The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt | Page 8

hour."
"Well, I will take a quarter of an hour more. (Laughter and applause.)
When I took office the anti-trust 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