SPEECH OF Hon. ELIHU ROOT SECRETARY OF STATE AT UTICA, NEW YORK NOVEMBER 1. 1906 C. F. SuDWARTH, Printer Washington, D. C. 19 6 ."^7, By transfer The White House March 3rd, 1913 My Friends and Neighbors: j A demagogue is one who for selfish ends seeks to curry / favor with the people or some particular portion of them / by pandering to their prejudices or wishes or by playing on their ignorance or passions. We are witnessing in the State of New York one of those tests of popular government which often have come in the past and always will come when a skilful demagogue attempts to get elected to office by exceeding all other men in the denunciation of real evils and in promises to cure them. Honest and well-meaning voters, smarting under the effects of political or social or busi- ness wrongdoing, naturally tend to sympathize with the man who expresses their feelings in the most forcible and extreme language and who promises the most sweeping measures of reform ; and in the excitement and heat of public indignation they are sometimes in danger of for- getting that he who cries "stop thief" the loudest may be 2 merely seeking his own advantage, may be worthless as a leader, may belong to the criminal class himself. The enemies of popular government have always as- I serted that the great mass of a people, and particularly the / working people, could not be trusted to reject appeals to passion and prejudice and follow the dictates of sober reason, to distinguish between mere words of violent denunciation and extravagant promise on the one hand and proved capacity for useful and faithful service on the other, and that their suffrage would always go to the most violent and extreme agitator. The believers in popular government have always an- swered that in a country where universal education goes with universal suffrage the great mass of the people, and particularly those who are doing honest work, can be depended upon to inform themselves carefully and to think soberly and clearly about political questions and that their plain, strong, common sense will surely detect and reject the self-seeking demagogue, however violent his denunciation of wrong and however glowing his promises of redress, and approve the genuine man, the competent man. even though he may not promise so much or puff himself so much or use such violent lan- sfuasre. 3 I firmly believe that the contention of the friends of popular government is right ; I believe that the people of this country and of this State, under our system of uni- versal suffrage and universal education, are sure to come out right in the long run. Nevertheless it can not be doubted that many working men in this State, good and honest men who are entitled to respect and who wish to do the best thing possible for their country, are about to strengthen the enemies and weaken the friends of popular government all over the world by voting for Air. Hearst, who is just the kind of a demagogue that I have de- scribed. He is indeed an especially dangerous specimen of the class because he is enormously rich and owns newspapers of wide circulation, and he can hire many able and active men to speak well of him and praise him in print and in speech and in private conversation. Not only is the cause of popular government in danger of suffering injury and discredit from the vote for Mr. Hearst, but genuine reform, the real practical redress of the evils complained of by the people, is in danger of being weakened and brought to naught by this attempt 4 of Mr. Hearst to get himself elected governor of New York. The evils which have come with the enormous in- crease of corporate wealth in recent years are real and serious ; there have been many outrageous practises which ought to be stopped and many wrongdoers who ought to be punished. That should be done, not by lynch law but by the intelligent and wise action which befits a self- governing people, determined always to maintain the rule of law, by reforming the laws where they are defective, and enforcing the laws with fearless vigor against rich and poor alike, and for the protection of rich and poor alike. Both of these require a high degree of intelligence, skill, and experience; declamation and denunciation and big headlines in the newspapers will not do the business. It is easy to cry "down with the corporations," but cor- porations are merely the forms through which the greater part of our enormous business is transacted ; they are not formed by special privileges to a few; they are free to all ; anybody can form a corporation by signing and filing a paper, just as anybody can form a partnership. And the great mass of our business people, especially 5 those engaged in manufacture, are doing their business through corporate form; our enormous manufacturing industry could not be carried on in any other way. If you destroy corporations, you close your mills and your furnaces, you stop the payment of wages, you destroy the purchasing power of the wageworkers, you reduce the sales of our merchants and the market for farm pro- ducts. Corporations are not bad in themselves, but the managers of some of them and of many of the greatest ones have used them as opportunities for wrongdoing, if not criminal wrongdoing. The thing needed is to cut out the wrongdoing and save the business, and these corporations are of so many different kinds, engaged in so many kinds of varied and complicated business, so intimately connected with all the production and trade and prosperity of the country, that the same kind of patient, experienced, and discrimi- nating skill is needed for the process that the surgeon needs in cutting out a tumor from the human body and saving the life of the patient. Now, this process of intelligent and effective redress of wrongs is going on; great and substantial progres? has been made in it ; laws are being reformed so as to 6 meet the present evils ; laws are being enforced with vigor and success ; malefactors are being punished according to law and not against law; skill and wisdom and efficiency and honest purpose never surpassed in the history of this or any other country have put their hands to the task and are pressing it forward with untiring energy. The most conspicuous and fit representative of this great and beneficent work in this State is Charles E. Hughes. There was never occasion to .feel more proud of the great profession to which Hamilton and Marshall and Webster and Lincoln and Tilden belonged than when through the long and weary months of the insurance investigation with patient and untiring industry, with courage, skill, and honesty, he followed step by step the clues which led through all the complicated affairs of the great companies to the laying bare of official wrongdo- ing. Neither wealth, nor power, nor social position, nor political influence turned him aside one hair's breadth from his course; nor did any thought of himself, any desire for popularity, any taint of self-advertising or self- glorification obscure his vision or affect his conduct. He was the skilled and single-minded instrument of inex- orable justice. 7 When the facts were all uncovered he arranged them and stated them so plainly that a child could understand their deep significance, and then wisdom of no common order guided his judgment upon the legislative remedies for which the facts called. This work was worth more than millions of stareing headlines and clever sensational editorials, more than a wilderness of promises from one who seeks to barter promises for votes. I can not be- lieve that the hundreds of thousands of policy holders in this State are not grateful for this service, or that all good citizens who justly resented the wrongs which he uncloaked would not be glad to have such a man em- powered to continue just such service in all departments of our State government by election to the governorship of the State. The most conspicuous and fit representative of this same great and beneficent work in the Federal Govern- ment is Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States. Let me state some of the corporate evils with which he has undertaken to deal, not all, but the princi- pal ones. Many great corporations have united in the forma- tion of so-called trusts to get rid of competition, create monopolies of the business in which they are engaged, restrict production, and put down the prices at which they purchase raw material and put up the prices at which they sell their products. 2. Many great corporations and trusts have under- taken to crush out their remaining competitors by unfair competition, and especially by securing lower rates of freight from the railroad companies for their products than their smaller competitors, and as the railroads are bound by law to give the same rates to all shippers this unfair advantage has taken the form of secret rebates. 3. Many railroad companies have exercised their ar- bitrary power to fix their rates by arranging them in such a way that even without giving rebates they have favored the large shippers in special localities and have been unreasonable toward small shippers in other locali- ties. By these unfair means the big, rich corporations have been continually driving the small, weak men to the wall, taking away their business and increasing their own wealth. 4. The managers of many great corporations, not satis- fied with the natural increase of successful business, have 1 enormously increased their capitalization beyond either 9 their investment or the value of their property fairly used in business. Much of the watered stock has been sold to innocent investors, much of it has been secured by the managers themselves, through various devices, for in- sufficient consideration. These greatly excessive capitals, and the necessity of paying interest upon them, have stood as barriers against the reduction of transportation rates or the prices of products to a point which would secure fair business returns. 5. The offending corporations have clothed their vast and complicated business affairs with a mantle of secrecy, so that it has been almost impossible to get at the facts of their offending and quite impossible for any weak, private person or small corpoiation who has been injured by them. 6. One of the great obstacles to the redress of these evils has been the unwillingness or inability of the States to deal with them. It is difficult for any one State to control corporations doing business in all the States. The State can not control interstate commerce at all. Many of the States have by their laws as well as by their ad- ministration facilitated and encouraged the objectionable practises. 10 Let me tell you that our own State is not blameless in this respect, and that we need a Hughes at Albany with the skill and courage to deal with that subject as he dealt with the insurance subject. On the other hand, the Federal Government has been met at every turn by the difficulty of controlling State corporations in the exercise of the powers conferred upon them by the State in which they were created. Against these battlements of wrong the President has charged with all the energy and sincere conviction of his nature; he has waged and is waging open warfare not against wealth, but against ill-gotten wealth; not against corporations, but against the abuse of corporate power; not against enterprise and prosperity, but against the unfair and fraudulent devices of selfish greed. The honest poor man who has felt the crushing power of unfair wealth may take heart, for the most powerful personality of our generation, from the vantage ground of the greatest office of our land, is leading the battle in his behalf ; the honest rich man who fears that property may be endangered and prosperity checked may calm his fears ; not a single principle is invoked in this warfare against corporate wrongdoing that has not for centuries been 11 familiar to the common law of England and America; no control is asserted over business which was not rec- ognized and approved in the days of Mansfield and Eldon, Marshall and Kent; but to exercise that same measure of control under the new conditions of our day new agencies and new methods have had to be provided , by law and sanctioned by the courts. For the accomplishment of this due measure of con- trol, which from time immemorial our laws have recog- nized as necessary, the Government of the United States has taken up the task where the several States have failed, and is performing and purposes to perform its duty not beyond but to the full limit of its constitutional power. The structure of our prosperity will not be weakened, it will be made strong and enduring by removing with the care of the experienced builder the rotten timbers of disobedience to law and disregard of morality. The Republican Congress has stood loyally by the President; the act creating the Bureau of Corporations, the act expediting the trial of trust cases, the antirebate act, the act for the regulation of railroad rates have made possible redress which was impossible before. Under 12 the direction of two successive Attorneys-General of the first order of abihty, sincerity, and devotion, in hundreds of courts, incessant warfare has been waged and is being waged under the Federal laws against coroporate wrong- doers. The Northern Securities Company, which sought to combine and prevent competition between two great con- tinental railroads, has been forced to dissolve by the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States. The methods of the Beef Trust in combining to suppress competition in the purchase of live stock and the sale of meat has been tried and condemned, and the trust has been placed under injunction to abandon those prac- tises by judgment of the Supreme Court. The combination of paper manufacturers in the ter- ritory from Chicago to the Rocky Mountains has been dissolved by the judgment of the Supreme Court, ana the combination has been abandoned and the price of white paper in that territory has gone down 30 per cent. The Retail Grocers' Association in this country has been dissolved by decree of the court. The elevator combi- nation in the West has been dissolved in like manner. 1 13 The salt combination west of the Rocky Mountains has been dissolved by decree of the court. The Wholesale Grocers' Association in the South, the meat combination and the lumber combination in the West, the combination of railroads entering the city of St. Louis to suppress competition between the bridges and ferries reaching that city, the Drug Trust, which sup- presses competition all over the country, are being vig- orously pressed in suits brought by the Federal Govern- ment for their dissolution. The salt combination has been indicted and convicted and fined for failing to obey the judgment of dissolution. The Beef Trust has been indicted for failing to obey the injunction against them, and have been saved so far only by a decision that they had secured temporary immunity by giving evidence against themselves. One branch of the Tobacco Trust is facing an indictment of its cor- porations and their officers in the Federal court in New York, and the other branches are undergoing investiga- tion. The lumber combination in Oklahoma is under in- dictment. The Fertilizer Trust, a combination of thirty-one cor- porations and twenty-five individuals to suppress and fix 14 prices, has been indicted, the indictments have been sus- tained by the courts and the combination has been dis- solved. The ice combination of the District of Colum- bia is facing criminal trial. Special counsel are investigat- ing the coal combination, and special counsel are inves- tigating the Standard Oil combination. Three of the causes won in the Supreme Court of the United States have furnished decisions of the utmost importance. In the Tobacco Trust case of Hale v. Henkel, the Su- preme Court denied the claim of the trust corporations to be exempt under the Constitution from furnishing tes- timony against themselves by the production of their books and papers before a Federal grand jury. Thus the protection of secrecy for corporate wrongdoing is beaten down. In the Northern Securities case the Supreme Court held that a wrong accomplished by means of incorporating in accordance with the express provision of New Jersey statute was just as much a violation of Federal law as if there had been no incorporation. Thus the State rights defense of protection from favoring State statutes is beaten down. 15 In the Beef Trust case the Supreme Court held that, although the business of manufacture was carried on within the limits of a single State, yet the purchase of the raw material in different States and the sale of the fin- ished product in different States brought the business within the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution and gave the Federal Government authority over St. Thus the defense that the State alone can deal with man- ufacturing corporations, however widespread their busi- ness, is beaten down. The obstacles to the enforcement of the Federal anti- trust act thus removed are obstacles which stood in the way of all proceedings, and they had to be cleared away before any proceedings of the same character against the same classes of corporations could be successfully main- tained. They have been removed, not by newspaper headlines and denunciation, but by skill, ability, and en- ergy of the highest order. After the Elkins antirebate law was passed by Con- gress in 1903 it was supposed, and the Interstate Com- merce Commission reported, that the railroads had sub- stantially abandoned giving rebates. Their good resolu- tions do not seem, however, to have lasted. The struggle 16 for business enabled the shippers soon to secure a re- newal of rebates, or, by ingenious devices, advantages equivalent to rebates. Thereupon the Department of Justice began active prosecutions for the enforcement of the law. Fifty-three indictments have been found against hundreds of de- fendants and covering many hundreds of transactions. There have been fourteen criminal convictions. Fourteen individuals have been fined to the gross amount of $66,- 125. Nine corporations have been fined to the amount -of $253,000. Thirty-five indictments are ready for trial in their regular order upon the court calendar. The original statute provided only for punishment by fine. Last winter it was amended by providing for pun- ishment by imprisonment, and, if the fines imposed under the original law shall not prove to have stopped the practice, we shall see whether fear of the penitentiary under the amendment will not do so. Under this statute also it was necessary to sweep away defenses which stood as barriers to general prosecution, and in the New York, New Haven and Hartford Rail- road case, decided by the Supreme Court February 19 of this year, and the Milwaukee Refrigerator Transit 17 case, decided in the seventh circuit on the 31st of May of this year, the courts have held that the substance and not the form is to control in the application of the statute, and that, however the transaction may be disguised, an un- lawful discrimination can be reached and punished. The way is therefore cleared for all other prosecutions. The railroad-rates act, which was the subject of such excited discussion during the last session of Congress, has already justified itself. Since the passage of the act, less than five months ago, there have been more volun- tary reductions of rates by our railroads than during the entire nineteen years of the previous life of the Interstate Commerce Commission. On the single day of the 29th of August, 1906, two days before the act went into force, over five thousand notices of voluntary reduction of rates were filed with the Interstate Commerce Com- mission by the railroads of the United States. Overcapitalization is an evil peculiarly within the con- trol of State governments, and one for which we ought to have in every State capital a man who can do what Mr. Hughes has shown himself capable of doing; but the Federal Government through the Bureau of Corpora- tions is going far on the road to a cure by getting at the 18 truth and dispelling the darkness under the cover of which the evil has grown. Nor should other evils with which the Federal Govern- ment is grappling be forgotten — the pure food act and the meat inspection act of the last session of Congress are pro- tecting the food of the people against fraud and adulter- ation and contamination ; justice from the employer to the employed is advanced by the wise employer's liability act of the last session; the Federal contractor's eight- hour labor law, too long ignored, is being vigorously en- forced and every week come reports of new convictions for its violation; the safety-appliance law, discredited in the lower courts, has been taken by the Government inter- vening in aid of an injured employee to the Supreme Court of the United States in a suit against the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, and has been established upon a sure foundation by the decision of that great court. All this has not been easy; it has required not merely skill and ability and patient industry and the tremendous personality of the President, against all powerful in- fluences urging on Congress and lawyers and courts, but it has required and still requires persistency, long- 19 continued and constant effort, a deliberate, settled, and unvarying policy. That policy is now before the American people for their approval or disapproval, and it is confronted by two dangers. The first danger is lest the people should refuse to re- turn a majority of Republicans in the House of Repre- sentatives, which has stood so loyally by the President, and should return a Democratic majority which will be in opposition to the President. Do not be deceived about that. Under our system of government, effective, affirma- tive governmental action requires the cooperation of both President and Congress ; that cooperation can be had only with a House of Representatives of the President's own party. It can not be had by rejecting and punish- ing the Members of the House who have been working with the President in the past. A Democratic House, in inevitable conflict with a Re- publican Senate, would not really help the Democratic party, but it would hinder, embarrass, weaken, and dis- hearten the President and his assistants in carrying on the policy in which they are engaged. Independent and patriotic Democrats equally with Republicans ought to 20 avoid a result so disastrous to our country. It would be unpatriotic to deprive our government of the help and this State of the credit found in the able and experienced service of our respected and beloved Congressman, James S. Sherman. The second danger is, lest in this greatest of States, the President's own State, the voters shall reject Mr. Hughes, who was the President's own choice for the nomination, who by his character and his achievements has shown himself fit and competent in the great office of governor of this State to help hold up the President's hands and to carry on in the State the same policy that the President is carrying on in the nation, and should elect to that great office a violent and unworthy dema- gogue in the person of Mr. Hearst. What evidence has Mr. Hearst produced of his fitness for this office? Of his private life I shall not speak further than to say that from no community in this State does there come concerning him that testimony of lifelong neigh- bors and acquaintances to his private virtues, the excel- lence of his morals, and the correctness of his conduct 21 which we should hke to have concerning' the man who is to be made the governor of our State. What evidence comes from his pubhc career? He has been a Member of Congress from New York City, and he owed his office to a Tammany organization and Tammany votes in a Tammany district; but he has been an absokite cipher in Congress. That is his entire pubHc career. He is really known to us solely as a young man, very rich by inheritance, who has become the owner of a num- ber of sensational yellow journals; he has taken in his newspapers the popular side upon all questions relating to labor and corporations and has sustained it by much violent denunciation and many falsehoods, and he has been a persistent seeker for office on the strength of tak- ing the popular side; he has published whatever he thought would please the working people for the purpose of getting the labor vote. It is difficult to believe that the hard-headed, shrewd, workingmen of America will give him much credit for that. There is, however, affirmative evidence of Mr. Hearst's unfitness for the great office of governor. You will per- ceive that to the remedy of corporate wrongs for which 22 he offers himself two things are necessary — first, intelH- gent and well-devised legislation, which shall strip from the wrongdoing corporate managers the advantage of laws made under their influence to facilitate their prac- tices, which shall clearly prohibit their wrongful acts, and which shall provide the machinery and procedure and the necessary agencies for enforcing those laws, and, second, the judicial enforcement of the laws, which requires upright and courageous judges who will ad- minister the laws without fear or favor, uninfluenced by wealth or popularity or personal friends or political bosses. Underlying both of these and necessary to both is po- litical purity, for without that neither legislatures nor courts can be pure. How stands Mr. Hearst's record as to political purity ? Why, he comes to us covered all over with the mark of Tammany and Tammany's leader, Murphy, whom he himself has denounced as a scoundrel and a thief; he comes to us not answering to the call of the people of the State, not as the honest candidate of the Democratic party of the State, but nominated by his own procure- ment, through as shameful a deal with the boss of Tam- 23 many as ever disgraced the political history of the State — a deal under which a great body of the regularly elected delegates to the Democratic convention were unseated and, in their absence, the nomination of Mr. Hearst was made by the solid vote of the Tammany delegation. \ Can hypocrisy go further than the willing beneficiary , of Tammany Hall preaching political purity? How stands his record as a legislator? He has had opportunity to prove his capacity and sincerity in that field. Representatives are sent to Congress to attend to the business of the country; there are hundreds of mem- bers of both parties working upon that every day of every session in the performance of their duty ; the in- terests of the country can not be cared for in any other way ; Mr. Hearst was sent to Congress to do that ; he had an opportunity then to show how much sincerity there was in all the talk of his newspapers about reforms and better government. y What did he do? Why, he did nothing; during the three years that he has been in Congress that body has been in session 467 days; there have been 185 recorded votes by yea and nay; he was present and voting at but 23, and present without voting at 2, leaving 160 out of 24 the 185 roll calls from which he was absent, and 442 out of the 467 days of legislative session when there is no evidence of his presence ; his voice was heard in that Con- gress in those three years but once, and that was for ten minutes in a personal explanation regarding an article published in the New York American; he did not even contribute a motion to adjourn to the business of Con- gress, He is so rich that the $15,000 paid him for that ne- glected service may seem of no consequence, but no honest poor man would have thought it right to take it. Others doubtless did the work Mr. Hearst was sent to Washington to do; but it is of public interest to know that this man, who offers himself for a great public office on the strength of what he has printed in his newspaper about legislative reforms and the duties of others,, totally failed to perform his own duty and proved a worth- less public servant in a legislative office — the only office he has ever held. How does he stand regarding the courts. There, in- deed, if he is to be taken at his own estimate he should be found inflexible; an independent judiciary should be his dearest hope. As to that he has had a great oppor- 25 tiinity, for this is an exceptional year of judicial elec- tions; ten new justices of the supreme court are to be elected in the city of New York. How has he used his new political power concerning them? Why, he has made another bargain with Murphy, under which Mur- phy has named six of them and Hearst has named four! Six justices of the supreme court named by Charles F. Murphy, the boss of Tammany Hall, by agreement with William R. Hearst, the self-declared reformer : If lie thus delivers the power over our courts to the man whom he declares to be a thief and a scoundrel for the sake of getting votes for the governorship, what would he, as governor, do for the sake of getting votes for the Presidency ? His own corporate management shows the insincerity of his professions. Not only does he conduct his ex- tensive newspaper business through corporations, but he has established separate corporations for separate news- papers and he has established a holding corporation to hold the stock of these separate corporations, and Mr. Hughes has plainly shown that he has juggled with these different incorporations to escape his just share of public 26 taxation and to hinder and defeat the prosecution of just claims against him. It is seldom indeed that a man so young, whose public career has been so brief, so small ^ portion of whose life is known at all to the public, has furnished such con- cincing proofs of his unfitness for office. But the worst of Mr. Hearst is that with his great wealth, with his great newspapers, with his army of paid agents, for his own selfish purposes, he has been day by day and year by year sowing the seeds of dissension and strife and hatred throughout our land; he would array labor against capital and capital against labor ; poverty against wealth and wealth against poverty, with bitter and vindictive feeling; he would destroy among the great mass of our people that kindly and friendly spirit, that consideration for the interests and the rights of others, that brotherhood of citizenship which are essential to the peaceful conduct of free popular government ; he would destroy that respect for law. that love of order, that confidence in our free institutions which are the basis at once of true freedom and true justice. The malignant falsehoods of these journals, read by the immigfrant in his new home where none can answer them. 27 are making him hate the people who have welcomed him to liberty and prosperity, to abundant employment, to ample wages, to education for his children, to independ- ence for his manhood such as he has never known before. It is not the calm and lawful redress of wn-ongs which he seeks, it is the turmoil of inflamed passions and the terrorism of revengeful force; he spreads the spirit, he follows the methods and he is guided by the selfish mo- tives of the revolutionist ; and he would plunge our peace- ful land into the turmoil and discord of perpetual con- flict- out of which the republics of South America are now happily passing. Does anyone question the justice of these statements? Then let him turn to the pages of the newspapers through the ownership of which Mr. Hearst is pressing his politi- cal fortunes. What public servant honored by the people's trust has he not assailed with vile and vulgar epithets ; what branch of our free Government has he not taught his readers to believe a corrupt agency of oppression ! Listen to this from the Journal : "It is the sad duty of the Journal to announce to the people of the United States that their President, Wil- 28 Ham McKinley, has deliberately tricked Congress and the country. * * * "McKinley and the Wall Street Cabinet are ready to surrender every particle of national honor and dignity. "Congress and the people of the United States have been fooled, tricked and deceived from the beginning to the end." And to this : "The Board of Elections has already begun its dis- graceful and discreditible work. It has allowed the People's petitions intrusted to its care to be marked and mutilated and destroyed. It has thrown out petitions by the score, and its action has been sustained by the courts even as the courts last year decided that you, as citizens, had no right to have your votes honestly counted, but must abide by any returns, no matter how false, of corrupt election officials." And to this : "The effort is being made now by the criminal trusts to crush out the power of the people in the American Government. These trusts control your parties, control your primaries, control your public officers, and deny you the right to any government that will express the 29 popular will. You are deserted and betrayed by the public officers that should sustain you, and by the so- called free press that should support you.'' Joseph H. Choate, the leader of the American bar. whose honored and distinguished career is known the world over, has been the pride of all true Americans, is stigmatized as "a servile lickspittle of corporations." Fulton Cntting, ideal citizen, leader in philanthropy and independent politics, as a "worthless poodle." Edward M. Shepard, the foremost advocate of civic virtue in the Democratic politics of New York City, as a "corporation lawyer." William T. Jerome, the Democrat of independence above all others, as a "political Croton bug." Timothy L. Woodruff, twice elected Lieutenant Gov- ernor of the State, Chairman of the Republican State Committee, as standing "for everything rotten in Re- publican politics." Charles A. Towne, radical Congressman, as "a rat." Richard Watson Gilder, the leader of the tenement house reform of New York, as having "no more manli- ness than an apple blossom." 30 Thomas Taggart, Chairman of the Democratic Na- tional Committee, as "a plague spot in the community spreading vileness." Secretary Bonaparte as "a cab horse — a snob." Senator Knox, the Attorney General who brought and won the suit against the Northern Securities Com- pany, as having "Coal Trust guilt for a pillow.'' George B. McClellan, Congressman, Mayor of New York, and worthy heir of an honored name, as a "fraud Mayor," "office thief," and "the dead cat in the City Hall." Alton B. Parker, Chief Justice of the State, candidate of the Democratic party for the Presidency, as "a cock- roach, a waterbug." John Sharpe Williams, leader of the Democratic party in the House of Representatives, as "a railroad at- torney." Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House of Repre- sentatives — the honest, plain typical American, as being "as little scrupulous in politics as a fox in a barnyard." Charles W. Fairbanks, Vice-President of the United States, as "a Wall Street speculator." John Hay, the great Secretary of State, the cherished 31 friend of Lincoln — noble, pure, virile American, lover of his country and his kind, whose authorship has adorned our literature and whose wise, strong statesman- ship has lifted high the power and prestige of America throughout the world, is described as "a guy in a ruff and a red coat." To Thomas B. Reed, the great Speaker of the House, he writes in a published letter : "You divide McKinley's infamy with him and so make his load the easier. By the same token you have become a toad to the public eye ; you grow to be looked upon as a thing loathsome; your name becomes a hissing and a reproach, and your deeds a stench in the nostrils of men." Grover Cleveland, twice President of the United States, is described as "no more no less than a living, breathing crime in breeches." Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, is called "a loose-tongued demagogue," "a woman killer," "a flagrant tax dodger," "a player to the colored gallery," "a man with the caste feeling," one who "has sold him- self to the devil and will hve up to the bargain." Once only has this method of incendiary abuse wrought out its natural consequence — in the murder of Presi- 32 dent McKinley. For years, by vile epithet and viler car- toons, the readers of the Journal were taught to be- lieve that McKinley was a monster in human form, whose taking off would be a service to mankind. Let me quote some of these teachings : "McKinley condones the treacherous murder of our sailors at Havana and talks of his confidence in the honor of Spain. He plays the coward and shivers white- faced at the footfall of approaching war. He makes an international cur of his country. He is an abject, weak, futile, incompetent poltroon." "McKinley, bar one girthy Princeton person, who came to be no more or less than a living, breathing crime in breeches, is therefore the most despised and hated crea- ture in the hemisphere; his name is hooted; his figure is burned in effigy." "The bullet that pierced Goebel's chest Cannot be found in all the West ; Good reason, it is speeding here To stretch McKinley on his bier." And this, in April, 1901 : "Institutions, like men, will last until they die: and 33 if bad institutions and bad men can be got rid of only by killing, then the killing must be done." And this, in June, 1901 : "There has been much assassination in the world, from the assassination of some old rulers who needed assassination to the assassination of men in England, who, driven to steal by hunger, were caught and hanged most legally. * * * "Is there any doubt that the assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday changed history to some extent? What proof is there that France would have settled down into imperial Napoleonism and prosperity if Marat, the wonderful eye doctor, had been allowed to live to retani his absolute mastery of the Paris populace? * * * "If Cromwell had not resolved to remove the head of \ Charles I from his lace collar, would England be what I she is to-day — -a really free nation and a genuine re- / public ? "Did not the murder of Lincoln, uniting in sympathy and regret all good people in the North and South, hasten the era of American good feeling and perhaps prevent the renewal of fighting between brothers? "The murder of Caesar certainly changed the history 34 of Europe, besides preventing that great man from ulti- mately displaying vanity as great as his ability. When wise old sayings, such as that of Disraeli about assassination, are taken up it is worth while, instead of swallowing them whole, to analyze them. We invite our readers to think over this question. The time de- voted to it will not be wasted." What wonder that the weak and excitable brain of Czolgosz answered to such impulses as these! He never knew McKinley; he had no real or fancied wrongs of his own to avenge against McKinley or McK'inley's government; he was answering to the lesson he had learned, that it was a service to mankind to rid the earth of a monster ; and the foremost of the teachers of these lessons to him and his kind was and is William Randolph Hearst with his yellow journals. The offence is deepened by the revolting hypocrisy which, to avert public indignation when the fatal blow had been struck and that strong and gentle spirit had de- parted, lauded the dead President to the skies, and said of him in the New York Journal : "Nowhere in the history of great men's lives, or of great men's deaths, can be found such resignation and 35 deep religious faith as marked the last hours of William McKinley. He faced the other world and the other life with the quiet, confident hope of a man who had done his best. Slowly the heart's strength died out. It had car- ried him through two wars, through many political bat- tles, through many long days of toil, through many years of hard work and serious purpose. He began life as a simple Christian citizen. He worked hard. He in- terested himself in his country's welfare. He succeeded ; he reached the highest place in the nation. He exercised and represented the greatest of earthly powers. He was called a second time to the highest position that men can give to any man. He ended his life as he began it — a simple, Christian citizen." Is there no one left who loved McKinley? Are there no working men left in New York who can not see with satisfaction honors heaped upon the man who is not guiltless of McKinley's death? The same kind of teaching is being continued now month by month and day by day in the Hearst journals. Its legitimate consequence, if continued, must be, other weak dupes playing the role of Czolgosz ; other McKin- leys stretched upon the bier; discord and bloody strife 36 in place of the reign of peace and order throughout our fair land. It is not the spirit of Washington and of Lincoln ; it is the spirit of malice for all and charity to- wards none ; it is the spirit of anarchy, of communism, of Kishinef and of Bielostok. Men of New York, do you love your country? Are you not proud of your country? Are not its liberty, its justice, its equal laws, the best that weak and erring men have ever yet attained in this world? Have not those of you who have come to us from other lands found better conditions of life, better employment, better wages, greater personal independence and dignity, better op- portunities for your children than ever before? Do you wish to join your voices to that which declares this freest of republics, this foremost result of government by the people, to be all vile and rotten and disgraceful ? The public knows the character of Mr. Hearst only by the newspapers he publishes, and God forbid that we should set up in the high station of Governor of New York, for the admiration and imitation of our children, the man whose character is reflected in the columns of the New York Journal and the New York American. The immediate and necessary effect of Mr. Hearst's 37 election would be to deprive the President of the moral support of the State of New York ; it would be to strengthen the President's enemies and opponents and to weaken and embarrass him in the pursuit of his policy. The election of this violent extremist would inevitably- lead to a reaction against all true reform and genuine redress of grievances. There is no enemy of true reform so fatal as sham reform ; there is no enemy of the sincere and faithful public servant who is seeking by patient and well directed effort to frame and to enforce just laws, like the selfish agitator who is seeking his own ad- vancement ; there is no ally of unscrupulous wealth so potent as the violent extremist who drives good, honest and conservative men away from the cause of true re- form by the violence of his words and the intemperance of his excessive proposals. I beg the working men of New York who may hear or read my words to think upon these questions. Do you believe in President Roosevelt? Do you agree with his policy in pursuing and preventing corporate wrong- doing? Do you wish that he may be able to continue that policy with power and success? 38 If you do, then help him by your votes, I say to you, with his authority, that he greatly de- sires the election of a Republican House of Representa- tives to work with him in the next Congress ; I say to you, with his authority, that he greatly desires the election of Mr. Hughes as Governor of the State of New York; I say to you, with his authority, that he regards Mr. Hearst as wholly unfit to be Governor, as an insincere, self-seeking demagogue, who is trying to deceive the working men of New York by false statements and false promises; and I say to you, with his authority, that he considers that Mr. Hearst's election would be an injury and a discredit alike to honest labor and to honest capital, and a serious injury to the work in which he is engaged of enforcing just and equal laws against corporate wrong- doing. President Roosevelt and Mr. Hearst stand as far as the poles asunder. Listen to what President Roosevelt himself has said of jNIr. Hearst and his kind. In President Roosevelt's first message to Congress, in speaking of the assassin of McKinley, he spoke of him as inflamed "by the reckless utterances of those who, on the stump and in the public press, appeal to the dark and evil spirits of 39 malice and greed, envy and sullen hatred. The wind is sowed by the men who preach such doctrines, and they can not escape their share of responsibility for the whirl- wind that is reaped. This applies alike to the deliberate demagogue, to the exploiter of sensationalism, and to the crude and foolish visionary who, for whatever reason, apologizes for crime or excites aimless discontent." I say, by the President's authority, that in penning' these words, with the horror of President McKinley's murder fresh before him, he had Mr. Hearst specifically in his mind. And I say, by his authority, that what he thought of Mr. Hearst then he thinks of Mr. Hearst now. 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