and mineral wealth from private despoliation
has met with universal praise.
His public utterances against plutocratic
domination and the menace of predatory wealth
have also opened the hearts of the people to
him.
The official investigations set on foot and
consequent exposure of the high crimes and mis
demeanors of some of our "captains of industry"
and a few of our public men, have also commend
ed the president to the masses. The efforts of
the president to secure some sort of control of
the railways have likewise added to his repu
tation, The fact that President Roosevelt was not
pledged by the platform on which he was
elected to any of these reforms has made his
course of conduct a happy surprise to the coun
try, and this has probably accorded to him a
larger measure of praise than would otherwise
have been meted out.
Considering his obligations to the insurance
and other trusts for campaign contributions,
and the powerful influences brought to bear
upon him in the interests of the big corpora
tions, the president has done so mucli better
than the public had a right to expect, that his
star shines with the greater brilliancy.
The good that has come from his speeches
and messages is the more far-reaching because
of its source. That which in a democratic presi
dent would have been denounced as anarchistic
is patriotic in a republican president; and much
that has been" sneered at as "Bryanism" has
thus been made respectable.
The good of the president's policies has
made his name a household word, and given
him a hold upon the country which must be
reckoned with in the future, for the president
will finish his present term while yet in the
full vigor of his manhood, and he is not with
out ambition.
And yet the president's policies are by no
means faultless and it is a question whether the
bad in them does not outweigh the good.
That Mr. Roosevelt's egoism has made him
blind tq the reserved rights of the states, and
oblivious of the barriers which the constitution
has raised between the executive and the other
branches of government, is well known to every
thoughtful, unprejudiced mind. However well
intentioned these obliquities the danger to
which the precedents thus set will expose the
republic in the future are none the less serious.
The course of the administration is marked
with extraordinary inconsistencies. How can
the president's sincerity in his reform declara
tions be reconciled with a number of his official
acts?.
. Why did he retain in his cabinet, Mr. Knox,
the attorney, for the trusts, appointed attorney
general at the instance of the trusts?
Why did he make Mr.' Morton, a railroad
magnate of malodorous repute, a member of his
cabinet, and defend this self-confessed violator
of the rebate law?
Why did he appoint, and why does he keep
in his cabinet, Mr. Root, a notorious attorney
of the very trusts x the president is denouncing?
Why does the president affiliate with the
Addickses and the Spooners et id omne genus,
while he turns his back on men like Governor
Cummins and Senator LaFollette?
And why did he go to the assistance of
the "Quay" republicans, as against the "Lincoln"
republicans in Pennsylvania?
Mr. Knox, the favorite candidate of the
trust bdrons for the succession is able to parade
before the country the mo3t fulsome praises of
himself from Mr. .Roosevelt.
A review of tho significant facts tends to
prove that the so-called, war of the president
upon the predatory corporations is not intended
to be heroic.
In addition to those . already mentioned
many others might be cited which create a sus
picion, that after all this warfare is largely a
"play to the galleries" or a species of "four
fiushing" if not a sham.
In spite of his soleihn declaration that he
would under no circumstances be a candidate
in 1908, interviews are being given, out to the
effect that the president will rue his pledge as
to a third term if he can break the solid south
by carrying one southern state, and Mr. John
Temple Graves doqs not hesitate to pledge, to
him the state of Georgia. Doubtless some other
seeker after notoriety or public office will bo
equally ready to pledge to him tho stato of
Texas.
The so-called "merger suit," so often
boasted of, seems to be a case against? rather
than in favor of the administration. Tho de
cree of tho supreme court in that case upholds
the criminal as well as the civil clauses of tho
Sherman anti-trust act, but instead of following
up the civil with criminal action against the
law breakers, Attorney General Knox hastened
to Wall Street to assure the trust magnates that
the administration was not going to "run
amuck;" and thereupon the railroads concerned
immediately proceeded to organize another
merger under a different name, which new trust
has openly continued the same violations of law
denounced by the court.
The president's singular change of front on
the question of the control of rates when tho
amendment to the interstate commerce act was
before the senate, has never been explained. The
senate amendment, approved by the president,
emasculated the original act of what the presi
dent had previously insisted was the vital point
concerned; and thus the matter of rates is by
legislative act made a judicial instead of an
administrative or legislative act.
When Mr. Harriman was caught by tho
inter-state commerce commission "with the
goods on him" and the country had every right
to expect criminal action against that bold finan
cial buccaneer, the Associated Press was quick
to publish the news that at a cabinet meeting
it had been concluded that no criminal measures
would be resorted to in the case, and Mr. Har
riman has since boldly proceeded with his policy
of consolidation and public despoliation.
It is true that civil suits are being brought
and that some of the trusts are being "fined"
but what trust has been made to halt in
its unlawful career, or to feel the terrors of the
law?
The fines imposed have no terror for tho
trusts for tho reason that these law breakers,
by raising the prices of their product, and rail
road rates, are able to shift the fine upon tho
public which is thus made to pay the penalty
for the crimes others commit, and of which
they complain. Could there be a worse trpvfty
upon justice than this?
Thus it is that in spite of all the hue and
cry raised against the trusts, the mergers con
tinue, the consolidations go on, the trusts still
ply their nefarious trades, prices soar, and the
people, instead of finding relief, are fleeced
worse than ever.
None of the remedies invoked by the ad
ministration have been effective for the reason
that they do not go to the bottom of the evil.
The axe is not laid at the root of the tree.
The spoils of the trusts are built up by
special privileges of which the tariff was the
beginning. By thus shutting off foreign com
petition, the combines are able to charge the
people of 'the United States more than they
charge for the same kind of goods to foreigners.
Yet the president and his cabinet stand with
"the standpatters" and stave off all revision
of the robber tariff.
Still more to blame is the president for
his failure to execute the laws required of him
by his oath of office. Under the common law
it is within the power of the president's attor
ney general and district attorneys to dissolve
every trust engaged in inter-state commerce,
and under the inter-state commerce and Sher
man acts to clothe with stripes and put behind
prison bars every trust magnate. One example
of this kind would do more to protect the public
from the menace of predatory wealth than all
the fines that could be heaped upon the offend
ers. If the president is really sincere in his
war upon plutocracy, why does he not thus en
force the law?
In view of these derelictions, the question
naturally arises, why is the president so popu
lar? The reason is not hard to find.
There is a growing fear of the trusts by
the peoploi and they arc ready to hail as a
Moses any high official who scorns to be their
friend as against their enemy. Thoy ill rcalizo
the magnitude of tho danger which confronts
them, and still less do thoy comprehend what
is necessary for their relief.
Science and invention, in tho last half cen
tury, have worked a revolution in transporta
tion, in agriculture, in printing, in manufacture.
The transition from primitive to modern meth
ods, accompanied by a multiplication of man's
labor power ten, a hundred, and in sorno in
stances a thousand fold, has raised the per
capita wealth from $307 in 1850 to $1,300 in
1900, which, if equally distributed, would giyo
five thousand dollars to each family in tho
Unfted States. This has beoa done In spite of
the vast sums squandered by our . idlo rich
abroad, and over and above the billions de
stroyed In our civil war, and tho cost of. that
war. But our vast wealth of ono hundred bil
lions of dollars is mostly concentrated In tho
hands of a few. It requires all tho labor of all
the people for one year to add to our wealth
the fortune hold by John D. Rockofoller. Mr.
Rockefeller owns at least one-fortieth of tho
total wealth of the United States, and the
"Standard Oil group," of which ho is the head
and center, owns about one-tenth of that wealth.
The wealth of this octupus has increased flvo
thousand per cent, while the total wealth of tho
nation has increased only two hundred and fifty
per cent. How long will it take five thousand
pqr cent to overtake two hundred and fifty per
cent? How long will it be before the Rockefel
lers, Ryans, Hills, Harrimans, etc., own the
United States?
It Is estimated that already three-tenths of
one per cent of the population own seventy per
cent of the' total wealth.
Wealth is power and sits enthroned In our
city council, legislative and congressional halls,
and even in tho judges' seats. It makes, inter
prets and executes the laws. The power to
despoil the people through franchises and by
means of gigantic combinations increases every
hour. Stock jobbing and stock watering goes
on with haste, and railroads arc'lfonscHtir.yVvl
and gas and street car and electric franchises
are multiplying and the earnings of future gen
erations are being mortgaged, and the million
aires are made "immune" from punishment.
The rich and powerful have seized not only upon
the Industries of the country, but upon the
government itself.
They control the party machinery. Behind
the boss stands the millionaire and tho corpora
tion. Hundreds of thousands of children are
made to work in the factories, mills and mines,
with long hours and small pay, and the future
fathers, mothers, and citizens are being dwarfed
in body, mind and soul. Graft is rampant not
only in the insurance companies whose wards
are the widows and the orphans, but in public
places, and corruption reigns in political con
ventions and at the polls.
It is facts like these that are putting the
people in fear of the future and compelling them
to look for a Moses and making them ready to
hall as a redeemer the first president they have
had in fifty years who has shown any disposi
tion to stand by them as against their despoilers.
When they learn how ineffective the presi
dent's policies will prove, Mr. Roosevelt may
lose some of his popularity.
The president has taken the position that
the water now extant in Ihe issues of the capi
tal stock of the corporations must be upheld
as "vested rights." When the public compre
hends that these fraudulent issues aggregate
untold billions and in effect constitute a mort
gage upon tho productive resources of tho
country, and that this mortgage, in connection
with the tremendous concentration of the re
sources of the country in the hands of the few
must necessarily eventuate in industrial slavery,
It is certain that Mr. Roosevelt will have to
change his policy or lose his popularity.
W. B. FLEMING. . .
Chicago, Illinois.
. The Lincoln (Neb.) Journal, republican,
wants an explanation from the packing trust
about the sudden advance in the price of dressed
beef and pork. The explanation is very simple.
The injunction that enjoins a labor union is en
forced; the injunction that enjoins the packing
trust is for republican advertising purposes
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