Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1907 — CLASS RULE FATAL. [ARTICLE]

CLASS RULE FATAL.

PRESIDENT GIVES WARNING AT JAMESTOWN. Ia Exposition Speech Says End of Republic Will Come When Government Is in Hands of Either Plutocracy or Mob Instead of All. President Roosevelt’s speech at the opening of the tercentennial exposition at Jamestown was an appeal to national pnde to preserve the republic by avoiding the fatal error of “class rule.” • “Other nations have fallen,” he said, “because the citizens gradually grew to consider the interests of a class before the interests of the whole; for when such was the case it mattered little whether it was the poor who plundered the rich or the rich who exploited the poor. In either event the end of the republic was at hand.

“We are resolute in our purpose not to fall in such a pit. This great republic of ours never shall become the government of a plutocracy and it never shall become a government of the mob. “God'willing, it shall remain what our fathers who founded it meant it to be, a government where each man stands on his worth as a man and where we strive to give every man a fair chance to shdw the stuff that is in him.”

Avoiding politics, in the accepted sense of the word, he devoted his address to history, reviewing the founding of the nation, giving especial credit to the English, but calling attention to the fact that the blood of many peoples flows in the veins of the typical American. He then referred to our national problems, saying that the struggles in times of peace are as great and as important as those of war. The President spoke in part as follows:

At the outset I wish to say a word of special greeting to the representatives of the foreign governments here present. They have come to assist us In celebrating what was In very truth the birthday of this nation, for it was here that the colonists first settled whose Incoming, whose growth from their own loins and by the action of newcomers from abroad was to make the people which 169 years later assumed the solemn responsibility and weighty duties of complete independence. In welcoming all of you t must say a special word, first to the representatives of the people of Great Britain and Ireland. The fact that so, many of our people, of whom as it happens I myself am one. have but a very small portion of English blood In our veins, in no way alters the other fact that this nation was founded by Englishmen, by the Cavalier and Puritan. Let us further greet all of you, the representatives of the people of Continental Europe. From almost every nation of Europe we have drawn sojne part of our blood, some part of our traits.

Again, let me bid you welcome, representatives of our sister republics of this continent. In the larger aspect, your interests and ours are identical. Your problems and ours are In a large part the same ; and as we strive to settle them. I pledge you herewith on the part of this nation the heartiest friendship and good will. Finally, let me say a special word of greeting to those representatives of the Asiatic nations who make up that newest East which is yet the most ancient East, the East of time immemorial. In particular, In* me exprtii * a. word, of 1 1f n P i come to the Representative of the BTghty island empire of Japan, that empire which, In learning from the West, has shown that it has so much, so very much to teach the West in return. First English Settlement, We have met to-day to celebrate ing of the exposition which itself commemorates the first permanent settlement of men of our stock In Virginia, the first beginning of what has slnct! become this mighty Republic. Three hundred years ago a handful of English advenvvrers, who had crossed the ocean in what we should call cockle boats, as clumsy as they were frail, landed In the great wooded wilderness, the Indian haunted waste, which then stretched down to the water's edge along the entire Atlantic coast. Hitherto each generation among us had its alloted task —now heavier, now lighter. In the Revolutionary War the business was to achieve independence. Immediately afterward there was an even more momentpus task —that to achieve the national unity and the capacity for orderly development, without which our liberty, our Independence would have been a curse and "not a blessing. In each of these t'wo contests, while there were many leaders from many different States, it Is blit fair'to say that the foremost place was taken by the statesmen of Virginia and to Virginia was reserved the honor of producing the hero of both movements—l'he hero of the war, and of the peace which made good the result of the war—George Washington; while the two great political tendencies of the time can be symbolized by the names of two other great Virginians, Jefferson and Marshall, from one of whom we Inherit the abiding trust' in the people which is the foundation stone of democracy, and from the other the power

to develop on behalf of the people a coherent and powerful movement, a genuine and representative nationality. Two generations passed before the second great crisis in our history had to be faced. Then came the Civil War, terrible and bitter in itself and in its aftermath, but a struggle from which the nation finally emerged, united in fact as well as name, united forever. Oh, my hearers, my fellow countrymen, great indeed has been our good fortune, for as time clears away the mist that once shrouded brother from brother and made each look “as through* a glass darkly" at the other, we can all feel the same pride in the valor, the devotion and the fealty; toward the right as It was given to each to see the right, shown alike by the men who wore the blue and by the men who wore the gray. “Prepare to Sleet War.”

We canhoi afford to forget the triaxYtS that Washington insisted upon, that the surest way to avert war is to be prepared to meet it. Nevertheless the duties that most concern us of this generation are not military hut social and industrial. Each community must always dread the evils which spring up as attendant upon the very qualities which give it success. We of this mighty western Republic have to grapple with the dangers that spring from popular self-government tried on a scale Incomparably vaster than ever before In the history of mankind, and from an abounding material prosperity greater also than' anything which the world has hitherto seen. At t'he moment, the greutest problem before us is how to exercise such control over the business use of vast wealth, Individual, but especially corporate, as will insure it not being used against the interest of the public, while yet' permitting such ample legitimate profits as will encourage individual initiative. It is our business to put a stop to abuses and to prevent their recurrence, without showing a spirit of mere vindictiveness for wffat has country should move to the reform of corporate* wealth. The wrong-doer. The man who swindles and cheats, whether on a big scale or a little one, shall receive at our hands mercy as scant as If he committed crimes of violence or brutality. We are unalterably determined to prevent wrongdoing In the future, hut we have no intention of trying to wreak such an indiscriminate vengeance for wrongs done in the past as would confound the innocent with the guilt}'. Our purpose Is to build up rather than to tear down. We show ourselves the truest friends of property when we make it evident that we will not tolerate t’he abuses of property. We rtre steadily bent on preserving the institution of private property, we combat every tendency towards reducing the people to economic servitude, and we care not whether the tendency Is due to a sinister agitation directed against all property, or whether it is due to the actions of those members of the predatory classes whose antl-soclal power Is immeasurably Increased because of the very fact that they possess wealth.

“Deeds Not Professions.” We base our regard for each man on the essentials, not the accident'. We Judge him not by his professions, but by his deeds, by his conduct, not by what he has acquired of this world's goods. Other republics have fallen because the citizens gradually grew to consider the interests of a class before the Interests of the whole, for when such was the case It' mattered little whether It was the poor who plundered the rich or the rich who exploited the poor; In either event the end of the republic was at hand. We are resolute In our purpose not to fall Into such a pit. This great republic of ours shall never become the government of a mob.