Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 110, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1904 — PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS FROM ROOSEVELT’S LETTER. [ARTICLE]

PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS FROM ROOSEVELT’S LETTER.

It is difficult to find out from the utterances of our opponents what are the real Issues upon which they propose to wage tills campaign. It Is not uufalr to say that, having abandoned most of the principles upon which they have Insisted during tho last eight years, they now seem at a loss, both as to what it Is that they really believe and as to how firmly they shall assert their belief lu anything. In fact, It Is doubtful If they venture resolutely to press a single Issde; as soon as they raise one they shrink from It and seek to explain It away. Such an attitude Is the probably Inevitable result of the effort to Improvise convictions; for when thus Improvised it Is natural that they should be held in a tentative manner. There is not a policy, foreign or domestic, which we nre now carrying out which It would not be disastrous to reverse or abandon. AVe base our appeal upon what we have done and are doing, upon our record of administration and legislation during the last seven years. In which we have had complete control of the government. If continued In power we shall continue our foreign polley and our handling of the navy on exactly the same lines lu the future ms In the past. The fundamental fact is that in a popular government such as ours no policy Is irrevocably settled by law unless the people keep In control of the government men who believe lu that policy as a matter of deep-rooted conviction. On some of the vital questions that have

confronted the American people In the last decade our opponents take the position that silence is the best possible way to convey their views. To say that action against Trusts and monopolies should be limited tp the application of the common law Is equivalent to saying that the national government should take no action whatever to regulate them. Undoubtedly it would be possible at the present time to prevent any of the trusts from remaining prosperous by the simple expedient of making such a sweeping change In the tariff ns to paralyze the industries of the country. The trusts would cease to prosper, but their smaller competitors would be ruined and the wageworkers would starve, while It would not pay the farmer to haul Ills produce to market. The expenditures of the nation have been managed in a spirit of economy ns far removed from waste as from niggardliness, and in the future every effort will be continued to secure nn economy as strict as Is consistent with efficiency. So far ■from having “sapped the foundations” of free popular government at borne by the course taken In the Philippines, we have been spreading Its knowledge and teaching Its practice among the peoples to whom It had never before been more than nn empty uuine. At no time In the history of tills or any other country has there been nn era so productive of material benefit alike to workingmen and employer, as during the seven years that have Just passed.