Theodore Roosevelt

“ I must speak frankly, my dear Amos, I believe that the spirit, however honest, which prompts the assault upon Perkins is the spirit which if it becomes dominant in the party means that from that moment it is an utter waste of time to expect any good from the party whatsoever, and that the party will at once sink, and deservedly sink, into an unimportant adjunct to the Debs movement or some similar movement. The great test of reformers always comes when they are required to work together. You have quoted Lincoln as being against chattel slavery. ”

“ As you say, our purpose is to free the industrial slave as Lincoln freed the chattel slave. But I utterly differ with you as to your belief about the source of the dangers with which we are threatened. I believe that our vote would have been cut in half at once if we had not been able to persuade two or three millions of good men and women that we were not engaged in an assault on property, or in wild and foolish radicalism. ”

“ I agree that we must keep the issue perfectly clear, or rather, one of the issues, which is that the trusts shall not be allowed to exploit the people by dictating the terms upon which the people shall obtain food fuel and clothing. I do not wish to see a trust magnate, or, to drop the terms of the stump, a big corporation man chosen as the real or titular head of the party unless he ought on other grounds to be the titular or real head of the party. If any trust magnate develops who on other grounds ought to be the head of the party, I shall vote for him to be such. ”

“ But I disagree absolutely with you when you say that the trust question means the cost of living question, the bread question. I am not certain that the carrying through of such a programme against the trusts would have any effect upon the cost of living whatever, and I am certain that it would affect it only in a small degree. The one argument which it is difficult to answer when advanced on the trust side is that the trusts cheapen production. I think it can be answered. I think that we can show that on the whole the consumer is not better off because of the action of the trusts. ”

“ I further believe that if we put out Perkins, and then did the only logical thing by putting out all the men like him, we should gain one or two hundred thousand votes and lose two or three millions. I mean in all sincerity that I think that if the policy you advocate had been adopted at the outset of this campaign - for of course Perkins is simply a symbol, and it is idle to put out Perkins if you don't put out all the men of the same stamp - that we would have been a rival to Debs in the running, and would have lost every particle of power to fight for a good cause. ”

“ Moreover, I absolutely agree with you that this Progressive Party, with its thousands of earnest men and women giving their strength to the cause of humanity, and with the millions of struggling people who see some hope in a cause dedicated to economic justice instead of to politics, offers something very fine and very full of possibilities of real usefulness to our country. ”

“ In Italy, for instance, there is not a trust of any kind; but in proportion the cost of living has advanced there much as elsewhere. The articles making four-fifths of the average small man's expense are not produced by trusts at all, and the control exercised over them by trusts, in some cases real, has never been proved to be materially instrumental in raising the price. (Although I think it has raised the price in some cases) . Eggs have gone up greatly in price, but no trust has any effect upon them. Chickens have gone up greatly in price, quite as much as meat ”

“ But if you now prove unable to work with the only body of people in this country who offer a chance of fully achieving anthing in this country, I think you will gravely impair all power to serve any good cause. Let me reiterate that the trouble has not been in the least, as far as this movement is concerned, due to not being radical enough, or not taking a sufficiently extreme position or not giving enough power and prominence to the radicals ”

“ If we in any way at this time acted in more radical fashion than we have acted, we should make ourselves a laughing stock; and we should above all make ourselves a laughing stock if we took any action looking toward the ruling out of the moderate men who are with us. ”

“ Perkins nor any other corporation man is now the titular head or the real head of the party, and as no human being whom I know is thinking of making such a man the head, I do not regard this point as having the slightest applicability at present. You say that the Steel Trust and the Harvester Trust are the worst of existing trusts, or at least those which have been most exposed in magazines and the press. ”

“ He is not the titular head; the trouble is that he is so efficient that wherever he is he attracts attention. Flinn is our other man of the same powerful business type; he has more political knowledge; if he had been in Perkins' place he would have done admirable work, and would have been, if anything, even more viciously attacked than Perkins was. On the other hand I emphatically feel that he should remain as chairman of the executive committee. ”

“ I believe I am advising you for your own good when I say that you impair your power of future usefulness if you give the impression that you never can work with any people for an achievable end. You tried to work with Taft, and broke with him. ”

“ It is very undesirable to try to make a platform contain everything that can be put in speeches.
However, toward the very end of the campaign somebody spoke to me about these lines having been improperly left out. The first inquiries I made satisfied me that they had been properly left out, and that they had not been adopted by the committee. Dean Lewis now tells me that he believes that through some mistake the amended plank was not read to the committee after being brought down by Senator Dixon from my room, and that the committee did adopt the plank as unamended. ”