LET PEOPLE RULE,
SAYS ROOSEVELT
OPPOSES PRESIDENT'S ATTITUDE
ON POPULAR GOVERNMENT.
People's Voice Must Prevail
Cheered forSpeech In Opening Active
Campaign for Nomination Quotes
Taft as Opposed to the Majority.
Stands Squarely on His Columbus,
Ohio, Address.
The salient passages in Colonel
Roosevelt's forceful campaign speech,
delivered in Carnegie Hall, New York,
Wednesday evening, is given below:
The great fundamental issue now
before the republican party and be
fore our people can be stated briefly.
It is, are the American people-fit to
govern themselves, to rule them
selves, to control themselves?
I believe they are. My opponents
do not. I believe in the fight of the
people to rule. I believe that the ma
jority of the plain people in the Unit
ed States will, do, day in and day
out, make fewer mistakes in govern
ing themselves than any similar class
or body of men, no matter what their
training, will make in trying to govern
them. I believe again that the Amer
ican people as a whole, are capable of
self control and of learning by their
mistakes. Our opponents pay lip loy
alty to this doctrine, but they show
their real beliefs by the way in which
they champion every device to make
the nominal rule of the people a sham.
I have scant patience with this talk
of the tyranny of the majority. When
ever there is tyranny of the majority
I shall protest against it with all my
heart and soul. But we are today
suffering. from the tyranny of the mi
norities. It is a small minority that
is grabbing our coal deposits, our
water powers and our harbor fronts.
A small minority is fattening on the
sale of adulterated foods and drugs.
It is a small minority that lies behind
monopolies and trusts. It is a small
minority that stands behind the pres
ent law of master and servant, the
sweatshops and the whole calendar of
social and industrial injustice. It is
a small minority that is today using
our convention system to defeat the
will of a majority of the people in the
choice of delegates to the Chicago
convention.
My opponents charge that two
things in my program are wrong be
cause they intrude into the sanctuary
of the judiciary.
The first is the recall of judges and
the second the review by the people
of judicial decisions on certain excep
tional questions. I have said again
and again that I do not advocate the
recall of judges in all states and in all
communities. The integrity of our
judges, from Marshall to White and
Holmes and to Cullen and many oth
ers in our state is a fine page of
American history. But I say it so
berly democracy has a right to ap-
. proach the sanctuary of the courts
when a special interest has corruptly
found sanctuary, and this is exactly
what has happened in some of the
states where the recall of the judges
is a living issue. Is it not equally
plain that the questionwhether a giv
5 jj
Working lor the other fellow an 1
Get Busy for Yourself
Yours for the
asking
To sHmulare Interest in the voting and opive each one a chance fo profit by their
work we will give a prize every ten days. These prizes will not 'affect. thefino1
. ' ' ' "
count in any way as all votes will count on ,
THE GRAND SUTOMO
These prizes will be
very ten days.
en social. puacy is for the public good
is not of a judicial nature, but should 5na unworthy and improper construc
be settled by the legislature or in the Uon of our form of government to see'
final instance, by the people them
selves?
The president of the United States,
Mr. Taft, devoted most of a recent
speech to criticise some of this prop
osition. He says that "it is utterly
without merit or utility and, instead
of being in the interest of all the peo
ple and of the stability of popular
government, is sowing the seeds of
confusion and tyranny." By this he
of course meant the tyranny of the
majority that is the tyranny of the
American people as a whole.
He also says that my proposal,
(which as he rightly sees it, is merely
a proposal to give the people a real
Instead of only a nominal chance to
construe and amend state legislation
with reasonable rapidity) would, make
such amendment and interpretation
"depend on the feverish, uncertain
and unstable determinations of suc
cessive votes on different laws by
temporary and changing majorities,",
and that "it lays the axe at the foot
of the tree of well ordered freedom
and subjects the guarantees of lite,
liberty and prosperity without remedy,
to the fitful impulse of temporary
majority of an electorate."
This criticism is really less a crit
icism of my proposal than a criticism
of all popular government. It is whol
ly unfounded, unless it is founded on
the belief that the people are funda
mentally untrustworthy. This is the
question that I propose to submit to
the people. How can the prevailing
morality or a preponderant opinion
be better and more exactly ascer
tained than by a vote of the people?
The people must know better than
the court what their own morality and
their own opinion is. I ask that you
here, you and others like you, you, the
people, be given the chance to state
your own views of justice and public
morality and not sit meekly by and
have your views announced for you
by well meaning adherents of outworn
philosophies, who exalt the .pedantry
of formulas above the vital needs of
human life.
Mr. Taft's position is the position
that has been held from the beginning
of our government, although not al
ways so openly held, by a large num
Ver of reputable Md honorable men
Who down at the bottom distrust pop
ular government and when they must
accept it, accept it with reluctance
and hedge around it with every spe
cies of restriction and check and bal
ance so as to make the power pf the -people
as limited and ineffective as
possible. Mr. Taft fairly defines the
Issue when he says that our govern
ment is and should be a government
of all the people by a republican part
of the people. This is an excellent
and moderate description of an olig
archy. It defines our government as
a government for a few of the people.
I am not speaking critically nor do
I mean to be unkind, for I believe that
many honorable and well meaning
men of high character take this view
and have taken it from the time of
the formation of the nation. Essen
tially this view is that the constitu
tion is a strait jacket to be used for
the control of an unruly patient the
people. Now I hold that this view is
not only false, but mischievous, that
our constitutions are instruments de
signed to secure justice by securing tne courts the shleld of Privilege
the deliberate but effective expression asalnst Popular rights. Naturally, ev
of the popular will, that the checks ! erv upholder and beneficiary of crcok
and balances are valuable as far and ! ed Prlvilese loudly applauds the doc
iraly so far as they accomplish that trine" 11 is behm(i tne snieli of that
deliberation and that it is a warped ' doctrine tMt. crooked clarses creep
given to the one that hands n the largest number
MORNING ENTERPRISE. TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 1912.
in it oniy a means or mwarung me
popular will and of preventing justice..
Mr. Taft says that "every . class"
should have a "voice" in the govern
ment. That seems to me a very ser
ious misconception of the American
political situation. .- The real trouble
with us is that some classes have had
too much voice. One of the most im
portant of all the lessons to be taught
and to be learned is that a man should
vote not as a representative of a clasa,
but merely as a good citizen, whose
prime interests are the same as those
of all other good citizens.
Taft's "Disbelief in the People."
Mr. Taft again and again in quota
tions I have given and elsewhere in
this speech expresses his disbelief in
the people when they vote at the polls.
in one sentence ne says tnat tne
proposition gives "powerful effect to
the momentary impulse of a majority
of an electorate and prepares the way
for the positive exercise of the gross
est tyranny." Elsewhere he speaks
of the "feverish uncertainty" and "un
stable determination of laws" by tem
porary and changing majorities, and
again he says that the system I pro
pose, "would result in suspension or
application of constitutional guaran
tees according to popular whim,"
whfch would destroy "all possible con
sistency" in constitutional interpreta
tion. I should much like to know
the exact distinction that is to be
made between . what Mr. - Taft calls
"the fitful impulse of a temporary
majority" when applied to a question
such as that I raise and any other
question. Remember that under my
proposal to review a rule of decision
by popular vote, amending or con
struing to that extent the constitu
tion could certainly take at least two
vlyears from the time or tne election
I of the legislature which passed the
act. Now, only four months elapse
between the nomination and the elec
tion of a man as president to fill for
four years the most important office
in the land. In one of Mr. Taft's
speeches he speaks of "the voice of
the people as coming next to the voice
of God." Apparently, then, the de
cision of the people about the presi
dency, after four more years of delib
eration, is to be treated as "next to
the voice of God," but if after two
years of sober thought they decide
that women and children shall be
protected n industry, or men protect
ed from excessive hours of labor un
der unhygienic conditions, or wage
workers compensated when they lose
life or limb in the service of others,
then their decision forthwith becomes
a "whim" and feverish "and unstable"
and an exercise of the "grossest tyran
ny" and the "laying of the axe at the
foot of the tree of freedom."
That is the old, old doctrine which
has been acted upon for thousandsNof
years abroad and which here in Amer
ica has been acted upon sometimes
openly, sometimes secretly, for forty
Sears by many men in public and in
private life, and I am sorry to say by
many judges, a doctrine which has in
fact tended to create a bulwark for
privileges, a bulwark unjustly protect
ing special interests against the rights
of the people as a whole. This doc
trine is to me a dreadful doctrine, for
its effect is, and can only be, to make
What can be won with
work a fine p?ie every
SSfrttr"'' ' : ) L --" ft - - f v
' - - x -3
BILE
into laws that men of wealth control
legislation. , -
Remember, I am not discussing the
recall of judges although I wish it
distinctly understood that the recall
Is a mere piece of machinery to take
the place of the unworkable impeach
ment which Mr. Taft in effect defends
and that if the days of Maynard ever
came back again' in the state of New
York I should favor it. I have no wish
to come to it, but our opponents when
they object to all efforts to secure real
justice from the courts are strengthen
ing the hands of those who demand
the recall. In a great many states
there has treen for many years a real
recall of judges as regards appoint
ments, promotions, re-appointments
And re-elections. And this recall was
through the turn of a thumbscrew at
the end of a long distance rod in the
hands of great interests. I believe
that a just judge would feel far safer
In the hands of the people than in the
hands of those interests. My remedy
is not the result of a library study of
constitutional law, but of actua and
long continued experience in the use
of governmental power to re.lress
ociai and industrial evils. Again and
again earnest workers for social Just
Ice have said to me that the most seri
ous obstacles that they have encoun
tered during the many years that they
have been trying to save American
women ajid children from destruction
in American industry have been the
courts. That is the judgment of al
most all the social workers I know
and of dozens of parish priests and
clergymen and of every executive and
legislator who has been seriously at
tempting to use the government as an
agency for social and industrial bet
terment What is the result of this
system of judicial nullification? It
was accurately stated by the court
of appeals, New York, in the employ
ers' liability case, where it was calmly
and judicially declared that the peo
ple under our republican government
are less free to correct the evils that
oppress them than are the people of
the monarchies of Europe. To any
man with vision, to any man with
broad and real social sympathies, to
any man who believes with all his
heart in this great democratic ' re
public of ours, such a condition is in
tolerable. It is not government by the
people, but mere sham government in
which the will of the people is con
stantly defeated. It is out of this ex
perience that my ' remedy has come,
and let it be tried in this field.
When as the result of years of edu
cation and debate a majority of the
people have decided upon a remedy
for an evil from which they suffer
and have chosen a legislature, a legis
lature pledged to embody that remedy
in law, and the law has been finally
passed and approved, I regard lt as
monstrous that a bench of judges
shall then say to the people: "You
must begin all over again. First,
amend . your constitution (which will
take four years) ; -second, secure the
passage of a new law (which will take
two years more) ; third, carry that
new law over its weary course of liti
gation, which will take no human be-'
ing knows how long; fourth, submit
the whole matter over again to the
very same judges who have rendered
the decision to which you object.
Then, if your patience holds out and
you finally prevail, the will of the ma
jority of the people may have its way."
Such a system is not popular govern
ment, but a mere mockery of popular
government. ..
The decisions of which we complain
are, as a rule, based upon the con-
THE
of votes
stirutlonal pfovisioh'that ho "person
shall be deprived of life, liberty or
property without due process of law.
The terms "life, liberty and property,"
have . been used in the constitutions
of the English speaking people since
Magna Charta. Until within the last
sixty years they were treated as hav
ing specific meanings "property"
means tangible property; "Liberty"
meant freedom --from personal re
straint, or in other words, from im
prisonment in its ""largest definition.
About 1870 our courts began to attach
to these terms new meaning. Now
"property" has come to mean every
right of value which a person could
enjoy, and "liberty" has been made
to include the right to make contracts.
As a result, when the state limits the
hours for which women may labor, it
Is told by the courts that thisw de
prives them of their "liberty," and
when it restricts the manufacture of
tobacco in a tenement it is told that
the law deprives the landlord of his
property. Now, I do not believe that
any people, and especially our free
American people, will long consent
that the term "liberty" shall be de
fined for them by a bench of judges.
Every people has defined that term
for itself in the course of its develop
ment. The Task is To Strive For Justice.
Friends, our task as Americans is
to strive for social and industrial just
Ice, achieved through the genuine rule
of tha people. This is our end, our
purpose. The methods for achieving
the end are merely expedients to be
finally accepted or rejected according
as actual experience chows that they
work well or ill. But, in our hearts
we must have this lofty purpose, and
we must strive for it in til earncrt
ness and sincerity or our work, v.i:i
come to nci-hing.- Incrd-r to -succeed
we need leaders of ins-'iir
ideaiii.-a.
leaders to whom are jrr med srvat
visions, who Cream snr.lly md ctriro
to make their dreams come i.rue, ? to
can kindle the people liiu i ;v
from their ovn burning eol'.s. '"ho
leader, for the time belnj. wfccv.cv
he may be, is but an iratrsi.-.-jtil to be
used until broken and then to ts c. : t
aside, and Sf he is v.crlli h.r. -.-M t.S
will care no mora when l:e :c brci.cj
than a soldier cares vhr.i lie is s?e..t
where his life is forfe;;;J in ovrtu
that the victory may be won. In C-3
long fight for righteousness the watch
word for all of us -is speud and fce
spent.. It is of little ciiticr whether
any one man fails or succeeds, "l.ut
the cause shall not fail, for it is tt?
cause of mankind. We, here in Amer
ica, hold in our hands the hepe of the
world, the late of the coming years,
and shame and disgrace will be ours
jf, in our eyes, the light of high re
solve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust
the golden hopes of men.. If, on thi3
new continent, we merely build an
other country of great but unjustly
divided material prosperity, we shall
have done nothing, and we shall do as
little if we merely set the greed of
envy against the greed of arrogance
and thereby destroy the material well
being of all of us. To turn this gov
ernment either into government by
plutocracy or governent by a mob
would be to repeat on a larger scale
the lamentable failures of a world
that is dead. We stand against all
tytanny, by the few or by the many.
We stand for the rule of the many
In the interest of all of us, for the rule
of the many in a spirit of courage, of
common sense, of high purpose, above
all in a spirit of kindly justice toward
every man and every woman.
T7
a little
10 days
The Fourth Special Prize for the best 1 0 days showing
will be an order on some local merchant. This order
is good for anything in his store worth up toil 5.00 or
can be applied on a larger account. This order had
ought to be worth every effort you can put forth.
FLOWER THIEVES ARE
. ACTIVE IN HILL SECTION
Many of the residents of the city
are complaining that flowers are be
ing stolen from their yards. One man
who recently beautified his yard, and
prided himself upon having the hand
somest hyacinths in the city, discov
ered Monday morning that all his
blossoms were missing. The street
in front of his home was recently im
proved and he had decided not " to
erect another fence in front of his
home. He says, however, he will have
to build one in order to protect his
flowers.
CANEMAH CEMETERY IS
GIVEN GOOD CLEANING
In accordance with a proclamation
issued a few days ago by the Canemah
Progressive Club designating Sunday
as the day to clean the cemetery at
that place, early that day many per
sons were on hand with rakes and
hoes to do the Decessary work, and
by evening the cemetery presented a
much, different appearance than on
Saturday. Many pioneers are buried
in this place and grass and weeds had
grown so that the graves of many
were iot visible.
Hotel Arrivals
The following are registered at the
Electric Hotel: A. Lowry, Portland;
Mr. and Mrs. Doff it, J. U Ashton and
wife Canby; M. A. Miller, Lebanon;
Robert Snodgrass, Molalla; D. Jones,
Oregon City; C. T. Lomas, Oregon
City; A. Hoffin, H. H. McDonald, Rob
ert Wyrick, H. D. Knght, W. J. Roth
land and wife, A. Deford, C. E. Baty,
F. Shank, Gus Nelson, Carl Palmer,
H E. Noble and son, Portland, H. H.
MacDonald, D. V. Meaghn, Portland,
J. W. Duncan.
Watch the automobile contest.
The Morning Enterprise is the best
breakfast food you can have.
Plan Your Vacation Now
to the
EastSeashore or Mountains
Southern Pacific
Will place on sale low round trip tickets to all the principal cities of
the East, going or returning through California or via Porland with go
ng limit 15 days. Final return limit Oct. 31st.
Sale Dates
April, 25, 26, 27
May, 2, 3, 4, 9, Jo, 11,14,
15, 17, 18, 24, 29
June J 6 7 8 131415 17 18
19 20 21 2425 27 28 29
Imperial Council Mystic Shrine, Los Angeles, April 30 to May 4th
Ncwport-Yaquina Bay
Offers Many advantages for a seashore outing. Low fares from all
points in Oregon, reasonable hotel rates, outdoor amusements and all the
delights of the seashore.
The New P. R. & N. Beaches
Tillamook, Garibaidl (Bayocean), . Tillamook, Garibaldi (Bayocean),
take Lytle, Ocean Lake Park, Twin Rocks, Tillamook Beach and Bay
- City will open a new field for a summer outing. Low round trip fares
from all points in Oregon.
Call on our nearest Agent for full information as to East Bound Ex
cursion fares, routes, stop-overs, etc., or write to
JOHN M. SCOTT, General Passenger Agent.
- Portland, Oregon
Eat Californa Raisins. Raisin Day April 30th.
O
To what people ate saying and
yo will see how popular yo ate
THEN GET IN AND WIN
Don't it look
tobu
ELKS ARRAUDE FOR
BIG BALL APRIL !2
One o:" the big social events of the
season 'will be- the grand ball by the
Order of Elks April 12 when many of
the Portland Jodge .will be in attend
ance. A car for Portland will leave
here at the close of the dance. The
music will be furnished by Fox's or
chestra of seven pieces. The hall is
to be elaborately decorated with Elks'
colors, purple and white. Henry
CMalley.who has the reputation of
being an artistic decorator, has been
placed at the head of the decorating
committee. The, other committees
are a3 follows:
General Committee Henry O'Mak
ley, ' chairman, Harry Draper, M. D.
Latourette.
Floor T. P. Randall, E. C. Warren,
of Oak Grove, W. B. Stokes, Harry
Young, Jerry Beatie, W. B. Howell,
Harry Moody, John Bond, of Milwauk
ie, J. W. Barr, of Estacada.
Reception Dr. Clyde Mount, B. T.
McBain, W. H. Howell, J. E. Hedges,
Dr. M. C. Strickland, George C. Brow
nell, W. H. Bair, of Canby; Charles
W. Risley, of Milwaukie; Frank
Busch, Sr. -
Refreshments consisting of ice
cream and cake, coffee and sandwich
es will be served in the dining room,
and C W. Evans will be in charge
Punch will .be served at a prettily
decorated punch booth.
- W. C. T. U. TO MEET
The Womens Christian Temperance
Union of Oregon City will hold its
meeting at the Presbyterian church
this Afternoon at 2 : 30 o'clock.
The time to read the Morning En
terprise is at the breakfast table or
a little before.
The
July, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 15, 16,
20, 22, 23, 26, 29, 30, 31
August 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 12 15 16
22 23 29 30 31 '
Sept.4 5 6 7 8 11 12 30
5
good