Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
a Democratic Congress in both branches. He and the Democratic platform
have promised to destroy the trusts, to reduce the cost of living, and
at the same time to increase the well-being of the farmer and of the
workingman--which of course must mean to increase the profits of
the farmer and the wages of the workingman. He and his party won the
election on this promise. We have a right to expect that they will keep
it. If Mr. Wilson's promises mean anything except the very emptiest
words, he is pledged to accomplish the beneficent purposes he avows by
breaking up all the trusts and combinations and corporations so as to
restore competition precisely as it was fifty years ago. If he does not
mean this, he means nothing. He cannot do anything else under penalty
of showing that his promise and his performance do not square with each
other.
Mr. Wilson says that "the trusts are our masters now, but I for one
do not care to live in a country called free even under kind masters."
Good! The Progressives are opposed to having masters, kind or unkind,
and they do not believe that a "new freedom" which in practice would
mean leaving four Fuel and Iron Companies free to do what they like in
every industry would be of much benefit to the country. The Progressives
have a clear and definite programme by which the people would be the
masters of the trusts instead of the trusts being their masters, as Mr.
Wilson says they are. With practical unanimity the trusts supported the
opponents of this programme, Mr. Taft and Mr. Wilson, and they evidently
dreaded our programme infinitely more than anything that Mr. Wilson
threatened. The people have accepted Mr. Wilson's assurances. Now let
him make his promises good. He is committed, if his words mean anything,
to the promise to break up every trust, every big corporation--perhaps
every small corporation--in the United States--not to go through
the motions of breaking them up, but really to break them up. He is
committed against the policy (of efficient control and mastery of
the big corporations both by law and by administrative action in
cooperation) proposed by the Progressives. Let him keep faith with
the people; let him in good faith try to keep the promises he has thus
repeatedly made. I believe that his promise is futile and cannot be
kept. I believe that any attempt sincerely to keep it and in good faith
to carry it out will end in either nothing at all or in disaster. But my
beliefs are of no consequence. Mr. Wilson is President. It is his acts
that are of consequence. He is bound in honor to the people of the
United States to keep his promise, and to break up, not nominally but in
reality, all big business, all trusts, all combinations of every sort,
kind, and description, and probably all corporations. What he says is
henceforth of little consequence. The important thing is what he
does, and how the results of what he does square with the promises and
prophecies he made when all he had to do was to speak, not to act.
APPENDIX C
THE BLAINE CAMPAIGN
In "The House of Harper," written by J. Henry Harper, the following
passage occurs: "Curtis returned from the convention in company with
young Theodore Roosevelt and they discussed the situation thoroughly on
their trip to New York and came to the conclusion that it would be very
difficult to consistently support Blaine. Roosevelt, however, had a
conference afterward with Senator Lodge and eventually fell in line
behind Blaine. Curtis came to our office and found that we were
unanimously opposed to the support of Blaine, and with a hearty
good-will he trained his editorial guns on the 'Plumed Knight' of
Mulligan letter fame. His work was as effective and deadly as any fight
he ever conducted in the _Weekly_." This statement has no foundation
whatever in fact. I did not return from the convention in company with
Mr. Curtis. He went back to New York from the convention, whereas I
went to my ranch in North Dakota. No such conversation as that ever took
place between me and Mr. Curtis. In my presence, in speaking to a number
of men at the time in Chicago, Mr. Curtis said: "You younger men can,
if you think right, refuse to support Mr. Blaine, but I am too old a
Republican, and have too long been associated with the party, to break
with it now." Not only did I never entertain after the convention, but
I never during the convention or at any other time, entertained the
intention alleged in the quotation in question. I discussed the whole
situation with Mr. Lodge before going to the convention, and we had made
up our minds that if the nomination of Mr. Blaine was fairly made we
would with equal good faith support him.