Elihu Root

“ But the men who are controlling the government of our country today are men who have been righting the tariff so many years, have been fighting the trusts, or what they thought were the trusts—the great corporations—so long; have been fighting the railroad companies, the express companies and the telegraph companies so long; have been fighting the banks and the bankers so long, that when they come to administer the government of the United States they can't rid themselves of an underlying hostility to American enterprise. ”

“ Every man of the community understood in general about the life, the business and affairs of the other men in the same community. But life is so complicated now, the affairs of this great country are so involved, that there is very little real understanding by one community of the affairs of another. How can the man who raises a crop of wheat in Dakota really understand the complicated machinery by which his wheat goes onto the breakfast table in Europe, and the price comes back to him? ”

“ No title could be worth so much as your judgment; no office could be worth so much as your approval. And it comes to me with all the more weight because I have a sentiment for Philadelphia and its people, and for this club, that has continued through all my active life. A throng of associations compels me as I come into this old club-house to remem- ber the good men, the strong men and the noble hearts that I knew in days past who are here no more. ”

“ Those parts of the country in which all of the people have been of comparatively small means have been filled with men who came to hate the rich in the great indus- trial communities in the North and East. Of course I need not tell you that this hatred of wealth is more than half mere vulgar worship of wealth. God knows that too much money does no man any good; too much money is more apt than not to ruin his children and invite for him kidney disease or hardening of the arteries. ”

“ The distinguishing characteristic of recent years has been the conduct of the government of the country by men who have but little concern with the business of the country, by men who distrust the man of business, who suspect the man of business. ”

“ They don't realize that you do your business in the City of Philadelphia on the same principles that they use when they drive a load of wheat to the elevator or a load of potatoes to the nearest town— upon no other principles, just as honestly and fairly. All the glamor of occasional wealth and the magni- tude of operations have blinded them to the essential identity of the way in which they do their business and the way in which you do yours. ”

“ But to the poor farmer on the prairies of the West or the cotton fields of the South, it seems as if the rich men of the eastern cities were living in heaven at his expense. Another element of this change has been an entire or an almost entire failure of understanding of the processes, the conditions, the requirements and the results of the vast and complicated business by which the wealth of the country is created and maintained. Under simple conditions we all under- stood each other. ”

“ Now the first thing which is plain is that the business men of America, the honest, reliable, good, fair citizens who are doing the great business of our country, should become vocal and take pains to see to it that they are no longer misrepresented or mis- understood. ”

“ Knowledge of the business affairs of the country has disqualified men from taking any part in the conduct of the increasing participation of the government in the control and direction of business affairs. ”

“ We have the Internal Revenue Collector empowered to go into your personal affairs for the purpose of seeing whether your returns for the graduated income tax are full and complete. We have the Pure Food Law, under which a vast range of production is subjected to inspection and regulation in the most minute detail. Every- where, in every direction, supervision of business is the characteristic of the day. ”

“ We confer no titles of nobility in this republic, but we do what is better: from the promptings of patriotic hearts we repay in double measure to overflowing, every debt which we think we owe to a public servant who has commended himself to our judgment as Americans. ”

“ It seems now that it is the important mission of the Republican party to reassert the individual inde- pendence, the individual rights, the individual integ- rity of the people of the United States.
[Applause.]
We are not justly subjects of suspicion. We are not justly subjects of condemnation. We are people of these great states, of these busy com- munities of industry. We are honest, free, true Americans, and we must not and we will not live in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. ”

“ Measures relating to the great business and the small and multitudinous business of the country have been framed and put into effect under influences which have rejected the voice of those whom they most immediately affect. The railroad man's testimony of what legislation there should be affecting railroads has been rejected, because he was a party in interest. ”

“ If we lose it, we are slaves to the first conqueror. The subject is too high and too great for politics. I would not venture to treat it as a political question, for it goes to the very basis of the future of our beloved country. ”

“ What does an honest and fair man do when he finds that somebody whose good opinion he respects, misunderstands him? He does not try to shoot the other fellow or injure him; he tries to remove the misunderstanding, and that is what we ought to do. ”

“ Underlying all their actions is an uneradicated but not uneradicable hostility to the men who they think have profited unduly by the tariff, to the men who they think have unduly profited by the trusts, to the men who they think have profited unduly by the con- trol of the banking funds of the country, and to the men who they think have made undue profits or dividends out of the railroads and the enterprises that surround the proper administration of a rail- road. ”

“ We ought to put an end to the condi- tion in which a number of the people in our country feel no regret at the disasters of the people of other parts of the country. It is not an easy task, for this is a tremendous country. But if the men who elected McKinley will arise to the same standard of courage and determination that prevailed in 1896 and 1900, the task can be accomplished. ”

“ The men concerned in agriculture, in the main, have come to suspect and misunderstand the men concerned in business in the main. This is the distinguishing feature of this great change which has occurred since we elected McKinley. ”

“ It is not a matter of individuals. It has not come because particular men have been elected to office and other particular men have failed. It has been a develop- ment of the feeling of the whole country. ”